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perhaps?’
    I shook my head. ‘My parents are both dead. My mother died while I was still at school. My father had a heart attack a few years later.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
    ‘Well, it seems long ago …’
    ‘I hope your mother was happy here,’ Mrs Ayres said to me, as Caroline returned to the sofa. ‘Was she, do you think? Did she ever talk about the house?’
    I didn’t answer for a second, recalling some of my mother’s stories about her time at the Hall—how, for instance, she had had to stand each morning with her hands held out while the housekeeper examined her fingernails; how Mrs Beatrice Ayres would every so often come unannounced to the maids’ bedrooms and turn out their boxes, going through their possessions piece by piece … I said finally, ‘I think my mother made some good friends here, among the other girls.’
    Mrs Ayres looked pleased; perhaps relieved. ‘I’m glad to hear it. It was a different world for servants then, of course. They had their own entertainments, their own scandals and fun. Their own dinner, on Christmas Day …’
    This prompted more reminiscences. I kept my eyes on the picture— slightly thrown, if I’m honest, by the force of my own feelings, for though I’d spoken lightly, I’d found myself more moved by the unexpected appearance of my mother’s face—if it
was
her face—than I would have guessed. At last I put the picture down on the table at the side of my chair. We spoke about the house and its gardens, the grander times that the place had seen.
    But I kept glancing over at the photograph as we talked, and my distraction must have been obvious. Our tea was finished. I let a few more minutes pass, then looked at the clock and said I ought to be going. And as I got to my feet, Mrs Ayres said gently, ‘You must take that picture with you, Dr Faraday. I should like you to have it.’
    ‘Take it?’ I said, startled. ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t.’
    ‘Yes, you must. You must take it just as it is, frame and all.’
    ‘Yes, do take it,’ said Caroline, when I continued to protest. ‘I shall be doing the housework, don’t forget, while Betty recovers. I shall be awfully glad to have one less thing to dust.’
    So, ‘Thank you,’ I said, blushing and almost stammering. ‘It’s awfully kind of you. It’s—Really, it’s far too kind.’
    They found me a piece of used brown paper with which to wrap the picture up, and I tucked it safely into my bag. I said goodbye to Mrs Ayres, and patted the dog’s warm dark head. Caroline, who was already on her feet, got ready to take me back to my car. But Roderick moved forward, saying, ‘It’s all right, Caro. I’ll see the doctor out.’
    He struggled up from the sofa, wincing badly as he did it. His sister watched him, concerned, but he was clearly determined to escort me. So she gave in, and offered me her worn, well-shaped hand for another shake.
    ‘Goodbye, Dr Faraday. I’m so glad we found that picture. Think of us, won’t you, when you look at it?’
    ‘I will,’ I said.
    I followed Roderick from the room, blinking slightly at the plunge back into shade. He led me off to the right, past more shut doors, but soon the passage lightened and widened, and we emerged in what I realised was the entrance hall of the house.
    And here I had to pause and look around me; for the hall was very lovely. Its floor was of pink and liver-coloured marble, laid down like a chequerboard. The walls were pale wooden panels, ruddy with reflected colour from the floor. Dominating it all, however, was the mahogany staircase, which rose in an elegant soft square spiral through two more floors, its polished serpent-headed banister climbing in a single unbroken line. It made a stairwell fifteen feet wide, and easily sixty feet high; and it was lit, coolly and kindly, by a dome of milky glass in the roof above.
    ‘A nice effect that, isn’t it?’ said Roderick, seeing me gazing upwards. ‘The dome was a devil, of course, in the