I drew the heavy patchwork curtains, shutting out the darkness. I set out my toiletries on a chest of drawers and peered at my tired face in a cracked gilt mirror. I hoped the blemishes were on the mirror’s surface and not mine. Contemplating the luxury of a bath, it occurred to me that, although she’d left me towels, Hattie had neither shown me where the bathroom was, nor invited me to use it. I thought this was more likely to be a reflection of her social skills than an embargo on hot water usage. And it was cold. Once you moved out of the vicinity of the Aga, the draughts made their presence felt. A chill rose up from the stone-flagged floor in the hall and lodged in the marrow of your bones. The idea of a bath began to seem more and more appealing, so I set off down the little winding staircase with towel and toilet bag, hoping that the plumbing wouldn’t prove to be Jacobean. Well, it wasn’t twenty-first century. Barely even twentieth. I found a cavernous bathroom in which you could have held a small cocktail party and still had plenty of room to circulate.
