'Not for a moment,' said Mrs Damer and went on picking some dried mud off her sculpting hook.

Eliza felt oddly comfortable in the workshop, despite the draughts and dirt. She put one hand on Fidelle's warm neck. 'Tell me more, if you don't mind? Your parents made the match?'

'Well, yes, but that's only to be expected among people of birth. You, Miss Farren, for instance, would be so much freer to pick and choose.' A pause. 'You're not offended by the observation?'

'No, no,' said Eliza. She never forgot her low origins, of course, but these days it was rare for anyone to remind her of them so baldly.

'Your life is your own, that's all I mean. Whether and whom to marry is no one's decision but yours.'

Eliza felt doubtful on this point. 'I consult my mother on all important points. And it sometimes seems to me as if I have two thousand parents.'

'Your audience.'

Mrs Damer was quick, thought Eliza. 'Two thousand fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters...'

'Lovers.'

'Well, suitors, perhaps,' said Eliza. All interested in my actions, all concerned about my reputation, all waiting to see what I'll do next.'

'I never thought of it that way,' said Mrs Damer. 'I suppose we do make a claim on you, when we sit there in our boxes night after night, raising our spyglasses ... But at least you have intelligence and experience, to chart your own course,' she added, suddenly sweeping the leftover scraps of clay into a bucket and turning a winch to lower the work table the eagle stood on. 'At eighteen I had neither. Perhaps I'd read too much Rousseau; I was more interested in tenderness and sensibility than in per cent per annum. And, unfortunately, whereas my elder sister got Richmond, with all his sterling qualities, the boy my mother chose for me proved a dunderhead, a wastrel and a philistine.'

Eliza pressed her fingers against her smiling mouth. What outrageous words to describe a dead husband.

'In Florence,' Mrs Damer groaned, 'we visited the Uffizi with one of John's brothers. I was enraptured by the statues, I felt as if I'd been lifted to Olympus to consort with the gods. But the East Gallery is so vastly long, John and his brother decided they were weary of art, and laid 50 guineas on the result of a hopping race. They nearly toppled a fourth-century Venus Pudica,' she said through her teeth. 'I couldn't tell what I saw after that-the art was hidden in a mist of shame for me-because all I could hear was the crash, crash, crash of two earl's sons pounding like gigantic one-legged hares down the gallery.'

Eliza released a giggle. 'Who won?'

'I didn't look.'

'The winner must have boasted. The loser must have cried foul.'

'Oh, I'm sure, but it's one of many details I've managed to forget. I was married for the best part of ten years, Miss Farren, but my memories probably amount to three months. It's rather terrible,' she added, 'to wish away one's prime years.'

'But they weren't.'

'Well, the twenties-aren't they meant to be one's best? But you're right,' she said with a smile. 'I think perhaps these are my prime years, now, past thirty-five!'

Just then a maid came in to say that Mrs Moll was ready to serve the tea. 'I should go,' said Eliza, glancing at the window, where a crust of snow had built up. She tried to collect her skirts without disturbing the dog, but Fidelle exploded off the chair and ran into a corner. 'You've been very kind.'

'Have you another engagement, or are you needed at Drury Lane?'

'Well, no, but-'

'Then you must stay for a dish of tea. Tell Mrs Moll we'll have it in the library,' said Mrs Damer to the maid. 'I'll join you, my dear, as soon as I've made myself respectable'-pulling off her makeshift turban as she spoke and releasing a shock of unpowdered brown curls-'and we can wait out this snowstorm together.'