“You knew him at school?” she said, pursing her lips. “Were you at Eton?”

“Yes,” I said. Why not? “Eton.”

“There’s Freddie Lawrence. But he went to Harrow. Were you at school with Terence?”

“This was a medium-tallish chap. Good at cricket.”

“And his name began with a ‘C’?” She shook her curls. “I can’t think of anyone. Does Terence play cricket?”

“He rows,” I said, “and swims. He’s a very good swimmer.”

“I think he’s terribly brave for rescuing Princess Arjumand,” she said. “ ‘Don’t oo fink he’s the bwavest knight in awl the world?’ Juju asked me. ‘I fink he is.’ ”

This kept up the entire way to the Chattisbournes’, which was just as well since I didn’t know any other facts about Terence.

“Here we are,” Tossie said, starting up the drive to a large neo-Gothic house.

Well, you survived that, I thought, and the rest of the morning’s bound to go easier.

Tossie stepped up to the front door. I waited for her to ring the bell and then remembered it was the Victorian era and rang it for her, and then stepped back as the butler opened the door.

It was Finch. “Good morning, miss, sir,” he said. “May I say who is calling?”

I am not certain what I said or how we got in the house. It was all I could manage not to blurt out, “Finch! What are you doing here?”

It was obvious what he was doing. He was buttling. It was also obvious he had patterned himself on that greatest of all butlers, P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves. He had the supercilious air, the correct speech, especially the poker-faced expression down cold. You’d have thought he’d never seen me before in his life.

He ushered us inside with a perfectly measured bow, said, “I will announce you,” and started for the stairs, but he was too late.

Mrs. Chattisbourne and her four daughters were already hurrying down the stairs, burbling, “Tossie, dear, this is a surprise!”

She stopped at the foot of the staircase, and her daughters stopped, too, in a sort of ascending arrangement. They all, including Mrs. Chattisbourne, had turned-up noses and brownish-blonde hair.

“And who is this young gentleman?” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

The girls giggled.

“Mr. Henry, madam,” Finch said.

“So this is the young gentleman who found your cat,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “We heard all about it from the Reverend Mr. Arbitage.”

“O, no!” Tossie said. “It was Mr. St. Trewes who returned my poor lost Princess Arjumand to me. Mr. Henry is only his friend.”

“Ah,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “I am so pleased to meet you, Mr. Henry. Allow me to introduce my flower garden.”

I had gotten so used to having people say nonsensical things to me in the last few days that it didn’t even faze me.

She led me over to the stairs. “These are my daughters, Mr. Henry,” she said, pointing up the stairs at them one by one. “Rose, Iris, Pansy, and my youngest, Eglantine. My own sweet nosegay, and some lucky gentlemen’s, she squeezed my arm, “bridal bouquet.”

The girls giggled in turn as she said their names and again at the end when she mentioned the bridal bouquet.

“Shall I serve refreshments in the morning room?” Finch said. “No doubt Miss Mering and Mr. Henry are fatigued from their walk.”

“How marvellous of you to think of it, Finch,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said, steering me toward the door on the right. “Finch is the most wonderful butler,” she said. “He thinks of simply everything.”

The Chattisbourne morning room looked exactly like the Merings’ parlor, only floral. The carpet was strewn with lilies, the lamps were decorated with forget-me-nots and daffodils, and on a marble-topped table in the middle of the room was a poppy-painted vase with pink peonies in it.

It was just as crowded as the Merings’, too, and being asked to sit down meant working my way through a maze of hyacinths and marigolds to a chair needlepointed in extremely realistic roses.

I sat down gingerly on it, almost afraid of thorns, and Mrs. Chattisbourne’s four daughters sat down on a flowered sofa opposite and giggled.

I found out over the course of the morning that, except for Eglantine, the youngest, who looked about ten, they giggled at all times and at virtually everything that was said.

“Finch is an absolute gem!” Mrs. Chattisbourne said, for instance, and they giggled. “So efficient! He does things before we even know we want them done. Not at all like our last butler — what is his name, Tossie?”

“Baine,” Tossie said.

“Oh, yes, Baine,” she said with a sniff. “An appropriate name for a butler, I suppose, though I have always felt it is not the name that makes the butler, but the training. Baine’s training was adequate, but hardly perfect. He was always reading books, as I recall. Finch never reads,” she said proudly.

“Wherever did you find him?” Tossie said.

“That’s the most amazing part of the whole thing,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. (Giggles.) “I went over to the vicar’s to take him our dresser scarves for the fête, and he was sitting in the vicar’s parlor. It seems he’d been employed by a family who’d gone out to India, and he was unable to accompany them because of a sensitivity to curry.

A sensitivity to curry.

“The vicar said, ‘Do you know of anyone in need of a butler?’ Can you imagine? It was Fate.” (Giggles.)

“It sounds highly irregular to me,” Tossie said.

“Oh, of course Thomas insisted on interviewing him, and he had the most glowing references.”

All of them from people who’d gone out to India, no doubt, I thought.

“Tossie, I should be cross at your dear mother for hiring away—” she frowned in thought, “—I’ve forgotten the name again…”

“Baine,” Tossie said.

“For hiring away Baine, but how can I be when I’ve found the perfect replacement?”

The perfect replacement came into the room bearing a flowered tray with a cut-glass decanter and glasses on it. “Currant cordial!” Mrs. Chattisbourne cried. “The very thing! Do you see what I mean?”

Finch began pouring the cordial and passing it around.

“Mr. Henry,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “Are you at school with Mr. St. Trewes?”

“Yes,” I said. “At Oxford. Balliol.”

“Are you married?” Eglantine asked.

“Eglantine!” Iris said. “It’s rude to ask people if they’re married.”

“You asked Tossie if he was married,” Eglantine said. “I heard you whispering.”

“Hush,” Iris said, turning, appropriately enough, carnation pink. (Giggles.)

“What part of England do you come from, Mr. Henry?” Mrs. Chattisbourne said.

It was time to change the subject. “I wished to thank you for your son’s loan of clothing,” I said, sipping the currant cordial. It was better than eel pie. “Is he here?”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “Didn’t the Merings tell you? Elliott is in South Africa.”

“He’s a mining engineer,” Tossie volunteered.

“We have just had a letter from him,” Mrs. Chattisbourne said. “Where is it, Pansy?”

The girls all got up and began looking for it with a good deal of giggling.

“Here it is, madam,” Finch said, and handed it to Mrs. Chattisbourne.

“Dear Mother and Father and Posies,” she read. “Here at last is the good long letter I had promised you,” and it became obvious she intended to read the entire thing.