‘Me too, I can’t see the point in having children otherwise,’ I agreed and we were silent for a minute. I was thinking about single motherhood, and how different it would be for me, compared to how it would have been for poor Granny — but it was still quite a daunting proposition. Good forward planning is obviously required in that situation, just as in cooking.

Goodness knows what Jude was thinking about.

When he went back to work we exchanged a few sporadic (and sometimes illuminating!) remarks, and then after a bit Merlin and I slipped out and walked home. . Or back to Old Place, which is somehow starting to feel like home.

I beat Guy three times at snooker, and what with that and my having finished a whole section of the jigsaw in an absent moment earlier, when I had gone in to put more logs on the fire, he was a bit huffy.

Oddly, it didn’t seem to put him off flirting with me after we’d had yet another read-through of the play scenes. And, do you know, I think Michael was right because Guy only really flirts with me when Jude’s there! So he must think he’s making Jude jealous. . unless he’s misinterpreting Jude’s interest in me?

Jude had so far performed no suitable or unsuitable actions, apart from twirling an imaginary moustache in a faintly lascivious way at me and tossing his blue velvet cloak over one shoulder. We were getting hammier and hammier in our scenes and it was driving Coco mad, especially when Michael joined in.

‘You’re not taking it seriously!’ she practically screamed when Jude and I were overacting the scene where Orsino says he quite fancies Viola, now he knows she’s a woman, only he’d like to see her in a dress. (And I’d thought Jude had been joking about that bit.)

‘It’s only a family entertainment, after all,’ Noël said. ‘Why not have fun? I expect that’s what Shakespeare intended when he wrote the play.’

‘I’m sure Michael would rather we did it seriously,’ Coco said.

‘No, I do enough serious acting the rest of the time — and really, I’d have preferred a complete rest from it.’

She pouted, which is not a good look on someone of four, never mind twenty-four.

‘Can she act?’ I asked him later, when no-one could overhear. Michael is forever taking refuge from Coco with me in the kitchen, and he’s proving very helpful at peeling vegetables and hand-washing anything that won’t go in the machine, though he borrows my long rubber gloves to do it. I suppose actors can’t really afford to have dishpan hands.

‘No, she’s as wooden as a log,’ he said, with an attractive grin.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought. Poor Coco!’

‘Poor nothing! Her parents are super-rich and have spoilt her rotten, so it’s about time she learnt that money can’t buy you everything.’

‘It’s certainly not going to buy her way into acting if she’s useless, is it?’

‘It isn’t going to buy her me, either,’ he said grimly and I laughed.

‘You’ll be so glad to get away from here.’

‘No, actually, apart from Coco this has been one of the best times of my life! I’m really enjoying it. What about you?’

‘Me? Well, it’s just work really — another busman’s holiday like yours, but. . well yes, I suppose I am enjoying it. Or most of it. It’s strange, because I’ve always felt miserable at Christmas before.’

‘That’s not surprising, considering how many sad things have happened to you around this time of year,’ he said sympathetically.

‘Yes, but in retrospect, I can see hiding myself away and going into mourning at the first sound of a Christmas song and a bit of tinsel wasn’t the best way to go about dealing with it,’ I admitted. ‘But I think I’ve now been immunised against fear of Christmas forever.’

‘Or immunised with it, so you now have to celebrate it?’ he suggested.

He might just have a point.

Tuesday followed much the same pattern as the preceding days, except that as soon as the sun came out you could see a thaw starting on the courtyard cobbles and the part of the drive where George and Liam had ploughed it clear.

I went down to the village with Guy, Coco and Michael mid-morning, in order to stock up on my depleted food supplies at Oriel’s shop, though of course there would be no fresh fruit, bread or vegetables yet, let alone a new consignment of the squirty cream so beloved of Tilda and Jess!

We all went into the shop — I think we felt that we hadn’t seen one for months.

‘I hear George gave you one of his sticks for a present?’ Oriel asked me, stacking up flour, baking powder and tinfoil in front of me on the counter.

‘That’s right and it’s beautifully carved. It was very kind of him,’ I replied cautiously.

‘Oh yes. . he’s kind all right, is George,’ she said jealously and I felt a sudden pang of sympathy: I found George very attractive, but I wasn’t seriously interested in him and until my advent Mrs Comfort had been without a rival. What if she was in love with him?

‘Yes, he’s such a nice man that I wish I had a father just like him,’ I said firmly and she looked pleased. A broad smile crossed her face.

‘A father? Would you now? I suppose he is a lot older than you.’

He was. . though not that old! But anyway, it had the desired result and in a flood of bonhomie she presented me with a paper bag of Jelly Babies, free.

I slipped off while the others were still debating their purchases, leaving Oriel telling Coco firmly that no, she couldn’t sell her all her remaining stock of laxatives: she was rationing them to one box per customer until new deliveries arrived.

I went to check that Old Nan and Richard were all right and gave them the last slices of the turkey and ham pie and some cake I’d brought with me. Then I rang Laura from the church porch, where it was a little sheltered.

She said Ellen had called her, complaining that she couldn’t get hold of me to tell me about the wonderful job she had lined up for me, starting the weekend after Twelfth Night, and how she was sure I wouldn’t mind cooking for a Middle Eastern client’s huge house-party at a swish London address, now I’d had a nice rest from it.

‘I hope you put her right!’ I said indignantly. ‘I’ve done nothing but prepare and cook meals since I got here. And she knows I only do home-sitting until Easter.’

‘I wound her up by telling her you’d settled in so well that they’d probably pay you a fabulous sum to keep you as permanent cook.’

‘Funnily enough, Jude said much the same. . and I said he couldn’t afford me. But apparently he really is quite well off, you were right.’

‘Of course he is, dimwit! His sculptures go for megabucks, I Googled him!’

‘Well, I’m not going to take a permanent position here anyway. I’ll just slip quietly out of their lives as soon as it thaws. And providing Jude has stopped needing me to hang around being a muse, too.’

‘I think you quite like it!’

‘It is sort of thrilling watching him with the torch thing welding metal together,’ I admitted. ‘He seems to like to have me there, though he’s so absorbed he forgets he isn’t alone for long stretches. Then he sort of comes to and spots me and smiles and says something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Oh, all kinds of things: sometimes he asks me about myself, but usually it’s whatever’s going through his head right at that moment. He likes his food, too, and I take him lunch down in the early afternoon, after we’ve had ours up at the house.’

‘This all sounds as if it’s becoming very intimate and cosy!’ she teased me. ‘Weren’t a lot of artists’ muses also their mistresses?’

‘Maybe, but I’m hardly likely to go that route after Gran’s example and with a member of the same family who let her down, am I?’ I reminded her. ‘I mean, even if I found big, bossy, taciturn men attractive, Jude is almost certainly my cousin.’

‘But not even a first cousin.’

‘No, his father was my grandfather’s brother. . I think,’ I said, trying to work it out.

‘That’s not terribly close,’ she said encouragingly. ‘They can’t touch you for it.’

‘Oh, Laura! You’re as bad as Jess.’

‘The little girl? Is she matchmaking?’

‘She’s not actually that little — she’s nearly thirteen and she’s going to be another tall Martland. But yes, she’s trying to push me and Jude together at every opportunity. She adores Jude and we seem to have been cast in the role of surrogate parents, since her parents have to be away. I think she’d like it to be a permanent arrangement, but I’ve told her it ain’t gonna happen!’

‘Famous last words,’ she said, and I told her she was a hopeless romantic but in this case she might as well give up.

Over at the pub I found Coco drinking vodka and soda and Guy and Michael with pints of beer, talking about football, which is not something I find of any interest. So I had coffee and chatted to Nancy instead, until eventually I had to chivvy the others out, or there would have been no lunch on the table that day.

This made it much later than usual when I took Jude’s lunch down to the studio and he was inclined to be a bit narky when I told him why, but I expect hunger pains had stopped the flow of his inspiration, or something.

However, he cheered up once he’d eaten, and while he was working we had quite a few exchanges of companionable conversation — and also several equally companionable silences. I am finding the time spent in the studio strangely relaxing. .

Jude’s good mood lasted for the rest of the day, until just after our next totally unnecessary play rehearsal, when he went all morose and Neanderthal again. I think it was because he came into the kitchen when Michael and I were having a slightly cruel giggle about Coco’s acting.