When I first met Charles, at a cousin's dance in Suffolk, in early September 1909, I was struck mainly by his size. I don't mean to say he was corpulent (as was my dear father at the time, rest his weighty soul); rather, I mean his entire frame was strikingly large. He was as tall as six feet three, with great broad shoulders thrust back and a full head of thick blonde hair. His skin was dark, though not swarthy, and this alone set him apart from his friends, who were all either ruddy-skinned or shockingly pale.

He wore an old-fashioned velvet smoking jacket with peculiar, ornate fabric clasps. It looked rather battered, to tell the truth, as if he had recovered it from the wardrobe of a long-departed uncle, or even a dressing-up box.

We were stood on Windale House's charming and ancient veranda, which was veiled magnificently in wisteria and honeysuckle, coils of which hung down like unruly forelocks, and suffused the warm evening air with perfume. The French doors which entered directly into the hall were wide open. It was a moment of hiatus between dances - a local fiddling troupe were playing energetic Highland reels - and most of us guests were quite exhausted, and happy for a minute or two to catch our breaths! The veranda was, in the corner closest to the hall itself, crowded with conspicuous and martial-looking cheroot smokers, and young ladies - red faced with exertion - fanning themselves with exotic-looking handheld specimens of silk, feather and sandalwood: gifts from doting fathers and sweethearts posted abroad.

My cousin Virginia, the county socialite at whose parent's house we were dancing, sidled over to me. I was until that second alone, looking out over the seemingly long forgotten fields, and the sea in the far distance. I had been here before, as a child. How many years had passed by in the interim.

"Caroline," said Ginny, and I turned. Ginny was, of all my cousins, closest to me in age and we were practically sisters. (My trunk bulged with her letters, and cheap but invaluable little knick-knacks to commemorate various birthdays and Christmases.) "I want to introduce you to Charles Babington."

I don't know why - childish reflex, perhaps - but I felt a sudden urge to giggle. When she uttered his surname, all I could think of was a baboon. I suppressed the urge with some difficulty, and proffered an unfashionable silk-gloved hand, which Charles took in his own and kissed lightly on the knuckle. 

"How do you do?" said Charles, a half-smile playing on his handsome features. "I asked Ginny if I could make your acquaintance; I greatly admired your dancing in that last reel."

This time I did giggle. "Mr Babington, I am delighted to make your acquaintance. Either you are a talented flatterer, or a very untalented judge of skill in dance." I glanced momentarily at Ginny, whose eyes were beaming encouragement. "My governess," I went on, "a greatly gifted lady but certainly no flatterer, told me once I had the 'bearing of a bear; the elegance of an elephant'."

Ginny smiled (she had heard this before), but Charles absolutely roared with laughter and went quite red in the face. Some seconds passed before he recovered.

"Your governess had a talent for phrasing," he replied at last, "but she was quite wrong, or otherwise you have blossomed since leaving her care." Now it was my turn to blush.

Charles went on: "Ginny tells me you're something of a foreigner in these parts."

"In Suffolk?"

"In England."

"Ah," I said, "and there she is quite right." I explained what I suspect he had wheedled from Ginny already; namely that I was something of a 'native' of British India. I had grown up and was schooled in Calcutta (though was born in England, in Dorset).  My father was a civil servant, and my uncle was Lord Curzon's private secretary.

"Well, then we are practically family friends, you and I," said Charles jokingly. "My father was your uncle's predecessor; I was in Calcutta very recently, in fact, on business. We must have overlapped."

"Albeit unwittingly," I answered, and he smiled.

"Albeit unwittingly."

We discussed Calcutta, and I was surprised at how well he seemed to know it, given how fleeting his visit had been. It was rare - and not to say scintillating - to encounter another Briton who yearned to venture, and did, beyond the walls of the compound, away from the homely clink of G&T's and Cook's terribly mild, anglicised bhajis.

Ginny, who hadn't said a word for minutes, was an absolute picture; virtually inflated with pride and self-satisfaction at her impromptu matchmaking. Presently she made an excuse - something about pink gin - and slipped away. We were not alone, Charles and I (one was never alone in those days; there was always a sharp-eyed aunt in proximity to one!), but we relaxed, and conversation became a mite less 'arched' and showy (as my father, an avid people-watcher, would have put it: "conversation suited more to the walled garden than the drawing room").

I told him that I loved to paint, that I had in my travelling chest a collection of three-hundred and sixty-five watercolours of sunsets, each one painted from a roof garden in Dharamtala Street on successive evenings from 1st January 1899 to the final day of the nineteenth century.

"Not a single day missed?" he asked me, incredulous.

I shook my head. "There were a few I had to rush - dances to get to, friends to see - but there is paint on paper for every evening, dated with a pen in the corner."

"A-ha! But you could, on more leisurely evenings, paint the sunset twice and forward date it," said Charles, laughing at the thought of such a petty fraud.

I smiled. "I would say that you could tell by the trajectory of the setting sun," I replied, "its position relative to certain telegraph poles and so forth, what day the painting was made, but I'm far from accurate! You'd think the roof garden had undergone refurbishments day after day to look at the paintings."

"Well, now," Charles said, all of a sudden rather serious, "sunsets do funny things to one's mood and perception. Had you painted the same roof garden, evening after evening - now that would have been the truest sign of fraud."

I was at a loss as to how to I might respond, not because I disagreed with him, but because I agreed so emphatically I feared that if I ventured an answer, he might misinterpret my sincerity as teasing.

After a few moments' silence, during which we gazed curiously into one another's eyes, we were suddenly interrupted. It was my cousin Rosalind, Ginny's younger sister.

"Caroline, Charles, will you join my set for the eightsome?"

We both made abrupt noises of assent and enthusiasm, and followed Rosalind back into the hall. I stole a sideways glance up at Charles, towering above me, only to find he had stolen one first; our eyes met and we shared a conspiratorial smile.