Dear Mary… | 3 May 2006

Q. While staying at a house party in Norfolk I lost a much loved and very expensive Georgina von Etzdorf scarf. And I’m afraid that when I couldn’t find it I suspected one of the other guests â” who’d admired it and who was in the bedroom next to mine â” of taking it. My suspicion became a conviction and I accused her, behind her back, to anyone who knew her, of being a thief. Of course, the scarf has now turned up â” discovered by the cleaning lady under my bed. I am now feeling rather ashamed of myself. What should I do to scotch the rumours I have started?
E.B., London W12

A. You have borne false witness against your neighbour. The way to scotch the rumours, as well as to pay appropriate penance, would be to confess to your blabber-mouthing at the same time as you make a sacrifice of the Georgina von Etzdorf scarf. Give it as a present to the innocent party. Insist that each time she wears it she explains its provenance. In so doing she will help not only to clear her name, but also to assuage your own guilt at having breached one of the Ten Commandments.

Q. What is the polite but expressive way to respond when people at parties surge up to me, faces aglow, leading me to believe they feel some joy in seeing me, and then proceed to make it clear as soon as they open their mouths that they are, in fact, simply pleased to be socially interacting with the younger sister of somebody very famous and brilliant? I love my brother as much as everyone else but I find it lowering to the self-esteem when I am invited to lunch in the House of Lords or hailed with enthusiasm simply because smitten admirers can’t curb themselves from telling me how they worship my older sibling and how they wish he were prime minister.