Tears spangled her lashes. ‘Oh, Stephen, don’t let them! I don’t know anything! I can’t be of any use, and I know Mummy would not like me to be here!’

‘Nobody could possibly suspect you!’ Roydon said, looking noble, and glaring at Stephen.

‘My poor child!’ Joseph said, creditably, everyone felt, in face of so much folly. ‘You must be brave, my dear, and calm. We must all be brave. Nat would have wished it.’

A certain pensiveness descended upon the company, as each member of it pondered this pronouncement. Mathilda felt that Joseph would soon succeed in making them forget the real Nathaniel, and accept instead the figment of his rose-coloured imagination. She said: ‘What do we do now?’

‘We have already sent for the doctor,’ Joseph said, with a glance of fellowship thrown in his nephew’s direction. ‘There is nothing that we can do.’

‘We can have dinner,’ said Paula, brusquely putting into words the unworthy thought in more than one mind.

There was an outcry. Valerie said that it made her sick to think of eating; Mottisfont remarked that it was hardly the time to think of dinner.

‘How much longer do you want to wait?’ asked Stephen. ‘It’s already past nine.’

Mottisfont found Stephen so annoying that he could hardly keep his animosity out of his voice. Stephen made him feel a fool, and some evil genius always prompted him to follow up one ineptitude with another. He now said: ‘Surely none of us means to have dinner tonight!’

‘Why not tonight, if we mean to eat tomorrow?’ Stephen enquired. ‘When will it be decent for us to eat again?’

‘You make a mock of everything!’

Joseph stepped forward, laying one hand on Stephen’s shoulder, the other on Mottisfont’s. ‘Oh, my dear people, hush!’ he said gently. ‘Don’t let us forget – don’t let us allow our nerves to get the better of us!’

‘I will ring the bell,’ said Maud, doing so.

‘Have you sent for the police?’ Paula asked her brother.

‘We won’t talk of that, dear child,’ said Joseph, with misplaced optimism.

Paula’s words appeared to let loose pent-up excitement. Even Mathilda heard herself saying: ‘But who could it have possibly been?’ In the middle of this valueless babel, Sturry came in, his countenance schooled to an expression of rigid gloom. He stood by the door, a mute at the funeral.

‘Ah, here is our good Sturry!’ said Joseph, drawing him into the family circle by this affectionate address.

Sturry would not be so drawn. He stood immovable, despising people who did not know their places. ‘You rang, sir?’ he asked frigidly.

‘Yes, yes!’ Joseph said. ‘You have heard the terrible news? I need not ask you!’

‘No, sir. The news was conveyed to the Hall by Ford. I am extremely sorry to hear of the occurrence, sir.’

‘Ah, Sturry, you must feel it too! What a tragedy! What a terrible shock!’

‘Indeed yes, sir,’ Sturry replied, conveying by these simple words some impression of the affront he had suffered. No one could feel that he would have engaged himself to wait on Nathaniel if he could have foreseen these vulgar events. It seemed reasonable to suppose that he would hand in his notice at the first opportunity.