She dropped the glass. It hit the rug and rolled under the sideboard. She ran down the hall. She could see him splayed across the bottom steps as though dropped from a great height, head first, the rest of his body stranded above him. She reached him and pulled him onto her lap. “Fagus. Oh Fagus – shh, quiet.” She looked up the stairs and down at him again. “Oh God.”

The screams must have reached outside because Joan came running in from the garden, flying along the flagstone hall towards her. She knelt too, her hands to his head, her fingers over Enid’s. “What happened?” She tried to part his hair, but there was too much blood to see the gaping wound, from which the blood poured freely, warming their hands.

A maid leant over the bannister from the floor above. Enid shouted, “Get some cloths.”

Douglas came pounding along the landing and down the stairs. He joined them, the sisters, their hands soaked, Fagus, between them screaming and scrabbling at his head and pushing at the arms that held him as if the blood and the pain were not his, as if they were something he could get away from.

Enid held him tight. “He was supposed to be going up.”

“On his own?” said Douglas.

What did he know? He who was never there? Who skipped around as if they were the royal bloody family, and pretended, along with everyone else, that life was one long party?

With one hand, Douglas tried to pin Fagus’ arm down. With the other he pushed the hair aside, but Fagus screamed louder and pulled his hand free of his father’s, twisting in Enid’s lap.

“He must have got confused.” She tried to steady his body, but he slipped from her grasp.

Joan pulled Fagus towards her. “Where in God’s name were you?”

“I just told him to go upstairs. He only had to go up, I was watching, I stayed watching, he wasn’t alone, only the last bit, I only looked away for a minute, I needed a glass of water.”

In Joan’s embrace Fagus’ efforts grew dim and his cries became low, constant moans. The maid, young, in uniform, brown curly hair under a cap, dropped towels beside them. They wrapped his head as best they could and lifted him into Douglas’ arms.

Joan stood up. “I’ll get Glendower.”