But she was alive, and so was he. She arched her neck to view the river upside down, collapsed it straight again and stared at the drooping leaves of the willow above her. She couldn’t do anything but live and go home. The cold ate into her back. She sat up. She brushed leaves from her hair and tried to reach between her shoulder blades with one hand, flicking at the burrs that clung to her jumper. Her blind and crippled son would return with his mismatched parents to a common villa in the home counties, there to sit in a chair and be wheeled about to sewing mornings where other women would look pityingly and say, at least they have the funds to support him. Except they wouldn’t have the funds. Sybil had them and Sybil wanted him put out of sight.

She couldn’t send him away. She wouldn’t. Even if her mother decreed it, there was nothing she could do to force them. Fagus was discarded anyway – at home or somewhere else – he was out of the running and the prize was still there, out of reach today but not removed. If only she could contemplate the jump.

She screamed into her hands. She’d only stayed married to provide an heir. She was going to get out before it was too late, right the ship that was already listing badly, but Ivar had died and Sybil had pointed her bony finger and said, you must replace him. Everything she’d done from that moment had been designed for that: a concentrated, pointed effort to avoid the sentence of having to rely on Joan. Through the trees she could see the darkened upstairs room in the lighted house beyond the lawn. All of it, every hideous suffocating moment of it, had come to nothing.

The vileness of her thoughts made her want to tear her own eyes out. Who cared about the money? She had her allowance. They weren’t going to take that away from her – Douglas’ mother had fought for it and won. They had an income and a house. Did she need any more than that? She and Douglas, Fagus and Finetta, they’d go back to Cherry Trees and live a quiet life. They could afford a cheap girl from the village, and Everett; they’d probably have to sack Gould and get rid of the motor, or Douglas could keep his driver and give up his London club. Either one. They’d all have to sacrifice something. Douglas and his bloody trains brought in a little. Sybil and Joan could drown in it.

But inescapably, in amongst the sorrow and despair, the practicalities of life rampaged through her brain, carried in torrents of jealousy, favouritism and distrust. She ran her nails through the grass, filling them with mud, and thorns, and pulled at the stalks, tearing them to pieces.

She shivered. Her skirt was damp. She got up.