‘For Canadian servicemen.’ Lou said.

‘Of course,’ Will smiled. ‘You’ve met Elizabeth. She gave one or two of those Canadian officers a scare back in the day! She’s a staunch supporter of Hill House now. She volunteers two days a week as a room steward to show visitors around. She’s through in the ballroom at the concert. You’ll have to say hello.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Lou said. ‘When I visited her last week, I said this house was a wreck. It wouldn’t make any sense if I spoke to her now.’

‘Don’t worry, Louisa,’ Bertie said. ‘Elizabeth’s memory of your conversation will be a little altered, but she will remember you. How could she forget meeting another person who has shared her adventure?’

‘But how do you know she won’t think I’m mad? And how do you know so much about what it was like before … before this changed last night. Mrs Hart said everything happened while she slept.’

Bertie’s pale eyes gleamed as he looked first at Will and then at Lou. ‘Mrs Hart may have known more than she let on to you. She may have played a greater role in your experience – and that of Elizabeth – than either of you realise.’

‘But –’

‘We can’t tell you more,’ Will said. ‘Just know that we know.’

‘William,’ Bertie said, ‘please pass the photograph in the frame to Louisa.’

Will handed her a photograph of a little girl in a silver frame. Her blonde hair was scooped into bunches, and with her shoulders shrugged, she looked like the photographer had caught her mid-laugh.

‘A pretty little thing, isn’t she?’ Bertie said.

Lou took in the girl’s sweet upturned nose and her wide blue eyes. ‘She’s related to Charlotte, isn’t she?’

‘She’s Miss Charlotte’s great-great-granddaughter. Her name is Louisa. As is her mother’s. And her grandmother’s.’ The skin around Bertie’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. ‘We never forget those we have loved. Those who have touched our lives and made it better. You do understand what you have done, don’t you?’

Lou shook her head.

‘You, Louisa, you did all of this.’ Bertie’s eyes flicked around the room. ‘Your love and kindness saved the Mandevilles, and in saving them, you saved all of us who lived and worked here. Even without knowing what you had done for them, the staff spoke of you fondly. My mother, in particular. She credited you with arranging for her to become Miss Charlotte’s lady’s maid. We went with her wherever she travelled, and she saw to it that I had a good education. This is all down to you.’

‘It’s not possible,’ Lou said, ‘I’m not that important.’

‘What more evidence do you need that you have been crucial to the survival of this house?’ Will said. ‘You, Louisa Arnold, are as important in the history of this house as Elizabeth Goodwill, Lady Alice Mandeville, and all of your like that went before and have come since. Your actions while you were in Hill House set in place a chain reaction. With Hill House and the Mandevilles at the heart of this community, this town has always thrived. There has been employment. There’s not the crime there is in other towns. People actually want to live here. Don’t you see that in altering the future of your town, you saved your mother?’