‘I fear she is more clever than she looks and that she has more influence over William than I had allowed myself to admit. She has been coming here for some time, as I now see insinuating herself. He has grown especially fond of the little girls.’

Alice now stood and embraced her husband’s sister.

‘I am so grateful for your fellowship in this,’ she said. ‘Truly I cannot imagine that I would have strength enough to see her off, were I alone.’

The question was whether to apprise William of Mrs Lockwood’s campaign. Alice did not want to inflame her husband by casting doubt upon his judgement, for it was a thing upon which he prided himself. His previously erratic temper had improved over recent months, for which she was glad; although she feared that his friendship with the woman – and perhaps especially his avuncular camaraderie with her daughters – was one reason for this amelioration. The girls came with their mother once a week now at his invitation, to sit on the ponies, collect eggs or otherwise amuse themselves. Then, too, Alice had thought that becoming a father had made him gentler.

Conversely, she and Caroline divined that the widow’s power, such as it was, would surely be the less were her scheme to become known to him. Alice did not care for concealment, in any case: and so the two women agreed that William must be spoken to. Caroline, having already been subject to his interrogation on the matter of his wife’s association with Dr Nolan, determined that it had better come from herself. In this way, the raising of the matter could not be attributed to wifely jealousy or pique. She would tell her brother that she had reflected upon their earlier conversation and had come to the sorry conclusion that the widow was no friend to him nor to his family.