‘Heavens,’ said Lizzy, ‘I knew that and had quite forgotten. Mr Darcy took me to see it when I was first a bride here. It is very striking, you know, all those birds in their hoods. They put one in mind of knights of old. You should see it, Charlotte. It is something of a novelty. Perhaps Herr Rosenstein will take you and your daughters on a tour.’

Charlotte confessed her ignorance, and it was explained to her that hunting birds, like hounds, were kept in special quarters on estates such as Pemberley. They slept in cages or on leashes, and were released into the sky by their trainers, who gentled them and taught them to return to their human masters.

‘But is that not a pity?’ asked Charlotte, her eyes still fixed on the chevron holding motionless against the silver sky, pressing its strength against all the currents of the upper air, and winning.

‘Indeed, some might say so, Frau Collins,’ said Herr Rosenstein. ‘But what are we all but tamed animals, grateful for the safety of our homes and our benign captivity therein? Birds such as these will never know savage hunger or buffeting storms; they have a measure of protection against such ills. And yet they are still able to fly, to hover, to hunt, all things instinctive and functional to their very being. Just not always of their own free will. This is not very different to the way our own civilised societies function.’

‘Oh! I wish Mr Darcy was here to listen to you, sir,’ said Lizzy with real warmth. ‘You have a talent for expressing philosophical things, for putting them just so, without sounding too clever or dry. Does he not, my dear Charlotte?’

Charlotte concurred wholeheartedly, and it was agreed that after the strawberry-picking was done for the day, Herr Rosenstein would take them all back to the main demesne via the hawk house. But at that moment, the welcome spectacle of servants carrying picnic hampers and cloths appeared at the gates of the vegetable garden, and the party moved to the shade of the nearest orchard trees to enjoy haymakers’ punch, pork pie, and jellied eggs. In spite of having already consumed a superfluity of strawberries, everyone ate with good appetite: ‘I swear I am always hungrier on a picnic than at table,’ Lizzy opined. ‘It is perhaps the lack of ceremony that makes the dishes more tempting: no bringing and removing of courses, but everything laid out as a collation.’ Nobody was inclined to disagree, especially not when the little girls discovered that a kind-hearted cook had sent up figs from the hothouse – their first encounter with such fruits, which rendered the now-scorned strawberries merely commonplace.