As Pandora settled beside her, imparting an affectionate squeeze to her hand, Charlotte watched the willowy form of her second daughter darting and parrying, advancing towards her husband, then dancing out of his reach before returning. It was no bad analogy for courtship; and as starlings massed in the trees beyond and the light thickened to honey, she thought back to her own courtship – the day she became an affianced woman – and the cautious composure she had felt on that occasion. How little she had dared hope for! And how little she had understood of love. She had felt none for the man who would become her husband; and yet how much had unrolled at her feet, how many objects of affection, planned and unplanned, had been granted her.

Although seldom contemplated, her second, secret courtship could not be forgotten either, and indeed, it had remained a source of private joy as letters had crossed, not often, but regularly, between Kent and Austria. In writing to her husband, Herr Rosenstein always included her and never failed to encompass her in his warm wishes. This was not an unalloyed bliss – the missive containing news of his betrothal had cost her some pangs until she could scold herself into reason. Yet she still treasured the kindness of his letter of condolence after Mr Collins had failed to wake from a nap in the orchard grass one late-summer afternoon. By then, no thought of reunion crossed her mind; her path was both fixed and infinitely dear to her. Thinking back, she felt no regret either. His friendship, and their secret history, had vouchsafed rich and unexpected gifts, including a path into a future that would outlast her.

She would always grieve Tom, but that grief had become as ornamented and enwreathed as the headstone on his grave, an object of both veneration and beauty, softened by the lichens that clung to it, the gentle abrasion of rain and frost. Her first son was beyond help, beyond anything she could offer, beyond the reach of her love, which could now be demonstrated only by tending that piece of earth in which his mortal remains lay. But keeping faith with the dead was the last honour she was able to pay his short life, and the blessing it had been to her.