‘I have had my mother’s lawyer in to explain the details of my inheritance until the man is hoarse. As long as my mother lives, or I live, I am safe. But I confess the question of what happens to my home and fortune once I am dead plagues me more and more. I love Rosings: every hare in its fields, each tree in its spinneys. It is the child I will never have. So, detached as I might be from the feelings involved, I can comprehend the enormity of the loss of your son and heir in this regard. You are now none of you safe.’

Even as she struggled to master her own runaway feelings, Charlotte found herself gaping. She did not think she had ever heard Miss de Bourgh speak at such length before. She was once again rendered silent, not only by the bluntness of Anne’s words, but also by the sense that someone understood her worst anxieties, the implacable and inescapable laws of inheritance that stalked them all, her gnawing worry for her daughters.

Her companion took up her reins and suggested they trot on in single file, which precluded any further pursuit of this line of conversation, but Charlotte felt fractionally less alone, and took comfort from that.

On the homeward stretch of their journey, Miss de Bourgh spoke again, equally bluntly: ‘Do you speak to Mr Collins of your grief? Do you share memories of your son?’

‘I cannot. Such reminiscing would rake him raw. If I am truthful, it rakes me raw. But it is like picking at a scarred wound; it pains, but there is also relief in it.’

‘I see. Your loss has had unforeseen consequences for me, Mrs Collins. I am a profoundly solitary creature – some might indeed say selfish. Yet one would have to be an insensate brute to remain indifferent to your recent loss, and your fortitude in bearing the unbearable. It has impressed upon me that life is a cruel business, but that perhaps there might be comfort to be found in connecting with our fellows.’

Without pausing for a response from her companion, she continued, ‘Shall we canter this last stretch?’ And the galvanising movement of their horses, and the crunch and clatter of hooves as they came first to gravel and then cobblestones where stablehands waited to take and tend to their mounts, momentarily cleared Charlotte’s head.