CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT, AND Charlotte made an effort at cheer for the sake of her daughters. She knew now how every date that was marked on the calendar and in the Christian year carried a tax: ‘this time last year’, the days mocked or murmured, tugging at her, tormenting her with her own blindness, her unreadiness. Had she not been told often enough that they would lose Tom, that he would never grow to be a man? And yet each day that passed when he was so very present in her life, so solid and vividly himself, had lulled her. The human heart imperilled itself with its inability to live in the future, and hers was no different.

The anxious first year of his infancy, where every sniffle, every spot on his skin, had had her guts knotting, had passed without crisis; and he had seemed to thrive, growing stronger each day, passing through the same stages of growth as his sisters; producing a set of teeth as beautiful as seed pearls and as sharp as fishbones on her nipples, pulling himself up on the fender, putting handfuls of earth in his mouth, staggering across the lawns, thrilled at his own locomotory cleverness, bawling heartily when he tripped on his own petticoats. She had accepted the salve of each day that passed without incident or alarm; she knew that disaster stalked, but at a distance. She had given in to the lure of security. But how could she regret this? Was she to have set her heart aside, barricaded it because of impending loss? No parent possessed of normal feeling could have done so.

And so the season of goodwill passed in a blur of carols and new candles for the church, holly branches laid out on the window-ledges, all the tiring work of extra parish business, visits to Rosings to drink mulled wine and eat fruitcake studded with cherries and cloves. On these occasions, Anne de Bourgh sat close to the fire, huddling into her chair as if wishing to recede into its frame and fabric, not letting any word or glance suggest even a hint of their recent intimacies. Charlotte took her lead, and supplied only slightly warmer smiles upon greeting, giving no other indication of any private communication between them. She assumed, in the absence of any happy announcement, that Miss de Bourgh had once again declined Colonel Fitzwilliam’s proposal – a decision that raised her esteem for the other woman.

In January, the countryside shuddered in the grip of a cold snap, and the ground rang like metal under hard frosts. The days were short and sunlight meagre; spring had never seemed so far off. Charlotte still viewed the nights as battles to be survived, with whatever weapons she could muster. She had the upper hand some of the time but, at regular intervals, sleep and wholesome rest found new ways to elude her.