Still without having said one word, they took this as their cue to rise and leave the small enclosure that cupped them both. The paths of the maze were too narrow to allow them to walk side by side, and Charlotte had in any case no sense of how to find her way out. Herr Rosenstein went first, making turns with an ease that suggested long familiarity, and led them to the exit without hesitation. Here he offered her his arm, and they made their way back towards the house, still in silence.

Yet there was nothing uncomfortable between them: they both paused at the same moment to watch the force of the fountains throw mercury beads into the air, the breeze blowing the spray so that they both felt a faint wetness on their faces; after a few minutes, they resumed their strolling at the same moment. Their steps matched as they gained on the vast house, with its elegant proportions. Coneys nibbled at the turf, their white scuts bouncing as they hopped away, leaving the guarding of the house to watchful stone lions. They stopped one last time to watch a blackbird alight on the head of the statue of a nymph, survey the lawn for breakfast, then supply them with a dazzling coda of song.

They entered the house, which was now beginning to stir as fires were lit and pitchers carried, via the same tradesmen’s door Charlotte had used to make her earlier escape. The clatter of feet and basins, the scents of porridge and bacon emanating from the kitchen, broke the spell of a morning in which only music – bird, fountain, flute – could speak. Charlotte suddenly felt the urgent need to say something, especially as they were about to part ways in a dwelling so large she was uncertain as to when she would next see her companion. He turned to her at the foot of the stairs, and bowed. And all she could manage was a reciprocal curtsey. It had to suffice.

A little later, in the chapel, with only herself and Mrs Darcy in the balcony above the servants, she looked for him to no avail.

‘Does Herr Rosenstein never attend household prayers?’ she asked Lizzy as they repaired to the dining room for breakfast afterwards.

‘My dear Charlotte, the man is a Jew, like the rest of his family,’ answered her friend. ‘Did you not realise? He cannot attend any Christian ritual.’

Charlotte was confounded. If she tried to remember what she knew about the tribe of Israel, she could think only of the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament, and fleeting impressions of cartoons of swarthy, bearded men in the news-sheets. A vague memory stirred of a play by Mr Shakespeare.

‘I do not believe I have ever met a Jew before. I am not entirely sure what that means,’ she told Lizzy.