Strangely enough, the alarm of the river episode played no role in Sarah’s troubles. It seemed that the discovery earlier that week of a dead squirrel in the garden was part of the problem, and the lurid book of martyrs that Charlotte had glimpsed secreted under the bed furnishings was no doubt an aggravating factor. She lay down next to her daughter and wrapped her arms around her.

She did not have long to wait: ‘Mama, did it hurt when Tom died?’

Only like being immersed in boiling oil. Over and over again, Charlotte thought, still amazed she had survived the scalding agony of those first months. But that was not what her daughter was asking. She reassured Sarah, yet again, that Tom had felt no pain in perishing, that there had been no suffering – while silently thanking Providence that this had indeed been the case. As she had often done before, she explained that Tom had simply fallen asleep and never woken.

‘But Mama, if I fall asleep, will I wake up?’ Sarah went to the heart of her anxiety, and Charlotte stroked her daughter’s soft dark curls, so like Tom’s, in an upwelling of compassion.

‘Of course you shall. Tom did not wake because he was not well. We all knew that he was not strong, that he was weak because of his poor head. Whereas you, my treasure, are as strong as the trees in the garden and the carthorses on the farm. You shall sleep and wake every day until you are an old, old woman.’

‘The trees in the garden? But what if they blow down?’

‘Think of the big chestnut tree at home. The one in which Papa and Mr Brown put up a swing, where you and Laura like to play in the shade in summer, and collect the conkers in autumn. How it stays unmoved no matter how much the winds howl at it. Its leaves may blow off in storms, a small branch here and there might crack in the winter frosts, but the tree stays strong, held safely upright by its firm trunk.’

Charlotte lowered her voice to a murmur as Sarah’s lids closed for longer and longer intervals, the tracks of her tears drying. ‘And in the spring, think of how the new leaves and flowers burst out like candles, and the squirrels and birds come to play and rejoice in the new growth. You will be like that tree, you and Laura both. Always strong and firm, and always renewing yourselves.’

And God help me, if that is not the truth, I shall perish myself, she thought as she kissed her daughter’s forehead once more, then got to her feet, deftly extracting the troublesome book at the same time. She stood for a long time in the dusk, listening to her children breathe, matching her exhalations to theirs, before she left the room.

CHAPTER XX