Six months before, faced with that question, James would have prevaricated or told a lie. But now he felt differently about those experiments of his, and he also had an obscure feeling that if he told Mirabel the truth and she told his mother, he would be forced to do something his own will refused to compel him to and throw the bottle away.

‘Poison,’ he said laconically.

‘Poison?’

‘I made it out of something called Jimson’s Weed or thornapple. It’s quite concentrated. I think a dose of it might be lethal.’

‘Were you going to kill mice with it or something?’

James would not have dreamt of killing a mouse or, indeed, any animal. It exasperated him that Mirabel who ought to have known him quite well, who had lived in the same house with him and talked to him every day, should have cared so little about him and been so uninterested in his true nature as not to be aware of this.

‘I wasn’t going to kill anything with it. It was just an experiment.’

Mirabel gave a hollow ringing laugh. ‘Would it kill me? Maybe I’ll come up here while you’re at school and take that bottle and – and put an end to myself. It would be a merciful release, wouldn’t it? Who’d care? Not a soul. Not Francis, not Aunt Julie. They’d be glad. There’s not a soul in the world who’d miss me.’

‘Well, Oliver would,’ said James.

‘Yes, my darling little boy would, my Oliver would care. People don’t realize I only want Aunt Julie’s money for Oliver. It’s not for me. I just want it to give Oliver a chance in life.’ Mirabel looked at James, her eyes narrowing. ‘Sometimes I think you’re the only person on earth Aunt Julie cares for. I bet if you said to her to let bygones be bygones and have me back, she’d do it. I bet she would. She’d even make a will if you suggested it. I suppose it’s because you’re clever. She admires intellectuals.’

‘If I suggested she make a will in Oliver’s favour, I reckon she just might,’ said James. ‘He’s her great-great-nephew, isn’t he? That’s quite a good idea, she might do that.’

He couldn’t understand why Mirabel had suddenly become so angry, and with a shout of ‘Oh, you’re impossible, you’re as bad as the rest of them!’ had banged out of his room. Had she thought he was being sarcastic? It was obvious she wanted him to work on Aunt Julie for her and he wondered if she had flattered him simply towards this end. Perhaps. But however that might be, he could see a kind of justice in her claim. She had been a good niece, or great-niece, to Aunt Julie, a frequent visitor to Sindon Lodge before the episode of Francis, a faithful sender of birthday and Christmas cards, or so his mother said, and attentive when Aunt Julie had been ill. On the practical or selfish side, getting Mirabel accepted at Sindon Lodge would take her away from Ewes Hall Farm where her presence frayed his father’s temper, wore his mother out, made Rosamund sulk and was beginning to bore even him. So perhaps he would mention it to Aunt Julie on his next visit. And he began to plan a sort of strategy, how he would suggest a meeting with Oliver, for all old people seemed to like babies, and follow it up with persuasive stuff about Oliver needing a home and money and things to make up for not having had a father. But, in fact, he had to do nothing. For Mrs Crowley had been offered a better job in a more lively place and had suddenly departed, leaving Aunt Julie stiff with arthritis and in the middle of a gastric attack.