Leah looks at the tight cursive, the letters small and wiry, the press of them through the paper, like braille. She wonders at what point in their marriage it was written. ‘We loved each other deeply,’ Anton had told her, and here is the evidence. She holds the flower to her face, feels the dry tickle of it against her skin, tries to imagine Charlotte pressing it within her note. What thoughts were flowing through her as she wrote this? Reading those words on paper, Leah is struck by the urgency – the pulse of life – within them.

Curiosity has been growing inside her for some time, and in recent days, lying in this woman’s room, Leah has felt her questions about Charlotte moving to the surface. The space is alive with indications of a life lived – everything from the scent of her perfume still sitting on the dressing-table to the walls papered with a bright print of primroses and narcissi intertwining and spreading around the room. There is not a single photograph of Charlotte in the whole house, yet her presence is pervasive. She is there in every room.

Leah’s eyes tip in the direction of the box. It is stuffed full of letters, documents and scraps of things. A box of nostalgia. She can see a painting done by a child, the paper hard and crinkled with ancient poster paint, daubs of yellow and brown. But she can feel her gaze being drawn to the blue sheets that lie deeper within the box. An opportunity there to discover something of the woman who was once mistress of this house. Curiosity unfurls within her, compelling her fingers to touch the blue paper and slide another letter from the box.