The evening before Westminster, Erik arrived with a bouquet for the sisters almost the size of the sofa. Jelly hauled herself upright and put on a white blouse and light skirt. She’d been in bed for three days. Claws of pain dug into her back when she tried to bend over her chest of drawers to find some stockings. The impact of each step rebounded through her right hip.

‘Jelly’s hurt her back and she’s tired out,’ Alec was telling Erik when Jelly, after clunky progress down the stairs, arrived in the music room. Adila was arranging the flowers in a porcelain vase that bore only one tiny chip. The evening was warm and she had flung open the doors to the garden, letting in the scent of roses and rays of light giddy with spiralling sunbeams. Madge had come for a lesson, but now she was out on the lawn playing with Adrienne, a tennis ball and the dog. Alec and Erik were both relaxed and smiling in their shirtsleeves.

Jelly made an effort to put on her public self, trying to ignore what was happening to her joints. She saw a flash of concern in the baron’s perceptive eyes.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine tomorrow.’

‘She won’t let us call the doctor,’ Adila growled. ‘Three thousand people we expect in Westminster Abbey and my sister cannot move!’

‘I won’t make you play on your own, if that’s what worries you,’ Jelly teased.

‘You will have good company,’ Erik said. ‘We have had a session this afternoon with our friends, who tell me they will all be there to hear you.’

For a moment Jelly thought he meant living people. She wondered how much Adila truly believed in the presence of these spirits – and how much she might herself. Adila, as far as she knew, had never questioned her belief in the messages any more than she had questioned her belief in God. But Jelly, seeing the consumptive patients around Anna, the begging children in Yorkshire and the shipyard wives in Durham, now found herself inwardly interrogating any deity’s actions on a regular basis.

‘Don’t worry, Sai,’ said Alec. ‘The reality is only what we can do for others, human to human. Believe me, you’re doing more than most.’

A commotion from the garden and the little girls bounced in, flushed, happy and ready for cake and ice cream.

‘Darlings! Something wonderful has happened: we have been speaking to Schumann and Joachim,’ Adila cried, slicing giant pieces of plum cake. ‘Just think, when you are there tomorrow listening to us, so are they!’

Madge’s astute blue eyes cast a sphinx-like stare at her violin teacher. ‘I was going to ask, please can I telephone Jane to pick me up?’ Jane, Madge’s stepsister ten years her senior, was an excellent cellist who often came round to play chamber music.