Her hand is unsteady as she lifts the wax above the head of Titus, and the wavering flame makes it leap. His eyes are very wide open. As he sees the light his mouth puckers and works, and the heart of the earth contracts with love as he totters at the wellhead of tears. His little body writhes in its dreadful bolster and one of the porcelain bells chimes sweetly.

‘Slagg,’ said the Countess in a voice of husk.

Nannie, who is as light as a feather, starts into the air an inch or two at the sudden sound, and comes to earth again with a painful jarring of her little arid ankles; but she does not cry out, for she is biting her lower lip while her eyes cloud over. She does not know what she has done wrong and she has done nothing wrong, but there is always a feeling of guilt about her when she shares a room with the Countess. This is partly due to the fact that she irritates the Countess, and the nurse can sense this all the while. So it is in a thin and tremulous voice that she stammers:

‘Yes, oh yes, Ladyship? Yes … yes, your Ladyship?’

The Countess does not turn her head to speak, but stares past herself in the cracked mirror, her elbows resting on the table, her head supported in the cups of her hands.

‘Is the child ready?’

‘Yes, yes, just ready, just ready. Ready now, your Ladyship, bless his little smallness … yes … yes …’

‘Is the sword fixed?’

‘Yes, yes, the sword, the –’

She is about to say ‘the horrid, black sword’, but she checks herself nervously, for who is she to express her feeling when ritual is involved? ‘But it’s so hot for him,’ she continues hurriedly, ‘so hot for his little body in all this velvet – though, of course,’ she adds, a stupid little smile working in and out of the wrinkles of her lips, ‘it’s very pretty.’

The Countess turns slowly in her chair. ‘Slagg,’ she says, ‘come over here, Slagg.’

The old woman, her heart beating wildly, patters her way around the bed and stands by the dressing-table. She clasps her hands together on her flat chest and her eyes are wide open.

‘Have you still no idea of how to answer even simple questions?’ asks the Countess very slowly.

Nannie shakes her head, but suddenly a red spot appears in either cheek. ‘I can answer questions, I can!’ she cries, startling herself with her own ineffectual vehemence.

The Countess does not seem to have heard her. ‘Try and answer this one,’ she murmurs.

Mrs Slagg cocks her head on one side and listens like a grey bird.

‘Are you attending, Slagg?’

Nannie nods her head as though suffering from palsy.

‘Where did you meet that youth?’ There is a moment’s silence.

‘That Steerpike?’ the Countess adds.