Mary laughed, seemingly grateful for the opportunity to do so. ‘What are we like, eh? Princesses in our towers, the lot of us. You should start introducing yourself a bit. It’s much harder for folk to be rude about you when you’ve made the effort to say “hello”, take my word on that.’

Viola nodded that she would.

She also agreed to go to the funeral – it was what Peter Cedars would have wanted.

Deborah Kendrick had been more than ruffled at the sight of her daughter in the kitchen, later that week, dressed in smart black trousers and a roll-neck.

‘Why are you wearing that?’ she demanded. ‘Where are you going? Not the school, not that doctor…’

The presence of her mother in the kitchen, out of her bedroom, not lost-eyed on the veranda, might otherwise have been the right moment to broach what was going unsaid – What are you so scared of, Mum? Tell me, and I’ll tell you what I’m scared of too – but for the moment Viola was only concerned with quelling her mother’s rising panic.

‘Peter Cedars, the gamekeeper, has died and I’m going to his funeral,’ she explained, in her haste not realising what she had done. If festivities reminded Deborah Kendrick of lost Christmases, the mention of a funeral would send her right back there, to the aftermath.

‘Oh, Viola!’ Her mother dropped her head. ‘You don’t have to. We came here to escape all of that.’

‘I don’t think you can,’ Viola replied very softly, heading into the hallway to put on her coat – a thin, inadequate black one, suited to the occasion if not the weather – before embarking on the long, cold walk to the chapel.

On the coast path, ahead of the service, Viola encountered Michael Signal. He bounded up to her, gasping in her ear, equal parts appalled and thrilled: ‘What are you doing here?’

He pulled her behind the shelter of a wind-scooped hedge, out of hearing of the line of mourners, and proceeded to tell the story of the goat’s heart driven through with nails, how it had been delivered by Mary Ahearn to Mr Crane’s desk in a game sack, and how the girls were now under curfew.

‘Then,’ said Michael with unsavoury delight, ‘Peter Cedars fell down dead – of a heart attack! – cursed by the Eldest Girls! And from what I’ve heard, by you too!’

He folded his arms over his suit and tie. He nodded resolutely.

Viola’s mouth was empty of an immediate response. She felt dizzy, sick, horrified by the connection. The heart wasn’t meant to harm Peter Cedars. This wasn’t their fault.