There’s a whole story in the titles of Caroline’s songs, the first things she ever wrote. From before her marriage: ‘Rosalie My Love, Awake!’, ‘Dry Up That Sparkling Tear’, ‘The Home Where My Childhood Played’, ‘Never Forget Me Love’. Afterwards: ‘Oh Sad, Sad is the Heart’, ‘Why Should I Sing of Days Gone By?’, ‘Love Not’. The Honourable – or not so – George Chapple Norton mocks her letters and 87her ambitions, sets her writing things ablaze. He buys himself a cabriolet with her royalties – the word comes from the French, meaning caper, because of its light, bounding motion – a fancy and entirely unpractical vehicle. But when the doctor tells her to get some sea air to relieve the nausea of her second pregnancy, she is forced to share a bed with the landlady to save money. He slaps her face, he beats her. He seizes her by the nape of the neck and dashes her down on the floor. He kicks her in the side so hard that she can’t sit down for days. He pulverises her face so badly the sight of it makes her sister vomit. He orders her from ‘his’ seat at the breakfast table and when she refuses he takes the boiling tea-kettle and presses it down on her hand. Then he sits in her place and calmly eats his breakfast. She leaves him. He begs her to take him back. She takes pity on him and, for the sake of their boys, gives him another chance. Within two days, he beats her so badly she loses her unborn child. He leaves her bleeding on the floor and goes to shoot grouse in Scotland, refusing to pay the doctor’s bill, leaving her to beg her brother for money. For weeks afterwards, she sits looking at raindrops on the window: I begin to think I must have lost my soul.