If Ross wanted to believe that he was punishing Jane by disdaining to attend Emmeline Adeane’s funeral, he also knew that he was deluding himself. He was not there because Jane had not deigned to invite him. He sat in his rooms in Edgars Buildings, fighting dark feelings of intense hurt and anger. He said aloud to the peeling wallpaper of his sitting room, ‘This cannot go on.’

Jane, meanwhile, was grateful that he was not beside her in the church. While the scented air was filled with passionate singing and Sir William gave a heartfelt oration on ‘the great and generous spirit of my sister’, Jane sat between Julietta and Clorinda Morrissey and both of them held onto her and let her cry. Ashton Sims, sitting just behind them, now and then reached out a comforting black-gloved hand and laid it tenderly on Jane’s shoulder.

On the coffin, Jane had suggested, a large spray of lilies, expensively imported from Southern Europe, should be placed, but she had also gone out into Emmeline’s untidy garden and cut branches of bramble and asked the florist to arrange these among the lilies, explaining to him that her aunt had been, on the one hand, as serene and beautiful as a lily but that she had only been able to persevere as an artist in a man’s world by being ‘brave enough to display her thorns from time to time’. If the florist was tempted to protest that he might scratch his delicate fingers with the wretched briars, he did not do so and when the arrangement was complete and laid on the casket, he prided himself that it was strangely pleasing ‘and more original than any funeral spray he had ever seen’.

Respecting Emmeline’s tastes, Jane ordered ballotine of chicken with pickled radishes and champagne to be served to the funeral guests at Tite Street. She walked slowly among them, her weeping now held in check by her sipping of her favourite drink, and was surprised and pleased to note that Ashton Sims had brought Guy Mollinet with him, the French author being in London for the launch of the English edition of his novel, Morgue.

‘Forgive my uninvited presence,’ Mollinet said to Jane, ‘but as you know, all that pertains to death is of passionate interest to me. Ashton thought I might be moved by the English way of saying goodbye …’

‘You are welcome here, Monsieur Mollinet. Is the ballotine to your liking, or do they make it much better in Paris?’

‘Oh, it is very good. For London.’

‘Oh “for London”? Yes, I do see. And were you moved by the church service?’

‘I thought the singing was quite fine, and I much liked the briars on the coffin. I suppose this is an English convention, is it, to remind us that life’s road is difficult?’

‘No,’ said Jane. ‘It was just something I felt was right for my aunt. The arrangements all fell to me, for it seems that Emmeline has left me almost everything she had.’