‘Is anything the matter?’ asked Sir William kindly.

‘Yes,’ said Mrs Hughes. ‘I’m afraid, Sir, that everything is the matter. And this is what I came to tell you, Sir William: that I cannot go on.’

‘Mercy, Mrs Hughes!’ said Sir William. ‘Whatever can you mean?’

‘I mean that I cannot do my appointed job in this house any more, because I am given no proper orders. How am I to know what you and Dr Ross wish to take for your lunch if there is nobody to tell me? When Miss Jane was here, she wrote out the lists of meals and orders from the fishmongers and the butchers and the greengrocers every two days. But the fishmonger has just called and asked, “What is your order? Am I to give you haddock or Dover sole? Winkles for tea? Herring for breakfast?” and I have to say to him “be gone and take it all away, for I am not a mind-reader. And the gentlemen care so little, it seems, for my work, that they give me no orders at all.” And I cannot continue under these conditions.’

Sir William Adeane was a man who invariably had an answer to every question asked, every theory put up for debate, but here, in the face of the angry Mrs Hughes, he found that he had no idea what to say. Meals, in his household, for as long as he could remember, had just appeared at the appropriate moments. He had no memory at all of ever ordering them, except at Christmas, when he liked to be particular about how much rum and brandy and what quantity of orange zest was put into the plum pudding. Otherwise, breakfast, lunch and supper were like the weather: they changed from day to day, but they were always just there by some magic he had never thought it necessary to learn.

‘I am speechless …’ he stammered.

‘Well,’ said Mrs Hughes, ‘I’m afraid speechlessness will not do, Sir.

As well as fresh produce, we are wanting very many dry goods in the kitchen stores, upon which Miss Jane always kept a careful eye, but since she’s gone I have been given no money with which to replace them. More than this, Sir William, I have not been paid my own wages for two weeks, despite leaving written reminders on your desk. So I am saying it again: I cannot go on. I have been offered a place at Bramerton Hall by Lady Manners and I have agreed to take it – from tomorrow.’

Sir William Adeane looked Mrs Hughes up and down. Though he had sometimes visited the basement kitchen, primarily to verify that it was clean and that no vermin were visible, he had to admit to himself that, if asked to give a detailed description of Mrs Hughes, he would have found this difficult. He excused himself from this dereliction by remembering that he’d usually seen Mrs Hughes through a miasma of kitchen vapour, given off by boiling puddings and stewing meat. It was surely just this steam which had made her insubstantial to him, and not his own lack of curiosity about her, wasn’t it? And was a busy physician expected to know by heart the features of his own servants?