They were eating some of these thin scones when Lisa appeared at the door.

‘I’ve just come from the village,’ she said. ‘They say that M’Dame’s had her baby and it’s dead, like the others.’

‘God have mercy,’ exclaimed Marion, though on whom she did not know. ‘Yet another? Was it born dead?’

‘They don’t know. Joan told me they had fetched Father John along, before it was born, so he could christen it right away – which she said he did – I suppose to be on the safe side, though whether it was alive then I don’t expect anyone knows.’ Lisa came in and sat down on the log beside Marion.

‘How’s M’Dame?’ asked Marion.

‘Joan said she was just lying there crying and crying. That’s not like her, usually so stone-faced, but after all those hours in labour she’d have used up all her courage. Terrible disappointment again.’ Lisa took Alice, who had been watching her closely on to her knee.

‘Wonder what it is that makes her babies die like that,’ Marion said, ‘or be dead when born. It must be nine or ten she’s had since Magda, and Magda was always a healthy baby – and yet all those others … ’ Her voice trailed away in sorrowful thoughts.

‘Joan said the baby was a funny grey sort of colour, not red like proper newborn babies. The others too were this odd grey colour. Joan doesn’t think they ever got the others to breathe properly, so they all died at once.’

‘Was it a boy or a girl?’

‘It must have been a boy because Father John christened it Edmund like all the other dead boys were after Sir Hugh’s father.’

‘Good thing there were the graves ready dug,’ said Marion, ‘not that a baby takes up much room. Sir Hugh must be sad, yet another boy gone, yet another hope lost. There can’t be much chance of him having a son by M’Dame now.’

‘Joan said he couldn’t speak. He just sat with his head in his hands by one of the trestle tables. His face looked that drawn as if life had been washed out of it – that’s what Joan said, and she looked much the same to me – after all, the baby was her nephew, sort of. One wonders what they’ve done to have such punishment. They’re not wicked people – and all those dead babies.’

‘Even good people can have cruel lives,’ Marion said, feeling very old and experienced compared with her pretty niece.

Lisa rose and turned round to warm the other side of her skirt at the fire, saying, ‘And what’s to happen to all of us when Sir Hugh dies and there’s no son to follow him?’

‘They may get some stranger in to marry Magda, someone from down the Weald.’ Marion added this detail in order to impress Lisa with her knowledge of worldly affairs. ‘Someone who doesn’t know our ways in the village, a younger son from foreign places. After all, no one here could marry Magda, it was always to be a stranger … ’ Marion’s voice again trailed away.