Or I could go and be among them like an avenging fury, my eyes black with unsatisfied anger. This was my land here, I was the squire. I could name Jack as a killer, call Rea as a witness and no one could gainsay me. With my word against his, I could get Jack hanged. Not even Robert could stand against the squire of Wideacre on Wideacre land. I could confiscate the horses, send Katie back to the Warminster poorhouse, Rea back to the Winchester Guardians, send Robert to Warminster to die of shame. I was gentry now, I could settle my scores as gentry do – with the law and the power of the law. I could break them all with my squire’s law.

Or I could run now, from the power and from the boredom of the Quality life. I could put on my old clothes – their clothes, which they had given me – and tuck up my hair under my cap and go back to them. I knew how they would receive me, they would welcome me as a long-lost daughter, the ponies would whinny to see me. They would hug me and weep with me – easy, feckless tears. Then they would teach me how the acts had changed now she was gone, and where I could fit in the new work. I could walk away from my life here and leave the special loneliness and emptiness of Quality life. I could leave here with pockets as light as when I had arrived; and the man who hated gin traps and Mr Fortescue could run the land as they wished, and need never trouble themselves about me again.

I did not know what I wanted to see, what I wanted to feel. It seemed like a lifetime since I had walked away from them and said to myself that I was never going back. But I had not known then what it was to be lost.

After half an hour I could stand it no longer. I trod softly over to the wardrobe and pulled out my riding habit. Perry would be drinking alone in his room, perhaps humming quietly to himself, deaf to the rest of the house. Lady Clara would be writing letters in the parlour or perhaps reading in the library. Neither of them would hear my steps on the servants’ stairs. No housemaid that I might chance to meet would have the courage to interrupt Lady Clara to tell her that Miss Lacey had ridden out into the twilight. I could come and go as I wished in secret.