Jonathan and his wife had bought their share of the estate in January, had moved in in April, and had purposely refrained from inviting guests until they felt that they were settled and at home.

The month was now December, and Mrs Bradley arrived two days before Christmas Eve. She travelled by train, for her chauffeur had been given Christmas leave, and she had deliberately made no mention to her nephew of the time of her train, for his house was miles from Cheltenham, (her terminus), and she disliked to cause inconvenience.

Jonathan Bradley, however, was at the station to meet her.

‘Deb wanted to come,’ he observed, ‘but I didn’t know whether I’d picked the right train. You didn’t say, and I thought it was a bit too cold for her to hang about draughty stations. I wish I’d brought her now.’

He took Mrs Bradley out to his car, and saw her luggage put on. A few minutes later the car was slipping like a homing cat across the Oxford–Gloucester turning, past a fifteenth-century barn, past a country bus-shelter, and so along the Cirencester Road.

Great slopes brooded dreamily upon their lost summer treasure of wheat, clover and barley; little by-roads sloped quietly up or down to Coberley, Elkstone, Brimpsfield and Compton Abdale. After half an hour’s driving, some deep woods, a lodge with its drive, a full stream at the bottom of steep banks, a straggle of black pine trees, a desolate farm, a narrower road, a sandy turning, and the entrance to a long and uphill lane, brought the car on to Jonathan’s land.

The car crept onward up the steep, uneven lane. Mrs Bradley, seated beside her tall and black-haired nephew, looked out of the window with interest. To her left ran another small wood. On the right the treeless ground curved almost voluptuously downward to another noisy little stream.

‘That turns the mill,’ said Jonathan, jerking his head towards the sound. ‘We’ve got a mill, a smithy, the pub and the post-office. Quite a model village, all told.’

As the rise mounted and the wood was left behind, the wet green slopes of the country filled the landscape. At the top of the rise was a grey and snow-filled sky, and, as the car climbed and the hills changed their contours, Mrs Bradley saw two small houses, one on either side of the way.

‘What do you think of it?’ asked Jonathan, touching his horn as the car approached the houses, and then changing gear as the slope became more gentle and a drive took the place of the lane.

‘Desolate, enchanted, apt and supernormal,’ replied his relative, gazing raptly at the charged and lowering sky.

‘Apt for what?’

‘For treason, magic, stratagems and snow. Who lives at the lodges now?’