The army, he read, had retreated over the mountains of northern Spain, the enemy in close pursuit. There was snow, ice, very little food. The Spanish, defeated in battle and themselves in great need, were unable to offer any assistance. At the coast, by the port of Corunna, the army had fought a desperate battle in which the gallant commander, Sir John Moore, was wounded and carried from the field but could not be saved. That so many had escaped onto the waiting transports was both a testament to the valour and ingenuity of British arms and an example of providence at its most benign (“By providence,” said the parson, looking up at them, “they mean to say the will of the Almighty”). There was a list of regiments—the housekeeper leaned forward in her pew, nodding when she heard the one she was listening for. There was no list of the dead, only the general himself. They prayed for the repose of his soul, for the king and his ministers. They prayed that God would not test them beyond what they could endure.

About all this, Lacroix remained silent. He sat by the fire. He read books he collected from his father’s study, read them or glanced into them. A pile of them grew by the side of the armchair. She did not know what they were but was pleased his feet were healed enough for him to get about the house.

He asked her one morning to eat with him. He said he did not want to eat alone. He smiled at her—the first smile she could remember seeing since his return—and at two o’clock she brought up food for both of them and they ate across the card table from each other. She found it awkward at first. She had not eaten with him since he was a boy when he and his sisters were sometimes sent to have their suppers in the kitchen, but it became easier and she started to enjoy it. During the meals he would say things, remarks broken free from some chain of private thought. He asked her one time if she had ever eaten a fig, which she had not. She knew that the duke (who owned the village) had a fig tree in a heated room in his house but she had not eaten one, nor even seen one other than in a picture.

“We picked them from the saddle,” he said. “We leaned into the trees and picked them as we passed. Oranges too.”