She took the blanket off her shoulders and folded it over the man. She had on a gown of faded blue stuff and under that the white of her shift. The postilion had to be paid and she went down to the scullery where she had a locked box behind the brewing tubs. She took the coins out to him. He thanked her and went out to the cab to fetch the man’s bag, a knapsack.

“Nothing more?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said.

They stood at the door. The night now was breezy but dry, and where the clouds had broken there was a washed sky busy with stars. He wished her luck. She nodded and closed the door, put the bolts over. He went to his horses, rubbed their foreheads and led them to the gate and on to the road.

“Odd,” he said, speaking into the ear of the nearest horse. “An odd night. Carrying some dying soldier back to an empty house.”

* * *

The tall-case clock in the hall said just past two in the morning and showed, on the tip of a strip of bent metal, the face of a dreaming moon. She looked up the stairs (the postilion’s mud still wet on the carpet), then went through to the kitchen. The fire there was easy enough to excite. She swung the kettle over it, then carried a scuttle of glowing coals up to the room where the man lay in utter darkness. The room would take hours to become properly warm but the fire’s glow encouraged her and she hurried down to the kitchen again. The water in the kettle was hot and she half filled an earthenware mug with it, added a good measure of brandy, put a horn spoon in her apron pocket. The dog was with her, had followed her on each journey, up and down.

She sat on the edge of the bed. She needed to catch up with herself, to breathe, to understand what the night had brought her and might bring her yet. She tugged the pillow down towards the man’s shoulders so that his head would be raised a little, filled the horn spoon with brandy and water, tasted it herself to know the heat of it, and carefully tipped a little between his lips. Most of it spilled down his chin but some went in, a few drops. Almost immediately he opened his eyes. He stared at her in a way that made her grateful when he closed them again. “It’s Nell,” she said. She had no idea if he had known her or not, if he had been truly awake. “You are in your own bed,” she said. “You are home now.”