And what did it matter if they used such things? There was no one else to use them. If she had been a dishonest servant she could sell the place off, cup by cup, plate by plate, the china stuff, the pewter, the silver. Then start on the furniture—the old settle, the tall clock (moon and all). The pictures on the stairs? She did not know who would want them. The women looked worse than the men and the men looked bad enough. As if their wealth had brought them no joy at all.

She could sell the books. The brewing tubs. The clothes! Of the girls, only Lucy had taken any of her mother’s gowns and petticoats. The older girl might only be a farmer’s wife but she would wear nothing but what was new. Catch her in the fashions of 1770!

There was one gown—she knew exactly where it was, could go and lay her hand on it now—made of red damask that had faded to the colour of berries stirred through cream. That one she would have for herself. She would sit in it—you certainly could not work in such a dress—drinking coffee and chocolate with Tom until they were dizzy. And Tom could wear one of old Lacroix’s long waistcoats that had so much gold thread in the front they stood up on their own. And they would keep some of the good glasses to drink some of the good port. And they would keep (the thought a hushed thought even in her privacy) the bed from the great bedroom, its columns carved from some black wood she could only guess at, a tree that had grown in no English forest.

She laughed at herself. The dog observed her, then came closer and pressed his head against her knees.

“You are a mournful creature,” she said. “You should have gone with your master. He should have taken you with him.”

She went to the meat-safe in the pantry. There was a beef bone in there she had been meaning to make a jelly with but it had been there a while and she wanted to give pleasure to something, if only to a dog. She took the bone from the safe, went out through the kitchen door into the courtyard garden where they grew herbs and where the well was. She held the bone out to the dog. He accepted it very gently and carried it to a corner of the courtyard, a flagstone sheltered by the bough of an apple tree growing on the other side of the wall.