‘Mrs Trenchard, I would like to offer you my condolences on the death of your stepson and to express my deepest regret and horror at my nephew’s part in it,’ Oliver’s voice was firm but not without emotion. ‘Also, I am willing to agree to Kerensa’s plea if you are. I should very much like to talk to you alone, ma’am.’

‘He’s in the sitting room, with Philip,’ Catherine said.

Kerensa looked from her husband’s pitying expression to Catherine’s pale suffering face. ‘Thank you, both of you.’ Then she stepped over the Trenchard threshold.

Catherine gave a small cry and made to show she had changed her mind.

Oliver prevented her, gently. ‘It’s hard for us, ma’am, but I have learned that nothing is to be gained from denying that they have a special bond. I see you have a well-kept garden. Will you take a turn round it with me? We have much to discuss.’

Clem was sitting on Catherine’s spinet stool alone. Philip was laid out on a platform of boards and trestles, used only recently for the celebration at the end of the harvest. He had been too tall for the length of a table. Four large candles were lit, one at each end of the platform, giving a passive golden light over the bold, fair features. Philip’s body was dressed in his best suit of clothes, his meaty hands crossed over his chest.

Kenver was to make the coffin. He’d been to grieve, to take his nephew’s measurements, and had been driven home in the trap to get on with the saddest task of his life. Lydia, the nursemaid, had taken John and Flora to stay at his house. There was a lot of sorrow and anger at Greystone’s, and Catherine had thought the twins best not subjected to it.

‘This shouldn’t have happened to you, son,’ Clem’s voice was thick with tears. ‘It should’ve been me. I’m the one who should be lying there dead.’ He wept, as he had wept almost continuously since Philip’s last breath, putting his hands over his son’s cold hands.

Forced to reach for a handkerchief, he also pulled the letter out of the pocket of his clean breeches, where he’d put it after the doctor had stitched his bone-deep cut.

‘Oh, God, Philip, why did you bring me this?’ He studied the sheet of thick folded paper, instrumental in the atrocity. The writing was Jessica’s. He broke the seal. ‘I s’pose I could read this to you, eh, Phil? Just about, without Catherine to help me.’

With difficulty he made his eyes focus on the spindly writing. ‘Your sister starts off by greeting everybody, then it says, “I am sending you all good news, I am having another baby.” Hope the next baptism goes better than Harry’s, eh, son?’