“Wonderful. I am looking forward to learning to shoot. Not to kill things because whatever you say I prefer to let other people do that for me and one would hardly slaughter one’s own cows, would one? Unless one was a farmer, and I am not, even if I shall be married to a country landowner, but in any case, no. But I ought at least to understand what you get up to on these excursions, and muzzles and bullets and the difference between a fowling-piece and a revolver and everything else Mr. Keynes talks about. Oughtn’t I?”

Pat hadn’t followed the flood of verbiage closely enough to pick out what the question was. She was preoccupied with Miss Carruth’s velvet-brown eyes, and the shimmer of moisture over their surface.

She had no right, or no standing, to pry and Miss Carruth couldn’t have made her desire to keep up appearances clearer.

“Yes, of course,” she said, more or less at random. “Shall we go down to the end of the lawn?”

She picked up the gun case and set off. Miss Carruth hurried to match her stride. “Goodness, you walk quickly.”

Pat slowed. “Sorry. I had four older brothers who were always on at me to keep up.”

“Four! Good heavens. Is Mr. Merton the oldest?”

“Third. Jonty is the oldest. He’s on his honeymoon now.”

“And what do your other brothers do?”

Not much. The words rose to Pat’s lips; she bit them back. The twisted humour that helped one through grief could not be shared outside the family. “I’m afraid they’re no longer with us. Ladysmith.”

Miss Carruth looked round sharply. “You lost two brothers there?”

“The same day. We had the telegrams together.”

“That’s dreadful. Oh, Miss Merton. I’m so sorry to be so clumsy.”

“You weren’t to know. Really it’s nothing—the mention, I mean. I’d rather people talked about them than pretended they never existed. Please don’t think anything of it.”

Miss Carruth’s brows drew together. “It’s very kind of you to make me feel better about a faux pas but really, in these circumstances, I wish you wouldn’t. Were you very fond of them?”

“Moderately,” Pat said, and saw the other woman’s startled look. “I dare say that sounded odd. Do you have siblings?”

“No. My mother died when I was very young, and my father never remarried.”