‘Don’t hedge. He’s worried to death …’ She stopped short. Her jewelled hands twitched in her lap. ‘He’s troubled in his mind,’ she said, ‘and for the second occasion in our married life I’m at a loss to know why. Is it something to do with Maurice and the memoirs?’

‘Apparently. He wants the Colonel to edit them.’

‘The first occasion,’ Lady Lacklander muttered, ‘was twenty years ago and it made me perfectly miserable. And now, when the time has come for us to part company … and it has come, child, hasn’t it?’

‘Yes, darling, I think so. He’s very tired.’

‘I know. And I’m not, I’m seventy-five and grotesquely fat, but I have a zest for life. There are still,’ Lady Lacklander said with a change in her rather wheezy voice, ‘there are still things to be tidied up. George, for example.’

‘What’s my poor papa doing that needs a tidying hand?’ Mark asked gently.

‘Your poor papa,’ she said, ‘is fifty and a widower and a Lacklander. Three ominous circumstances.’

‘Which can’t be altered, even by you.’

‘They can, however be … Maurice! What is it?’

Colonel Cartarette had opened the door and stood on the threshold with the packages still under his arm.

‘Can you come, Mark? Quickly.’

Mark went past him into the bedroom. Lady Lacklander had risen and followed with more celerity than he would have thought possible. Colonel Cartarette stopped her in the doorway.

‘My dear,’ he said, ‘wait a moment.’

‘Not a second,’ she said strongly. ‘Let me in, Maurice.’

A bell rang persistently in the hall below. Nurse Kettle, followed by a tall man in evening clothes, came hurrying up the stairs.

Colonel Cartarette stood on the landing and watched them go in.

Lady Lacklander was already at her husband’s bedside. Mark supported him with his right arm and with his left hand kept his thumb on a bell-push that lay on the bed. Sir Harold’s mouth was open and he was fetching his breath in a series of half-yawns. There was a movement under the bedclothes that seemed to be made by a continuous flexion and extension of his leg. Lady Lacklander stood massively beside him and took both his hands between hers.

I’m here, Hal,’ she said.

Nurse Kettle had appeared with a glass in her hand.

‘Brandy,’ she said. ‘Old-fashioned but good.’

Mark held it to his grandfather’s open mouth. ‘Try,’ he said. ‘It’ll help. Try.’

The mouth closed over the rim.

‘He’s got a little,’ Mark said. ‘I’ll give an injection.’

Nurse Kettle took his place. Mark turned away and found himself face-to-face with his father.

‘Can I do anything?’ George Lacklander asked.

‘Only wait here, if you will, Father.’

‘Here’s George, Hal,’ Lady Lacklander said. ‘We’re all here with you, my dear.’