‘Of course,’ Sarah said, feeling rather foolish. She ought to recognise potatoes. Perhaps it was her own instance of painting a picture around an idea. She had been searching her mind for something medicinal and missed the obvious as a result.

Martha showed them to the door, assuring them she would pass Raven’s card on to her sister as soon as she returned. He seemed relieved to have made a form of contact, but Sarah could sense his frustration at not being able to speak to Mary directly. Sarah had a portion of that too. She wanted to amass all possible evidence in Dr Simpson’s favour.

There was definitely rain in the wind as they retreated down the garden path.

‘When did you get those cards printed?’ Sarah asked, unable to keep a note of amusement from her voice. ‘May I have one?’

Raven looked self-conscious, as though she had caught him in an affectation. He handed over a card.

‘Why doesn’t it say “Wilberforce”?’ she chided him.

‘Only my mother gets to call me that.’

‘It looks a little sparse. Did you not think to print a little raven silhouette on there?’

‘As a doctor, it behoves me to eschew symbols synonymous with death.’

‘Perhaps you should have considered that when you changed your surname.’

‘I dropped my late father’s name and took my mother’s. That was as wide as the choice extended. Though I do take your point. It is a pity her name was not Goodfellow.’

‘No. That would be fraudulent. You are no more a good fellow than you are a raven.’

He smiled, something she had seldom seen him do since his return from the Continent. She had missed it.

‘I knew a fellow at medical school by the name of Slaughter,’ he said. ‘I cannot think that will enhance his practice.’

Sarah glanced back at the cottage for a moment.

‘What did you think of Martha?’ she asked.

‘Pleasant enough. But under the circumstances, a poor substitute for her sister. I may have to return to Dr Fowler in case he knows which family she might have gone to work for now.’

‘I got the impression she was holding something back. That she and her sister do not have an easy relationship.’

‘Adopted or not, which pair of siblings does?’ he replied.

Sarah thought of that look of uncertainty in Martha’s expression before she answered questions. Thinking back, it seemed not so much that Martha was unsure of what to say than that she was worried about what she ought to say.

As though concerned her sister might be listening.

She wondered again about that flash she saw at the window. Could it have been a dark-haired woman? Or was Sarah painting another picture?

THIRTY-EIGHT

arah entered the downstairs waiting room to find the new housemaid filling the coal scuttle.