The vicar continued. “Helen Farrar had no children of her own, but when she was young, and for many years, she was nursemaid to the Aspinall family. She was well loved by that family, and particularly by the boys, Oliver and Harry. Their mother died when Harry was born. Helen was young, not much more than a child herself, but she became a mother to the boys. That is why there is a place for her in the Aspinall family plot, here in Holy Trinity Church churchyard, the plot she tended after Oliver died.

“She was a good Christian woman who loved her neighbour as herself. There are those of you here today who will remember her kindness when she was a friend to the Bluebell Children’s Home.”

The vicar led prayers. Hymns were sung. But all this was now happening at a distance for me, because an idea began to take shape.

The vicar had said that Helen Farrar took care of young Oliver and Harry Aspinall. She became a mother to them. She was so close to the family that she would share their resting place in this churchyard.

The Arkwrights were on good terms with Mrs. Farrar. They witnessed her despondency about the children’s home. But on the day she died, that changed. She was expecting someone. According to Stephen Walmsley, everything that would polish was polished. She set daffodils in a jar. Full of cheer, she sang. Not just any song, but a nursery rhyme she would have sung to her little boys. The Grand Old Duke of York, he had ten thousand men. He marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again.

What if she was expecting someone with the influence she lacked—the boy she mothered? Harry Aspinall. Like the grand old duke, her expected visitor would ride to the rescue. Like the grand old duke, his marching would be in vain.

I was groping in the dark.

Perhaps we would never know the identity of her expected visitor.

When the service ended, bearers carried the coffin into the churchyard. Mrs. Dell took my arm for support as we followed the other mourners. Sykes was standing to the side of the door. He caught my eye and moved closer, touching my hand. I took the note from him and slipped it in my pocket.

As we stood by the grave, I glanced at the mourners. Sykes was standing on the opposite side, behind a young man in a well-cut dark coat, and white silk scarf. Something about him seemed out of place, yet there was sorrow in his eyes.

Until the moment that Mrs. Farrar’s coffin was gently lowered into the ground, a respectful silence held at the graveside. Then came sobbing. It came from Milly, crying for the day’s sorrow, for Mrs. Farrar’s passing, life’s pitfalls, and most especially for Stephen Walmsley.