I walked across to the writing table and chair by the window. If the letters distressed her, I would look at them here. I slid them onto the table and then thought to put on the gloves from the pocket of my dress. There would be fingerprints.

The envelopes bore Benjie’s name, and the address.

Taking each letter out of its envelope I set them side by side. There were six. One poison pen letter would be annoying. Six was worrying. A magnifying glass lay on the table, but the writing was large enough.

The same hand wrote the envelopes in block print.

The individual letters appeared to be written by different people. One was backhand, another neat, the third had childish writing, as if the person did not get beyond school at about age eight. Two of them were composed of cut out letters from a magazine, untidily pasted, bulging with too much glue.

Postage stamps were neatly placed. Yet there were no postmarks.

The brief messages had a unifying theme, some secular in tone, others vividly biblical.

Snatcher of bread from kids.

Unrepentant greedy thief.

A certain rich man clothed in purple and fine linen fared sumptuously and a certain beggar full of sores laid at his gate.

It be harder for a Brockman to barge into heaven than for a rhinoceros to thread itself through the eye of a needle.

Repent or die, ye who are greedy of filthy lucre

The meek shall inherit the earth.

It was understandable that Benjie wanted to ignore the missives. If these messages were from the meek, I hope never to receive messages from the bold. Strictly speaking, they were not poison pen letters, more a cry of outrage, with some help from scissors and paste.

I returned letters and envelopes to the embroidered case and put my gloves back in my pocket.

I went to sit with Gertrude. “Any ideas who might have sent them?”

“None at all.”

“What do you think prompted them?”

“I thought it might be to do with resentment about the children’s home, people who refused to believe it was for the best.”

“They don’t seem threatening, more someone’s attempt to get something off his or her chest.” I thought of Alec, confined to living above the stable, not allowed to enter the house. Milly taught at the Sunday school, and must be steeped in biblical language, and Joan had earned her reputation as a rebel. “They weren’t posted. If someone came up the drive six times, they would have been noticed, wouldn’t they?”

“I’m glad I showed you them, Kate. I’m probably making too much of it.”

“Leave them with me. Let me think on this overnight.”

Who would be sufficiently rash to pay for postage stamps and then hand deliver?