‘I am so sorry, Mr Laurent,’ Dora said.

‘A doctor came this morning,’ Geoffrey went on. ‘Said the baby wasn’t due for a couple of months and there was nothing to worry about.’ He stood, a lantern in one hand, and began to sob, clasping his free hand across his eyes. ‘She had a headache. He told her to take an aspirin.’

He was a big man, farmer’s muscles, labourer’s hands. Dora walked round the bed and took the lantern from him. Shudders of grief convulsed his body. She wanted to put her arms round him and pull him close and let him weep it free against her shoulder.

There was nothing to do except clean and wash the body and lay it out ready for the undertaker. She’d start the formalities tomorrow. The man was not in a condition to understand any of that now. He slumped in the chair by the bed, elbows on knees, fists balled tight, staring with glassy eyes at the young woman.

‘Nurse,’ the woman said. ‘I have to go. Get back to my husband. He’s not well, you know.’

‘That’s fine,’ Dora said. ‘I’ll stay with him awhile.’

The woman tiptoed out of the room, as if Margaret was sleeping.

‘Mr Laurent.’ Dora kept her voice low. ‘You’d be more comfortable downstairs. I’ll light the fire.’

He shook his head again. ‘The cows,’ he said. ‘Milking.’

He pushed back in the chair, stood up and left the room. Dora heard his steps on the wooden stairs, the thrash of the outside door as the storm slammed it shut.

Dora washed the woman, changed her into a clean nightdress, combed the hair and laid her arms across her stomach. She drew the sheet up and over.

It was nine o’clock by the time she went downstairs, lighting her way with the lantern. The man was sitting on a chair by the kitchen range, his hands on the armrests, still as death. The gale was screeling round the chimney, blasting draughts through the gaps in the windows and under the door. She wouldn’t make it back by curfew. She’d have to stay the night, push the chairs together for a bed. At least the kitchen was warm, the stove giving off a deep, steady heat.

‘Mr Laurent,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you should go to bed. Get some sleep.’

His breathing was slow and ponderous, as if the gale had blown away the oxygen in the house. His eyes were heavy and his cheeks lined with pain.

‘She was going to christen the baby William, if it was a boy,’ he said. ‘Billy, for short.’

‘That’s a nice name,’ Dora said. There was a grandfather clock in the hall filling the silence of the house, tock, tock.

‘And if it was a girl,’ she said. ‘What were you going to call her?’

‘Dorothy,’ he said. ‘Dotty, for short.’