Alerted by all the noise, Lavinia had come downstairs, and seeing that Sunday was almost beside herself with fear she instantly took control of the situation.

‘We’re going to need scissors to cut his trouser leg and hot water and clean cloths, plenty of them,’ she said. ‘Off you go now, chop-chop! Panicking isn’t going to help.’

Tom’s eyes were rolling back in his head by then and he seemed to be barely aware that they were even there as Sunday rushed off to do as she was told.

‘Right,’ Lavinia told her when she returned. ‘I’m going to cut this trouser leg straight up now. Hold his hand. It’s going to hurt, I’m afraid.’

As gently as she could she began to cut through the material but she had hardly reached his knee when the full extent of his injuries became evident and Sunday almost swooned with shock. His leg from the knee down was already swollen to twice its size and a bone stuck grotesquely through the skin as blood pumped from the wound.

‘Pass me a cloth quickly – we have to stem this flow of blood,’ Lavinia ordered. Once Sunday had done as she was told, Lavinia then tore the cloth into long strips and tied it above the knee as tightly as she could in a tourniquet, to try and stem the bleeding. Sweat stood out on her forehead. Tom then screamed once more before lapsing into merciful unconsciousness. Lavinia then propped the injured leg on a small pile of cloths, to keep it elevated.

‘Right – we’ll try and clean him up a little now,’ she said, fully in control of the situation. It was just as well, for Sunday was a gibbering wreck. The women made him as comfortable as they possibly could, then after ensuring that he was well covered and the drawing-room fire was blazing fiercely, all they could do was wait for Ben to return.

At last, after almost an hour, Ben appeared with Dr Cushion close on his heels. Tom was still unconscious and after seeing the extent of his injury the doctor declared it was just as well.

‘We shall need to get him to hospital,’ he told them. ‘They are going to have to put the bone back in place and splint it, and it will require a number of stitches. Hopefully he will stay asleep until it’s done, otherwise he’s going to be in agony, poor chap.’

‘But he will be all right, won’t he?’ Sunday asked, her voice quavering.

‘It all depends, my dear Mrs Branning,’ the man said. ‘His injuries are not life-threatening but it could be that he’ll lose his leg. Let’s wait and see what the surgeon has to say about it, shall we?’

At that moment, the door to the drawing room inched open and Kitty’s anxious little face appeared. Her eyes went straight to Tom and the doctor hastily pulled the blanket across his injured leg.

‘Is Tom going to be all right?’ she asked, much as Sunday had done only seconds before.