‘Now, gentlemen,’ said Walter. ‘We might discuss our latest business venture. Don’t groan! I have more brandy to ease the pain. I shall fetch the cigars myself.’

This was her dismissal. Harriet nodded to the room without meeting anyone’s eye and escaped into the hallway. Even in the candlelight, she could see in the hallway looking glass that her cheeks were flaming. She leaned her forehead against the cold surface. There was laughter from inside the room and, from upstairs, the thin sound of water hitting porcelain.

She climbed the stairs and picked up a lamp from the table outside the two younger boys’ room, turning up the wick and opening the door gently. They were motionless under their coverlets, only the top of their tousled heads visible when she lifted the lamp over their beds. She closed the door quietly and tiptoed to Adam’s room. The lamp jerked in her hand when she opened the door to find a tall figure standing motionless and silent on the rug. Black shapes leapt about the room and Harriet almost cried out before she realised the figure was her cousin, standing over his potty, swaying as he peed. Not all of it was hitting the mark.

‘Adam,’ she whispered.

The boy looked round blearily. He adjusted his pyjamas and allowed Harriet to guide him back to his bed. He smelled sweet and musty.

‘Are they still here?’

‘Yes, so straight back to sleep.’ She’d had a battle with him earlier. He thought he was of an age where he could join the men and when she had scoffed at that idea he had begged to come down and at least greet his father’s guests. This discussion had ended in Adam reminding her she was not his mother. On the other hand, he was happy to allow Harriet to tuck the bedcovers around his chin and kiss his forehead.

Smiling, she said, ‘Sleep tight, Adam. Don’t let the bed bugs bite,’ and leaned against his bedpost so that she could edge the pot back under his bed with her good foot. She let herself out of the room as quietly as she had entered, turned down the lamp, carefully replaced it on the table, and crept back downstairs. Low voices came from the front parlour, serious men’s business now under way, her humiliation no doubt forgotten, by them.

She entered her bedroom where Alice was snoring gustily.

In the dark, Harriet felt her way around the bed and undressed quickly, folding her aunt’s gown over the back of a chair. She would return it tomorrow, when she took up Aunt Polly’s breakfast tray. She would recall some detail from the evening to entertain her aunt while they drank their morning tea. Harriet loosened and removed her undergarments and reached for her floor-length nightgown with a sigh of relief. Through a chink in the curtains that allowed in some moonlight, she could make out her blurred reflection in the dressing-table mirror, her shadow-self making the same preparations for bed.