‘So you see, Mrs Ellison … Gwen … why Gordon and I should have our suspicions … and why this news should convince us all the more about the veracity of those letters. I’m not here to defend Gordon’s behaviour – then or last night. He treated you a little shabbily, shall we say – I fear he took advantage of your naïvety, as so many men do with young girls.’ Lady Helen shrugs lightly. ‘They are simply men, after all.’ She sighs and contrives a look of apology. ‘But I digress. Mrs Ellison, I have come to speak to you woman to woman. I think I understand you in a way Gordon never will and so I have come up with a proposition for you, one which I hope will prove … well, beneficial to us both.’ She folds her gloved hands together and Gwen catches a drift of her fragrance, an artifice of floral scents too exotic for this land. ‘I think we all know the truth of Tom’s paternity, let us not pretend otherwise now.’

She draws closer to the hedge. Gwen studies the fine line of her jaw, the perfect cut of her clothes, her neat chignon, jealously aware of how shabby she must look in comparison, in her shit-stained trousers and mud-covered boots with their broken laces. She longs to tear Helen Allingham’s eyes out so she can no longer watch Tom as he races happily across the field, Kip yapping at his side.

‘I always think back on those Jewish women in Germany,’ Lady Helen begins softly, ‘the ones who put their children on ships and sent them over here before the war. The Kindertransport – I think that’s what they called it. You know, I’m struck by what courage, what love … what selfless devotion … that took. Of course, at the time some thought they were being rather heartless and reckless, but now we realise how sensible they were to see which way the wind was blowing. Their selfless sacrifice saved their children’s lives, provided them with a future that they would otherwise have been denied. I suppose one might also think of those mothers here who had their children evacuated from the cities. What greater demonstration of love is there, than what a mother is prepared to do in the best interests of her child?’ She holds Gwen’s gaze.

‘Mrs Ellison, I am here today to appeal to you to do the same for your child. I am asking you to put his life and happiness – his future – before your own. I am asking you to give Tom up, to give him to Gordon and myself.’