I broke off from the path and headed to the far side of the church. Our Marcham family mausoleum was Grecian in design, a mini-pantheon. Truth be told, it was far too grand for the size of the graveyard, towering disproportionately over the humble headstones that surrounded it. Its stone walls were weathered, blackened by rain and frost, and the paint was beginning to flake from the wrought iron gates that barred the door. I had seen those gates opened twice in my life: once when I was eight to witness my grandfather being laid to rest, and two years later, when poor Lydia had been entombed.

It had been built for my grandmother. I had never known her, but a magnificent portrait hung pride of place on the staircase and as a child I had been quite captivated by her magical radiance. Thinking of her now, it struck me how tragedy had stalked my family. She too had died well before her time, when my father was still a boy. My grandfather would never speak of her accident, but I remember the yearning sadness that dulled his eyes on those rare occasions her name was mentioned and how his grip would slacken on his ever-present Dublin pipe as she entered his thoughts. I never quizzed him, but I did summon the courage to ask my father about her, late one evening when he had come up to the nursery to bid me goodnight.

A keen horsewoman, she had been thrilled when my grandfather had presented her with a new hunter, but tragedy had struck on their very first outing. Skittish in unfamiliar countryside, the horse bolted and in a moment of madness, before my grandmother could regain its head, it took on an impossible fence. They tumbled to the ground together in a horrifying mêlée of flailing limbs and terrifying screams as my grandfather looked helplessly on. He carried her back to the hall as grooms tried to catch the traumatised horse, still stumbling about the field. In her last agony-laden hours, my grandmother made him promise not to punish the animal, a promise that was forgotten as the final breath slipped from her parted lips.

My father vividly recalled the harrowing cry that had sounded through the house, a feral keen of mourning. He remembered too the rage and the fury; my grandfather rampaging through the Hall, retrieving his shotgun from the gun room and his ominous journey to the stable block. My father had raced after him, fearful of the impending catastrophe, as the grooms cowered from my grandfather’s path. Only Jim Burrows, then little more than a boy himself, had stood his ground, blockading the horse’s stall.