She resents having to bend and pick it up, having to pack her sister tidily away yet again. Without looking at the shade, she marches to her studio and opens the book of duplicates. A musty perfume rises from the pages. It always falls open at the same place, but she will not put Constance’s shadow on this page beside him. If that is petty of her – well, she does not care.

Agnes flips to the very back of the book, pushes Constance in and slams it shut.

It all started with her birthday: that was the first thing Constance took. She arrived exactly five years from the day Agnes entered the world, and she did not even soften the blow by being the little boy Mamma had promised.

Constance was not a winsome infant; she was born with the colic. In those first weeks she was not so much a baby as a pink, shrieking ball of rage.

Agnes remembers sitting on the stairs with her hands pressed over her ears, hoping Papa would take Constance away when he boarded his next ship.

The grandfather clock pings the quarter hour. Agnes swallows down her memories. She will be late for morning prayers at the abbey.

Downstairs, Mamma is reading an old Herald before a fire that scratches and ticks. More coal is gone, but Agnes cannot really blame her mother for using it today. The temperature has shifted palpably; it is as if the air has whetted its teeth overnight.

Cedric crouches by the side table, idly spinning the top Agnes bought him from the toyshop in Morford Street.

She smiles at him. ‘Would you care to accompany me, dear?’

‘Where?’

‘Church.’

He pulls a face.

Cedric means no harm, but it hurts her to be spurned like this. Everything is much more cheerful when he is with her.

‘Do come,’ she wheedles. ‘Say a prayer, for your Mamma in Heaven?’

The top falls over. Cedric’s green eyes meet hers.

‘Is that where she is?’

Agnes bites her tongue. She is reminded of the phrase the pawnbroker used, when she tried to get a better price for Captain Darken’s medals. Not bloody likely.

‘Yes, of course it is. We have discussed this, Cedric. Listen, dear, if you come along to church with me, perhaps I will take you for a bun at Sally Lunn’s afterwards. What do you say to that?’

‘I’d rather stay here and read.’

‘But we can read together after—’

‘Let the boy alone.’ Mamma wets her finger and turns the page of her newspaper. ‘He’s well enough here with me.’