The lodgekeeper’s wife and six-year-old daughter came out to open the gates for the car. The little girl struggled to push back the heavy wrought-iron gate, then stood flushed and self-important beside it. Minnie wound down her window and put her face close to the opening to say ‘You’re a great help to your mother, aren’t you Lily? Well done!’

Lily went even redder in the face but managed a bobbed curtsey and a breathy, ‘Yes, m’lady.’

‘Dear little thing,’ said Minnie leaning back in her seat and winding up the window. ‘Such a pretty face. I do hope she doesn’t take after poor Jessie.’

‘What happened to poor Jessie?’

‘Babies happened to poor Jessie. Babies and babies and babies. So naughty. She was the elder sister.’

‘Married?’

‘Oh dear me no. She wasn’t old enough to be married. And then they got her a job in service somewhere near Gloucester. I gave her a wonderful reference but it was no good; it happened all over again – the son of the house I believe. Too dreadful – I don’t quite know what happened after that, her parents washed their hands of her. I must ask her mother some time if she ever hears from her. I’d like to send her something, poor silly creature.’

‘She sounds worse than silly,’ said Ida.

‘She was very naughty, yes. But such a dear little thing you know, to meet, you wouldn’t have believed it really.’

‘Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth, I know,’ said Ida.

Minnie sighed. Ida was right, of course, but there was no need to be unpleasant about it. Feeling in the capacious pocket of her long full tweed skirt she abstracted a tiny leather note-pad with silver corners and a silver propelling pencil and in writing which was rather hard to read because of the movement of the car wrote ‘Jessie (ask Mrs C. about)’.

The Daimler proceeded with due dignity towards the river. As they approached the bridge, and the stile beside which they had seen Violet with Nanny that morning, Minnie asked, ‘Did they find the duck?’ ‘I suppose so,’ said Ida. ‘I expect we should have heard if they hadn’t.’

After the bridge, after the shallow rapids, after the quiet pool, the river ran in a series of bends before straightening out into the wider stretch which flowed past the boat-house. The bends had high banks with miniature cliffs of reddish earth, in places overgrown with thick stubby bushes and in places merging with a tangle of reeds and kingcups. Here and there a break in the bank allowed for a steep descent onto a foot or so of greyish sand, but mostly it was impossible to walk immediately beside the water. From the bank one could not see all of the river’s edge below; the occasional loud splash which was probably a fish just could have been a duck which had dashed to take shelter in the reeds and remained there in concealment. To be quite sure it was better to walk along in the river. Osbert had wellington boots on and was wading slowly through the water with Ellen on the bank above him. Round each bend as they came to it something splashed – fish, moorhens, water voles – each time it might have been the duck. A wagtail flew ahead of them, stopping every now and then to perch on a stick or stone, bobbing its tail before flying off again low over the water with a sharp chinking call. Two dark rather stout little dippers flew away downriver. Once a kingfisher flashed ahead of them but Osbert did not see it; he was looking over towards the other bank, where a movement in the reeds turned out to be only another pair of moorhens.