The letters gave Mrs Stephens no clear indication as to whether or not her son had ever had what she would have called une affaire à outrance with the beautiful Lady Lilburn; all she knew was that the woman who had written so often and so tenderly to her son had cared for him and more than that had known him, for though she saw only one side of the correspondence, it reflected the son she knew and not a stranger. Neither woman was particularly disposed towards intimate confidences, but they had in common their concern to keep his memory alive. Mrs Stephens saw no point in struggling to maintain an estate without an heir; after the War she sold it to a school and took a lease on the dower house of the Lilburn estate. Over the years she and Olivia developed the kind of relationship they might have had had they been mother and daughter-in-law, sometimes critical, occasionally exasperated, generally affectionate.

‘Old Mrs Stephens is a terrific asset,’ Bob Lilburn said. ‘She’s so sharp she makes me yell with laugher.’