He stayed at Nettleby with Violet and Nanny while Cicely and Marcus went with their parents to Paris, where their father was en poste. The borderline between dream and what he understood was to be taken as Real Life became clearer to him. His dreams became less overpowering.

Thus the dark lake and the foxes’ footprints in the snow between the trees were not frightening although they were important. They required of him an effort which he knew he was capable of making. Somewhere on the black water or in the reeds which bordered it his duck was sleeping, her greyish-green beak tucked so far under her speckled feathers that the tip of it showed behind the wing: the footprints in the snow showed that she was in danger, but he did not doubt that he would find her in time to save her. In his dream he began to walk slowly round the lake, searching as he went. His bare feet (for he was in his pyjamas) made no mark on the snow. I am lighter than the foxes he thought, therefore I have power over them, and even when he heard the sound of running feet he was not afraid. They were running too fast to be stalking one little duck, they must be after something else – but as he turned to look at them he saw they were not foxes but a pack of wolves, snarling and shouting ‘Stop, oh stop, you beast, and as he stood aside to let them pass one of them noisily opened his bedroom door and holding it half open inserted a soda water syphon round it and spurted a hissing jet of soda water into the room.

‘Tommy, you half-wit, that’s Osbert’s room, of course there’s no one in there. Go away.’

‘Gosh, sorry.’

‘What’s that?’ Osbert was sitting up in bed.

‘Go away, Tommy.’ Cicely rustled over to kneel beside the bed, putting her arms round her brother. ‘It’s all right, we’re only playing hide-and-seek. Poor Osbert, did it give you a frightful shock?’

‘I knew it was you playing hide-and-seek,’ he said, which was true because in his dream he had known. ‘Did Granny let you?’

‘Hush. She’s playing bridge. Go to sleep.’

Tibor Rakassyi, scornful of these childish English games, looked in and saw in the light from the landing the kneeling figure clasping the child and heard the reassuring whisper followed by muffled laughter and thought, really she is very endearing, perhaps I should let myself become a little interested.

When he had finished his work, John the footman went down to the boiler room to see if Mr Stephens’s boots had dried. At least that would have been his excuse if anyone had happened to ask him what he was doing down there; in fact he knew from experience that Mr Stephens’s boots would be drying quite satisfactorily (they had not even been very wet) and that it was not necessary for him to clean them and put them out by the gun room until early next morning. He liked the boiler room. It was warm and private. He liked the roar of the big furnace; even the acrid smell of coke fumes did not strike him as unpleasant. When Ellen wrote him a note it was usually in the boiler room that he read it. This time it was not a note from Ellen that he wanted to read, but the letter which he had found discarded in Lionel Stephens’s waste-paper basket and which he had put into his pocket for later perusal. It was torn in half and crumpled but quite easy to piece together.