There being no sign of any ducks, Osbert sat down on the bank to listen. He threw his apple core into the river and watched it bob along in the current until to his surprise a gentle splash over by the opposite bank was followed by the appearance of a small brown bead. A water vole, nose well up, had set off at a good speed towards the apple core, leaving a widening ‘V’ in the water behind it. A short-sighted animal, it failed to notice Osbert motionless on the bank, and swimming strongly grabbed the apple core firmly in its mouth, swam back to the side and disappeared among the reeds. Osbert stood up and began to walk slowly along the path. There had still been no sight or sound of ducks.

Peaks of whipped cream shot through with pale chestnut purée.

‘Ireland,’ said Ida. ‘Oh dear.’

‘Ulster will fight. Ulster will be right,’ said Charles Farquhar.

‘I don’t think the Conservatives should start the fight though, do you?’

‘I don’t see why not. Nothing to be gained by shilly-shallying. Show of force is what’s needed. Whiff of grapeshot and all that. Carson’s the man for me. Fantastic brain you know, that chap.’

‘I think he lacks subtlety as a politician.’

‘Subtlety’s all very well in its place. You need a sledgehammer too at times. Subtlety’s more for private life I’d say. The boudoir, what? I’m all for sublety in the boudoir.’

Looking down the table towards him, Aline Hartlip thought, how could I?

‘It’s very worrying, Ireland,’ said Ida, looking responsible.

How could I want him so, Aline thought, with his little eyes and his moustache so much greyer than his hair (his hair neatly smoothed, parted just left of centre, turning up a little above each temple with a suggestion of a curl), his coarse stubby hands, how could I? But I must be in love with him, otherwise why should I mind so when he eyes Cicely, pushes up against her going through a gate – I saw him yesterday when she came out with the guns in the afternoon – why should I have written him those silly letters when I thought Maisie Arlington was after him? I wish I didn’t write so many letters.

‘I abase myself, I lie at your feet and hope you will walk on me. Don’t you see, dearest Charles, there is no one, no one on earth, who will crawl to you as I do …’

She had written that to him. She, Aline, so controlled and perfect in her person, so meticulously spiteful in her conversation, had written that to Charles, who was stupid and self-satisfied and a little brutal. The arbitrariness of love never ceased to surprise her, nor the cruel dictatorship of desire to constitute a large part of its fascination for her. She was a slave to passion. For some reason this seemed to her a justification for her existence.

‘The Land Acts,’ said Ida, ‘could work. Not here though, of course. I don’t mean such a thing would be suitable here. But peasant proprietors, in Ireland, that could be right, don’t you think?’