But since she had begun, since she had become entangled in the subject, it was certainly better to continue. ‘I do not wish to distress you, Villana, nor anyone else. I am simply endeavouring to converse. Old women die in the night, you know.’

She did not know if she loved her grandchildren any more, and rather thought she did not, and had not for many years. She felt she had been damaged and considered that unfair, since she was, after all, only their grandmother, not their mother.

‘Send to Cork,’ she said, her tone peremptory, ‘for a man to come to value what there is. Accept any offer that is not a swindle.’

‘There is no need,’ John James began. ‘Really there is no need.’

‘Well yes, there is. As a matter of fact there is, you know.’ And she explained that the motor-car which the garage man had apparently earmarked for the family should be purchased. ‘You will not be made use of,’ she reassured the solicitor. ‘Villana has said you were not married for your possessions.’

She made that clear in case Villana had not said it herself to him, for Villana was often careless. In childhood it had been the same.

‘There is another thing, since we are talking on the subject and since in fact we have our own solicitor in the room. Provision must be made for that child.’

Again they did not like it. John James spoke, attempting to placate her, she supposed: she did not listen. ‘You are in charge now,’ his father used to say each time he went away to join the regiment, but John James wasn’t the sort to be in charge. John James, she’d often thought, should have been a travelling salesman.

‘The child,’ Villana began, but feeling it to be her privilege she interrupted her. She did not trust Villana in this matter. She did not trust John James. And Lionel would give in to pressure. The picnic was over, she thought; twilight was giving way to darkness. She liked the sound of that and wanted to repeat the observation aloud, but did not do so.

‘Wait please, Villana.’ She turned her look upon the solicitor, offering him a smile that once had upset the demeanours of younger men. ‘Finnamore, will you see that papers are drawn up?’

‘Concerning the estate, Mrs Rolleston? I can assure you I am proceeding with considerable alacrity. The law, unfortunately, cannot be pressed beyond its natural pace. But certainly advances are being made.’

‘I do not mean concerning the estate. If Villana has not told you yet she will tell you soon—there is no point whatsoever in your snatching back those forgotten acres.’

‘I do not seek to snatch, Mrs Rolleston. Only to regain what is rightly the family’s due.’

‘Will you see that papers are drawn up, Finnamore, that ensure provision is made for the gate-lodge child?’