When May reached the bay, she was a little surprised to see that it was nearly empty. As there had been no sign of Ella and Alicky on any of Osborne’s lawns, she had supposed she would find them here with her brothers, but there were only two people in sight. One of them was Alicky, who was sitting in a huddle, crying; the other was their twenty-year-old German cousin Willy, who was squatting on his haunches, facing her.

Willy had a reputation for being a bully and, assuming him to be the cause of Alicky’s distress, May burst into an urgent sprint. It wasn’t until she was almost on top of them that she realized that, far from being unkind to Alicky, Willy was trying to comfort her.

‘Your mama is in heaven with the angels,’ he was saying as May floundered to a halt beside them. ‘She’s looking down on you and wants you to be happy, not sad.’

‘But it was my fault she died.’ Tears flooded Alicky’s cheeks. ‘Mine and Vicky’s and Irène’s and even Ernie’s.’

‘Of course it wasn’t!’ Appalled that Alicky should think such a thing, and wondering why Alicky hadn’t also thought Ella responsible for their mother’s death, May dropped to her knees on the sand and put an arm around her. ‘Darling Alicky, how on earth could your brother and sisters have been responsible for your dear mama’s death?’

Alicky’s face was ashen. ‘Because if she hadn’t nursed us when we had the diphtheria, she wouldn’t have caught it and wouldn’t have died.’

She hiccupped, the tears still falling.

Willy, whose mother was Alicky’s aunt and who knew all the details of his aunt’s death – and was aware that May clearly didn’t – said to May, ‘Just before Christmas, Vicky fell ill with diphtheria, and then Alicky, Marie, Irène and Ernest soon followed. Ella was spared, because she was staying with relatives. Despite the doctors’ and Aunt Alice’s nursing care, Marie couldn’t be saved, and then Aunt Alice caught it and died – and the way she died . . .’

He left the rest of his sentence unsaid, and May understood why. When someone died from diphtheria, they choked to death. Did Alicky know that was how her mother had died? If she did – even worse, if she had been nearby at the time – it was no wonder she was still so grief-stricken at the horror of it.