‘How was she?’ asked Mrs O’Keefe when Joan reached the kitchen.

Cat was sitting at the table pushing the egg and bacon Deidra had cooked around the plate. The persistent tick of the clock on the mantle shelf above the range had filled the unusually long silences of the morning as the radio had remained switched off. Nothing felt appropriate. Everything seemed trivial.

‘She’s mad with the grief,’ said Joan, ‘but she hasn’t cried yet. For a minute she scared the life out of me – she thought he was still alive.’

‘I can’t eat this, Deidra, queen,’ said Cat. ‘I’ve got no appetite.’

‘None of us have,’ said Mrs O’Keefe, ‘but just try and eat a bit, Cat. It’s going to be a difficult day and it’s a long bus ride back home for you.’

The doorbell rang and as Deidra went to answer it, she panicked at the sight of Mary Kate making her way down the stairs, looking pale and grasping the bannister to support herself. ‘Mrs O’Keefe!’ she shouted, and Cat and Mrs O’Keefe came thundering into the hall.

‘Oh, goodness me, come here.’ Mrs O’Keefe took Mary Kate’s arm. ‘Let’s get you into the sitting room.’

But Mary Kate was looking past her, to Deidra, who was holding the door open for William.

‘William, thank goodness you came,’ she said. ‘There are things to do for Nicholas. We have to arrange his funeral. I have to go back to the house. She can’t just tell me to go – I live there. I must stand up to her for the boys’ sake, and they need to be told. I can’t just leave things as they are – there are things we must do, for Nicholas, and it’s my home, it’s where I live.’

William removed his hat and held it between his hands. He looked first to Mrs O’Keefe, his eyes pleading for help, his words coming out in a stammer. ‘I’m sorry, Mary Kate… I’m sorry, but… Nicholas has already gone.’

‘Gone? Gone where?’ Mary Kate’s voice was high-pitched and urgent. She shook off Mrs O’Keefe’s hand and stood in front of William. ‘How can he have gone anywhere?’ She gripped his arm, as much to steady herself as to implore him for an answer.

Two housemaids walked past the bottom of the steps, pushing prams, and looked up and into the hallway. The news had already spread, via the milkman, who’d heard it from Mrs O’Keefe when she’d startled him by greeting him at six that morning.

William placed one of his hands over Mary Kate’s and looked at her with such deep sympathy and care, it almost undid her. She blinked back the tears. ‘Gone where, William?’

‘I’m so sorry, Mary Kate. An undertaker collected him from the hospital in the early hours this morning. Lavinia wasted no time – she’s taken him to Surrey. He is to be buried in the churchyard of her parents’ village. I have a message from Lavinia, too. Shall we sit down? You look washed-out.’