I went to the playroom where I perused the shelves of books, dolls and wind-up toys. Light was fading and shadows stretched across the shingle. With each item I picked up, I felt the negative space of William, as if for every object that had belonged to him and been removed, the air was occupied with only its absence. I recalled the conversations I had begun that had not brought more knowledge of him. Yet I could not imagine what mystery might be contained in such reticence.

My elder brother, lost now in the distance of time, I remembered only as a ringing voice and pair of clumsy boots that swaggered through the rooms of Swan House before a fever took him at seven years. At times it did not seem possible that they had all gone, leaving only myself. I recalled the nights at the MacAllisters’ home in Circus Gardens after Clara had died, the sound of the blackbird on the ivy, how each breath cut my heart like a knife.

The picture I had drawn that morning of Mary lay on her table. It was instantly clear that it had been altered. Behind the portrait of herself, Mary had added two additional figures – a woman with a thin face and a boy. They stood just at her back as if they could have reached out a hand to touch her shoulder. I knew who they were – who they must be – by their dress. As before, they bore no faces. In my mind, I sketched them in: Willam with his soft cheek, and Hettie, her eyes dark and thickly lashed. Again, something distasteful plucked at my belly. I placed it down and then, still dissatisfied, turned it over so that I did not have to look at it again.

When I left the playroom, Greer was coming up the hall again to light the lamps. I stiffened and uttered a pleasantry, but in spite of my efforts she passed me by in tight silence.

The wicks in the lamps hissed and glowed from behind the glasses and in determination, I followed until she reached my room where she began to clean the grate. Sitting at the dressing table, I pretended to study my reflection although it was her that I watched. I began to unpin my hair which was already half out of its moorings.

‘It’s cold out again,’ I said.

She gave a nod and stood. Her lids were heavy with discontent.

‘It’s strange.’ I laid the pins upon the table where the thin sound of them punctuated the air. ‘It’s my experience that people remember those they loved by keeping their things within easy remembrance.’

She picked up her bucket. ‘It’s not for me to say.’

‘What was William like?’

An expression I could not read slid over her features and for the first time, she looked a little afraid.

‘He was … He was very like Mary,’ she uttered finally.