The telegram arrived a week later and by that time Rose and the others knew from the news reports that nineteen thousand men had died on the first day of the Somme campaign, and a further fifty thousand been injured.

At Highfield they’d all been frantic with worry, and but for the twins Rose feared Arabella would have made herself ill. As it was, her mother-in-law practically lived in the nursery, taking comfort from the fact that as Alexander’s sons grew they looked more like their father every day. The babies were identical in appearance but were developing distinct personalities of their own. William was a demanding, determined and impatient little person, whereas James was a far more placid individual, always smiling and ready for a cuddle.

Rose stared at the telegram which the maid had just put in front of her plate in the breakfast room. Arabella’s fingers were clutching her throat and William was perfectly still; even Betsy had frozen, her hand halfway to her mouth.

When she opened it the words danced in front of her eyes for a moment and then she raised her gaze, looking at the three faces watching her. ‘He’s injured,’ she said shakily, ‘but he’s coming home. He’s coming home.’

In the event it was some time before Alexander was to return home. The shell that had taken his right arm had also kindly left its handiwork in his chest with pieces of shrapnel. When he was shipped back to England it was to a hospital in the South where a surgeon who specialized in the intricate form of operation he needed was based.

He didn’t remember being brought over from France, but apparently, according to the other men in the ward, he’d been in a bad way.

‘Touch an’ go, it was, Major,’ Montgomery, a lieutenant in the next bed, told him when Alexander had returned to the land of the living. Montgomery, an Eton man, also took pleasure in informing him that they’d taken bets as to whether he would pull through or not, which Alexander thought was a strange introduction to his fellow patients, all of whom were – or had been – seriously ill. Most of them were minus at least one limb like him and a couple had lost both legs. Several had extensive burns, like Montgomery, and all had pieces of shrapnel lodged somewhere or other in their battered bodies.

‘It’s a common problem with you chaps, I’m afraid,’ his doctor, a middle-aged man with a stern face but a warm smile, had informed him. ‘But don’t worry about it. We’ll get the little beggars out of there sooner or later.’