‘Surely they won’t put her into an orphanage?’ Livvy was horrified at the thought.

‘Between you and me, I think they’d have a fight on their hands with Edith if they tried to,’ Kathy confided. ‘She’s intim­ated that she wants to officially adopt her, but I have no idea if that would be allowed.’

They went on to speak of what they had both been up to as they waited for their mother to arrive, which she undoubtedly would as soon as Giles told her that Livvy was home.

Overnight the snow turned to rain and they woke the next day to find the sky dark and heavy. It was now also treacherously slippery underfoot but when Livvy suggested to her mother over breakfast that it might be better if she stayed at home to avoid any nasty falls, Sunday almost snapped her head off.

‘I’m not quite decrepit yet, young lady!’

‘I wasn’t suggesting that you were,’ Livvy assured her hurriedly. ‘But funerals are never nice things and I thought you might prefer to stay in the warm.’

‘Then you thought wrong.’ Sunday began to plaster marmalade onto her toast as Livvy raised her eyebrow at Kathy across the table. She had certainly made a mess of that! However, by the time the meal was over Sunday was back to her usual good-natured self, and after glancing at the clock she told them, ‘You’d best get the children up to Treetops to Cissie, girls. The funeral is in two hours’ time and we have to get ready and get there yet.’

Unlike Sunday, Cissie was not keen to risk a fall on the icy paths, so she had volunteered to stay behind to take care of the twins and Peggy while the rest of them attended the service, as they had all agreed that the children were too young to see such things. And so, just over an hour later, with Cissie entertaining the children in the vast, warm kitchen at Treetops, Sunday, Kathy and Livvy waited on the doorstep for the hearse that would transport Bobby’s body to the church to arrive.

It was a solemn procession that wended its way to Mancetter Church following little Bobby on his final journey. John had insisted that the child should have the finest mahogany coffin that money could buy but, because Bobby was so small, it had had to be especially made and it was heartbreaking to see it and remember the child who lay inside whose young life had been cut short so abruptly. Edith was inconsolable and wept all the way through the service, but then so did most everybody else.

Eventually Bobby was laid to rest beneath the shelter of a yew tree in the churchyard. The last rites were read by a solemn-faced vicar and the sad procession made its way back to Treetops.