‘Not coming? What are you talking about?’ Her mum parroted her own disbelief.

‘He’s not coming, Heather. He left a message with the vicar. The cowardly little shit.’ He spoke through gritted teeth. ‘Wait till I get hold of him!’

Her mum rushed to where Merrin sat in the middle of the room, and she, too, dropped low in front of her, and smoothed her hair from her face. ‘Merry, my little darlin’, what’s happening?’

‘I . . . d-don’t know.’ She spoke the truth. The voices in the room seemed to echo as debate and questions flew back and forth. ‘I don’t know anything . . . I don’t know what’s happening.’

‘It’s a bloody disgrace is what it is! Them Mortimers are more trouble than they are worth, always were, always will be!’ Merrin’s gran shouted, loud enough to show that she didn’t care who heard. ‘There are ways to stop things. There are ways! But to let you come to the bloody church? Wicked is what it is! Wicked!’

‘Not now, Mother!’ Ben quieted his mum and the room fell silent, eerily so.

After such an upset, an event so surprising and curious, Merrin might have assumed that tempers would fray, questions would be fired thick and furious and that each one of them there would try to verbally work out just how they had arrived at this point? But no, her dad stood with one arm across his waist and the other hand up over his mouth and chin, as if holding himself together, her gran cooed, as if Merrin might be sleeping, and her mum, with the tip of her tongue resting on her lower lip, shook her head repeatedly in short, sharp movements, as if trying to clear a fog. But all were quiet, as were she and the Reverend Pimm, who darted in and out of the room. Once or twice he placed his hand on Merrin’s shoulder and pressed down, as if he wished to transfer some of his strength, his calm belief, to get her through the day. She wished it too.

They stayed this way for some minutes – how many she couldn’t be sure, five, ten, thirty? Everything, including her grasp on time, was skewed. Waves of nausea flickered in her gut and she had to remind herself to take a breath, to stay present. Her thoughts were watery and once or twice she forgot where she was. It was only the sight of the frock bunched up on her lap and the flowers in her hand that reminded her, and the realisation gave her a start, as if she had hit the floor.

‘Jarvis’s brought the cart round,’ Ben whispered to his wife.