John suddenly scowled as if he had been struck by a pang of pain. He crossed the yard and took her hand. ‘Go and sit with Mary Ashmole,’ he ordered.

‘Why?’

‘I’m just going to have a look round, that’s all.’

‘You’re going to the lake,’ she said flatly.

‘Yes, I am. I’m going to check that the boat is tied up and the oars stowed and then we will know that he rowed ashore and met with some mischance, or changed his mind about coming home.’

‘I’ll come too,’ she said.

John recognised the impossibility of ordering Hester indoors, started to walk towards the avenue, Hester at his side.

Even in autumn the orchard was too lush for the lake to be seen from the main avenue. Hester and John had to turn away from the chestnut trees to the path that ran westwards before they could see the unruffled pewter surface of the water.

It was very quiet. The birds were singing. At the sound of their footsteps a heron rose up from the water’s edge and flapped away with its ungainly legs trailing and its long neck working like a pump handle with each arduous wingbeat. The surface was like a mirror, reflecting the blue sky, untroubled by any movement except the speckling of flies and the occasional plop of a rising fish. The boat floated in the middle of the lake, the oars shipped, its painter trailing in the water tying it to the reflected boat bobbing below.

For a moment Hester thought that Johnnie had fallen asleep in the bottom of the boat, had curled his long legs up inside the little rowing boat and that when they called out his name he would sit up, rub his eyes, and laugh at his folly. But the boat was empty.

John paused for a moment and walked out along the little landing stage and looked down into the water. He could see green weed and the gleam of a brown trout but nothing else. He turned and walked steadily back to the house.

‘What are you thinking? What are you doing?’ Hester tore her gaze away from the still boat and the peaceful water and went after him. ‘Where are you going, John?’

‘I’m going to get a boat hook and pull the boat in,’ he said, without slackening his trudge. ‘Then I’m going to get a pole and feel for the bottom of the lake. Then I may have to get a net, and then I may have to drain the lake.’

‘But why?’ she exclaimed. ‘Why? What are you saying?’

He did not slow, nor turn his head. ‘Hester, you know why.’

‘I don’t,’ she insisted.

‘Wait for me at the house,’ he said. ‘Go and sit with Mary Ashmole. I will come and tell you as soon as I know.’

‘Know what?’ she insisted. ‘Tell me what?’