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needs whipping. Using the name he used to be called.”
    “How would he know the name?”
    But Peterson was not to be deflected from her position into answering such questions. “He’ll not come over,” she said. “Mr Stephen’s written a letter that will keep him in Paris for good.”
    That seemed to me a comparatively enviable fate. At the same time Peterson seemed aware that she had perhaps said too much to me, for now she clasped me by the arms and spoke urgently, with her face close to mine. Under the dim daylight lamps she looked like one of the witches in Macbeth.
    “You’ll say nothing of this to my lady.” It was an order, not a request, and she was not saying My Lady, but asserting proprietorial rights over Lady W. “He is to send a letter saying it will be impossible for him to come.”
    “Who is?”
    “The joker.” And with that Peterson picked up her bundle, nodded to me, and disappeared round a corner, bound for a cupboard or storeroom.
    I walked down the staircase, through the big hall and out on to the gravelled courtyard in front of the house. Inside the hall it was dark and cool, outside it was bright, and it was brightness I needed at that moment. Old Thorne was laboriously clipping a hedge – although he had twenty different duties inside the house he was always likely to stray outside and work in the garden on a fine day – and I stopped to talk to him. He said nothing about the letter, so I did not mention it. I walked down a small alley lined by privet on either side, which led to a little gazebo. There I sat contemplating the idea that the letter might be a hoax, and thinking about Lady W, until the sound of a car in the drive announced that Uncle Stephen had come home. I got up then and made my way to the stream. There was an uneasy feeling in my stomach, like that one has before an examination or an important interview, and I associated this with my concern that a trick was being played, in one way or another, on
Lady W. I could not realise how completely the letter was to change all our lives.
    I heard more of the letter, and what had been done about it, at dinner that night. Uncle Stephen greeted me with his customary cold handshake, Aunt Clarissa gave me her rough cheek to kiss, Uncle Miles congratulated me effusively on getting the scholarship, but nothing was said about the letter until the pudding was finished and Thorne was out of the way. Lady W no longer came down to dinner, and although Stephen had not taken her place at the end of the table there was a distinct change in his attitude, not to me particularly but in the way that he did such things as ringing the bell or pouring out the wine. He had always done these things deferentially, now he did them as of right. He took the decanter of port from the sideboard, poured some into Clarissa’s glass and then into his own, and said: “No answer. It seems to have done the trick.”
    Miles twiddled his glass. “I wouldn’t be too sure.”
    “It needed a little firmness, that’s all.”
    “And the money,” Miles said.
    “If you ask me the money was a mistake.” Clarissa drank half her glass and thumped it back on the table, as she always did. “A great mistake.”
    The decanter had come round to me. It had been established twelve months ago that I might have the ration of one glass, no more, no less. I poured it now, and looked at the red liquid. I felt Stephen staring at me.
    “You don’t know what we’re talking about, do you? Or has she shown you the letter?”
    “I’ve seen it,” I said. “And I’ve talked to Peterson. I know you’ve written to – to the man. But I don’t know about any money.”
    I felt hostility in the way they looked at me, even Miles with whom I had always been friendly, and I could understand something of what they must be feeling. Stephen and Miles were Wainwrights, and Clarissa was one by marriage. I was an interloper, brought here for no better reason than the whim of an old woman.