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children there had been a full-time staff employed at Leyville: a butler, two footmen, a gardener, a cook, an upstairs girl, a downstairs girl and an in-between. And of course Margaret herself who looked after the children and supervised the girls. She had always rubbed along quite well with the butler, who managed the gardener, and the footmen, who came and went like the seasons.
    But times had changed. After Ann Montignac’s death six years earlier, Peter had let half of them go.
    â€˜We don’t need all these people hovering around,’ he had insisted. ‘I can look after myself, and Stella and Owen aren’t children any more either. Let them take care of themselves for a change. You can stop nannying them too, Margaret.’
    Now there was just a part-time cook, one girl and no butler or footmen at all, and a couple of local girls who came in to clean and dust every day. Her own role was unspecified. She lived in hope that either Stella or Owen would marry and stay on at Leyville as she would then be the natural choice for nanny when the time came for them to have children. After all, she reasoned, she had only just turned sixty and had a lot left to offer yet. But there didn’t seem to be any sign of that happening. Stella had been seeing Raymond Davis for over a year and they had declared an engagement a few months earlier but there seemed no sign of them allowing that engagement to develop into a marriage. She suspected it would be one of those long-drawn-out affairs, beloved by the young these days, ending not in the purchase of a hat but in a separation. While Owen’s private life, of course, was a complete mystery to her. And so she just ran the household as best she could in the meantime. For the funeral she had hired a group of girls and young men from the local village and both Stella and Owen had seemed content for her to do so.
    â€˜You might want to check on the guests,’ she stated firmly as she saw three of her charges standing in a corner of the kitchen, chatting to each other and smoking cigarettes. ‘Rather than standing around in here.’ They stared at her and frowned, slowly putting their cigarettes out, and walked back out towards the groups of mourners. Margaret was relieved. The last thing she wanted was an argument. Not on a day like this. But girls had to be watched, there were no two ways about that. She’d taken her eyes off one once and look at all the trouble that had caused.
    She stepped out into the hallway again and considered joining the group in the drawing room but knew that she would only feel out of place among the gentry. She felt misplaced, the unwelcome drawing room to her left, the hostile kitchen to her right, and so stood perfectly still instead, wringing her hands nervously.
    She tried not to think of Peter Montignac because if she did she would only think of Ann, who had not just been her employer but had been her best friend as well, and if she thought of Ann she would think of Andrew, who she had loved as if he was her own. There was too much death there, she thought, and she didn’t want their pictures in her mind any more. To summon them up would only produce tears and she wanted no more tears until the guests had left. Instead she walked upstairs and paused outside the door of Owen’s room, leaning closer in to hear whether he was inside or not. She had seen him come through the front door a little earlier but he had gone straight upstairs, taking the steps two at a time as he went, and no one had laid eyes on him since. She tapped lightly on his door.
    â€˜Owen,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Owen, are you in there?’
    There was no answer.
    â€˜Owen? Are you all right?’
    A muffled sound, a cough from within. Then the word drifting out quietly, like a trail of smoke through the keyhole: ‘Fine.’
    â€˜Do you want to come downstairs?’ she asked. ‘The guests…’ She trailed off,