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first, stripping to bodice and petticoat and rooting out a sponge and towel from our baggage. Imogen slowly unlaced her boots, walked over to the window in stockinged feet and looked out for a while then came to sit on the side of the bed.
    â€˜These must be the sheets she slept in. She didn’t have time to change them.’
    â€˜I’m tired enough to sleep in anybody’s sheets, aren’t you?’
    â€˜It smells of her.’
    It was true the bed did smell, although not unpleasantly. There was the faint candlewax smell of dried sweat, of new hay and something less easily definable, rather salt and sealike. When I put my hand on the mattress I felt her warmth still hoarded in the feathers.
    Imogen said, ‘How old do you think she is?’
    â€˜Thirties? Forty even.’
    â€˜Quite old. Who is she?’
    â€˜Cook-housekeeper, I suppose.’
    â€˜Do cook-housekeepers usually walk around like that?’
    Midge said, tactless but muffled as she was putting on her nightdress, ‘Do people usually open fire on their guests? Anyway, she seems to think he was imagining killing anybody.’
    Imogen said, ‘Were those boys back in town imagining it too? You heard what they were shouting.’
    Midge didn’t answer. Under her nightdress she was unbuttoning her bodice and petticoat. It was odd how bashful we were about getting undressed in front of each other.
    Imogen insisted, ‘You heard them, didn’t you Nell?’
    â€˜Yes. Why don’t you get washed and get into bed? You’re too tired to think about anything. Tomorrow you’ll be on your way to your aunt’s and…’
    â€˜I’m not going. I’m staying here. I don’t care what you two are doing, but I’m staying.’
    Midge and I stared at each other. A few days ago she’d been fussing about chaperones, now this. Imogen was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the bed, hands clenched together and pressed against her thighs. She’d started shivering though it wasn’t a cold night. Delayed shock.
    I said, ‘Just get into bed and get warm for goodness’ sake. We’ll discuss it in the morning.’
    â€˜There’s nothing to discuss. I’m not going and leaving him here – after what’s happened.’
    â€˜Him being Kit?’
    I thought, ‘oh dear, wounded warrior’. The sight of Kit, brave and suffering, must have tipped the balance towards him after all. If so, what had been a bad day for Alan had just become a lot worse.
    â€˜No. Of course I’m sorry for poor Kit, but I mean Alan. I thought he was dead. I heard that mad old man firing his gun and saw Alan go down and I thought he was dead.’
    She’d started crying, tears running down her cheeks and glinting in the candlelight. Midge kicked away the underwear from round her feet, sat beside Imogen and put an arm round her.
    â€˜He’s all right, you saw that. It didn’t touch him.’
    â€˜It isn’t that. When I thought he was dead I … you can’t imagine. It was like someone reaching inside my chest and putting a hand round my heart and crushing it.’
    Midge went on making comforting noises. ‘Yes, but it’s all right now. It was a terrible shock but it’s all right…’
    Imogen pulled away from her. ‘No, it’s not all right. When I thought Alan was dead I realised I love him. I really love him.’
    Then she leaned against Midge and sobbed as if she’d been overtaken by some great catastrophe, which she probably had. Ironic, I thought, that Kit was the one who’d had the unlucky day and Alan, if he only knew it, would be thanking his trigger-happy uncle. We got Imogen to lie down at last in the warm dip in the middle of the mattress with Midge and I on either side, both trying not to slide down on top of her. It was a long time before we got to sleep and by then we’d acknowledged that we’d