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disappeared into the room—Lady Clementine first, Fanny close behind—and was put in mind of Mr Hamilton’s salver of cocktail glasses on which the brandy balloons and champagne flutes jostled for space. Mr Hamilton returned to the entrance hall and was straightening his cuffs—a gesture that was habit with him—when the Major and his wife arrived. She was a small, plump, brown-haired woman whose face, though kindly, bore the cruel etchings of grief. It is hindsight, of course, that makes me describe her thus, though even at the time I supposed her the victim of some misfortune. Myra may not have been prepared to divulge the mystery of the Major’s children, but my young imagination, fed as it was on Gothic novels, was a fertile place. Besides, the nuances of attraction between a man and a woman were foreign to me then and I reasoned only tragedy could account for such a tall, handsome man as the Major being married to so plain a woman. She must once have been lovely, I supposed, until some fiendish hardship befell them and seized from her whatever youth or beauty she had once possessed. The Major, even sterner than his portrait allowed, asked customarily after Mr Hamilton’s health, cast a proprietorial glance over the entrance hall, and led Jemima to the drawing room. As they disappeared behind the door I saw that his hand rested tenderly at the base of her spine, a gesture that somehow belied his severe physical bearing, and which I have never quite forgotten. My legs had grown stiff from crouching when finally Mr Frederick’s motor car crunched along the gravel of the driveway. Mr Hamilton glanced reprovingly at the hall clock then pulled open the front door.
    Mr Frederick was shorter than I expected, certainly not so tall as his brother, and I could make out no more of his features than the rim of a pair of glasses. For even when his hat was taken he did not raise his head. Merely ran his hand tentatively over the top to smooth his fair hair.
    Only when Mr Hamilton opened the drawing-room door and announced his arrival did Mr Frederick’s attention flicker from his purpose. His gaze skittered about the room, taking in the marble, the portraits, the home of his youth, before alighting finally on my balcony. And in the brief moment before he was swallowed by the noisy room, his face paled as if he’d seen a ghost. The week passed quickly. With so many extra people in the house I was kept busy making up rooms, carrying tea trays, laying out luncheons. This pleased me well as I was not shy of hard work—
    Mother had made sure of that. Besides, I longed for the weekend to arrive and with it the bank holiday play recital. For while the rest of the staff was focused on the midsummer dinner, all I could think of was the recital. I had barely seen the children since the adults arrived. The fog blew away as suddenly as it came, leaving in its place warm, clear skies, too beautiful to waste indoors. Each day, as I rounded the corridor toward the nursery, I held my breath hopefully, but the fine weather was to hold and they were not to use the room again that year. They took their noise and their mischief and their Game outside.
    And with them went the room’s enchantment. Stillness became emptiness and the small flame of pleasure I had nurtured was extinguished. I hurried my duties now, straightened the bookshelves without so much as a glance at their contents, no longer caught the horse’s eye; thought only of what they might be doing. And when I was finished, I didn’t linger, but moved on swiftly to complete my duties. Occasionally, when I was clearing the breakfast tray from a second-floor guestroom or disposing of the night-waters, a squeal of distant laughter would draw my eyes to the window and I would see them, far off in the distance, heading toward the lake, disappearing down the driveway, duelling with long straight sticks. Downstairs, Mr Hamilton had stirred the servants into a frenzy of activity. It was