She turned and fled up the stairs to the bedroom.

In the middle of the night, Kitty woke. Julian’s head rested against her shoulder and she smiled to herself. He had stayed, and such moments of sweetness made up for the doubt and confusion, and for her fear for the future.

It was only as she was drifting back to sleep that she realized that Julian was still awake.

7

Jim’s reaction to Penny’s departure stung Andrew. ‘Grief! Penny’s a stayer – you must have treated her rotten.’

Had he? Andrew reviewed his own behaviour. Rotten? He didn’t think so. But the relief at being alone was enormous although he felt a queer, contrasting shudder of grief whenever he thought of his wife. A couple of days after leaving, and he still had not quite forgiven the bald note, Penny had returned to Tithings for a flying visit. ‘To have it out with you,’ she said.

He had done a bit of thinking by then, summoned his better nature and told her that of course she must go and find happiness and that she would be far better off without him. Even with the awful Bob, whom he disliked intensely.

She had listened impassively, then said, ‘You’re just easing your conscience, Andrew.’

She abandoned him to an empty kitchen, his beasts and the letters.

He was delighted, he wrote to Agnes, that the Hidden Lives programme seemed to be on the cards, but he had been notified that the planning appeal inquiry had been set for early June. Therefore, if Agnes wished him to be around while they were filming, it would be best if she and the team came during the last week of May.

He promised to send the remaining letters in the next few days. Meanwhile he enclosed a pamphlet from the conservation group to which he belonged, ‘DID YOU KNOW?’ it asked in very bold, badly assembled type. ‘200,000 MILES OF ENGLISH HEDGEROW HAVE BEEN RIPPED OUT, ENOUGH TO GIRDLE THE EARTH NINE TIMES.’

Underneath was printed a list of bird populations whose habitat had been destroyed. It included grey partridges, linnets, song thrushes and the cirl bunting. On it, Andrew had written, ‘Can you do anything about this on the programme? NB. I layer and pleach my hedgerows in the old way. The birds on my farm are safe. I am looking forward to meeting the crew.’

It was a risk to attempt to write more letters, but Agnes had stirred him up – not that he needed stirring. She had imported the flavour from another world where what was said and done had an impact. Her programmes affected people.

He opened the desk drawer, took out a piece of the paper he had found in the attic, sharpened the old-fashioned lead pencil and placed its point on the grained sheet. He wanted to conjure her shape and colouring, and the impact they had made on him. At that one meeting she had sprung, golden and fresh, into his consciousness and elbowed Penny aside. Recapturing Agnes on paper was an act of lust and fanaticism, which would make his letters live.

Agnes had become Mary. Defining Mary was the springboard that gave him power and a voice that had been silent for most of his life.

He began to write.

Agnes pushed the pamphlet Andrew had enclosed with his letter on to Bel’s desk. ‘I think this angle will work. We don’t have to do anything except present it.’

‘If you like.’ Bel was preoccupied.

It was the weekly catch-up. Bel reported that her research on Jack Dun had yielded thin results. ‘Ag, I don’t think we should waste any more time on this one. It has “slog” written all over it. The Kelseys have no idea who this bloke was and nor does anyone else in the area. And, let me tell you, I’ve rung quite a few’ She contemplated her nails. ‘Truth game now. No one cares much except a bunch of greens.’

Agnes had been riffling through her notes. Alerted, she looked up. She and Bel did not usually part company over the philosophical content of their work. ‘That’s not like you.’

Bel’s answer was the flicker of a serpent’s tongue. ‘No, but we haven’t had to deal with a joker like Andrew Kelsey before.’ She peered at the schedules tacked up on the wall and wrote a couple of filming dates into the diary.

Bel’s opinions were always worth taking seriously. Agnes frowned. ‘How do you know he’s a joker? You haven’t met him.’

Bel kept her face averted. ‘Instinct.’

‘You’re wrong. It’s a good subject.’

‘It’s no way to do business. Fancying a farmer.’

Agnes said, with old hot insistence, ‘I don’t but if I did it wouldn’t alter the fact that these letters have got it.’

‘Why, Ag? Tell me.’

‘Because they’re about a life that is vanishing.’

Slipping. Dissolving. Dying.

She thought of this conversation as she prepared for a day of meetings at Flagge House. Things were always more complicated than they seemed. She had learned that. But trust in your own responses also had a part to play and Andrew had the convincing desperation of the wronged. Perhaps having no parents and siblings gave you an unnatural belief in yourself and she should listen more to observers like Bel. For, at the bottom of her heart, where the non-negotiable truths lived, Agnes was well aware that most people spend most of their lives pulling the wool over the eyes trained on them.

Think of the house. Surrounded by its water-meadow, its kitchen garden, its once formal parterre, Flagge House was a dreamscape of kind brick and generous windows. But, she knew, she knew, that under the eaves the birds scrabbled with sharp claws and rose abruptly into the winter grey, spiders spun intricate silk patterns and the mice constructed atria of pulped wood and stolen linen.

She picked up her rucksack, and let herself out of the bedroom. Strains of ‘Edelweiss’ led her to Maud’s bedroom, where she knocked and heard a flurry of movement.

Both sisters were tucked into the matrimonial four-poster bed where they had obviously spent the night. Maud was knitting and Bea was propped up on pillows reading. Despite the blankets, both sisters looked cold and there was a distinct burnt smell.

‘For goodness’ sake!’ exclaimed Maud. ‘You’re always coming and going, Agnes. We never know where you are.’

‘Yes, you do. I told you twice I’d be coming in late.’ Agnes crossed to the grate and poked at a lump. ‘Maud, have you been burning things again?’ Maud had a habit of gathering up unwanted papers or clothes and burning them in whichever fireplace was to hand. ‘Fire is tidy,’ she said. ‘It clears the air.’

‘We were so cold last night,’ said Maud plaintively. On one hand, she sported a new bruise.

Agnes felt that hand slide around her and squeeze – the squeeze of the feeble on the strong. She straightened up, raised her eyes and looked into the mirror over the mantelpiece. Campion brides had always occupied this bedroom. Two of their portraits looked down from the wall: a Regency beauty in striped silk and a Victorian matron.

‘I hope you didn’t burn anything important,’ was all she said.

‘We’re so bored,’ snapped Maud. ‘So bored. Aren’t we, Bea?’

‘Are we, dear? I don’t think it’s quite as drastic as that.’

‘Darlings, have you had breakfast?’

‘Not yet.’ Bea dangled a pair of frail varicosed legs over the edge of the bed. ‘You must be exhausted, Agnes. I’ll go and get some.’

Agnes pushed her back gently on to the pillows. ‘You stay where you are. I’ll make it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘They’ll be here at ten thirty.’

Maud drove the needles through the ball of wool with a samurai twist. ‘Who? Do I know about this?’

Bea and Agnes exchanged looks. ‘Dear,’ said Bea, ‘it’s the lawyer and the others. You know. You promised.’ She leaned over and prised the knitting, a lacy baby’s shawl, from her sister’s grasp. ‘Let’s get up, shall we?’

Maud grimaced and the dusting of pink-orange powder from yesterday’s maquillage cracked. Bea patted it away. ‘There, we’ll make you all nice.’

Agnes said comfortingly, ‘If I put them in the dining room they’ll freeze and they won’t stay long.’

Peter Bingham, the lawyer, arrived with Mr Dawkins, who was in charge of her uncle’s investments and what remained of the Campion trust. They were standing in the hall as an unfamiliar Porsche shot into the drive and parked smack in front of the door. A short young man climbed out, walked into the hall and stood knotting his tie.

‘Hi,’ he said, ‘I’m Paul and I’m here to do the valuations for probate. I rang.’ His gaze ricocheted around the hall and fell. ‘It shouldn’t take more than a few secs.’

Maud, who was descending the stairs at that point, said, ‘Tiens, and the house has been standing for centuries.’

‘How do you do?’ said Agnes, and held out her hand.

Paul ignored it. He was busy pushing the ends of the tie into his waistband. ‘As I say, shouldn’t take too long.’ He snapped open his briefcase, extracted a notebook and positioned himself in front of the portrait of the seventeenth-century Agnes. ‘I don’t care for this sort of thing myself. I can never see the point.’ He moved on to examine the lamp on the side table made of spun glass in which a ship rode a crystal sea in full sail. When it was turned on, the ship flew through a sea of light.

Agnes reckoned he could not have been more than twenty-five.

Paul turned his attention to the elephant’s foot, which was used for umbrellas. ‘Now, that’s more like it. There’s a good market for this sort of thing out East.’ There was a minute inflection of curiosity in his tone. ‘How old is this place, then?’

She told him that it depended where you were in it. With a knowing smile, he responded, ‘It’s very flung together, then, isn’t it?’

The dining room was in the Victorian wing, which had been tacked on to the main house by an Archibald Campion, who had made money in jute. It was furnished with brocade curtains and had a series of dull portraits of later Campions on the wall. The room was north-facing, and within seconds everyone was freezing and could concentrate on nothing except the temperature.