She pointed at the faded photograph. Everybody turned to look. Mr Garforth peered over his shoulder, craning his neck until his eyes found the picture.

'Well?' she said.

Mr Garforth took a piece of bread and began to butter it with the easy grace of a barber stropping a razor. 'That was taken before the fire.'

Alice helped Mrs Hagstrom clear the plates away. Mrs Hagstrom laid out a coffee cake cut up into fingers, a dish of bourbons and a bowl of oranges.

'So, Henry.' Mrs Hagstrom took an orange from the pile. 'I suppose it's too much to hope that you might have passed a broom round that grubby cottage of yours since I last came by? Place was like a coalmine.'

'I'm fine, thank you.'

She jabbed her fingernail into the peel and tore off a strip. 'You're a man, is what you are, Henry, and a proud one at that, one who'd rather live in squalor than admit he needs help. When was the last time you had visitors?'

Delphine thought Mr Garforth's cottage was very tidy, thank you very much. Mr Garforth dunked a bourbon into his tea and looked murderous.

'I'm supposed to have the afternoon off Wednesday,' said Mrs Hagstrom. 'I'll be round with the mop and duster, if only to save you from yourse '

'No. Muriel.' Mr Garforth held up a palm. 'Can't let you do that.'

She ripped off more skin. 'I insist.'

'That's very kind, but no.'

'Henry, you can't go on living as you do.'

'I get by.'

'I'm coming round and that's that.'

'No!' Mr Garforth slammed a palm against the table. Delphine's cake fork bounced off her lap and hit the floor. She ducked under the table to retrieve it.

The first thing she saw was Alice's little white hand smoothing Reggie's thigh. She flushed and began groping about on the cold tiles for her fork, unable to focus. Muffled through a layer of oak, she heard Mr Garforth say: 'Please. Just leave me be. I'll tidy the clutter in my own time.'

After everyone had finished, Mr Garforth took out his pipe while Reggie and Alice and Mr Wightman lit cigarettes. Mrs Hagstrom took a bottle of scotch whisky from the cupboard and poured everyone a glass. She let Delphine have a drop watered down in a mug. Delphine sipped it and felt needling fire across her gums and tongue. Delphine asked for a cigarette and Mr Garforth gave her a look, so she leant back and listened to the wireless and smelt his tobacco, mild and wafting like a hayloft in summer.

Somewhere behind her head, a maple-cased wall clock tocked dully. Mr Garforth said that, back in the old days, the Hall employed a clockman whose sole job it was to patrol the house winding the various timepieces. Now, Lord Alderberen barely kept enough staff to make dinner.

'He was a good man.'

It took Delphine a moment to realise that the speaker was Mr Wightman. He gazed at the barred slit of a window on the far wall.

'Shy, maybe. Not mad.' At this, Delphine worked out who he was talking about. 'His Lordship's father never needed tunnels. The village was ailing. He knew we wouldn't take charity. He invented jobs. The tunnels were just an excuse. His wife had passed. Young Master Lazarus was packed off to India. He became father to all of us. He was lonely.'

Mr Wightman refilled his glass with whisky. He opened his tobacco tin to reveal a few loose brown threads. Alice nudged Reggie, who took a pack of Player's from his shirt pocket and tapped one out onto the table. Mr Wightman accepted the cigarette. He struck a match against the white brick.

'Did you know him?' said Alice.

'Nope. Before my time.' He touched the flame to the tip of his cigarette. 'But I lived amongst them as did my father included. I never heard anyone speak ill of his Lordship. No one had a bad thing to say.'

'I don't wonder no one had a bad thing to say,' said Reggie, making a face as he sipped his whisky. 'They never saw him.'

'Is it true he never left his bedroom for thirty years?' said Alice. 'And that he took all his meals through a special letterbox?'

Mrs Hagstrom hissed. 'Don't be so stupid, girl.'

'Father said the letterbox was for letters,' said Mr Wightman. 'Correspondence in, instructions for the workers out. He took his meals through a hatch. And it wasn't just his bedroom. It was most of the west-wing first floor. His Lordship liked his privacy. After the fire, the only person allowed into his chambers was Mr Cox, his valet.'

'I reckon he was sneaking out,' said Reggie. 'All those tunnels. I reckon he had a bird.'

'I reckon you'd best keep your opinions to yourself, lad,' said Mr Garforth.

'All the stories of her Ladyship say she was a remarkable woman,' said Mr Wightman. 'A little quiet perhaps but, oh, what a beauty. She was dearer to his Lordship than . . . well, you've seen all the portraits. They were all done after the fire. He filled the house with her. All the pictures of him he had taken down and destroyed. That photograph was down the back of a wardrobe for twenty years. It was like he thought if he didn't exist, she could live.'

A bell jangled in the adjoining room.

'That's me.' Alice finished her whisky and stood. She ducked through the archway. Delphine watched from the table as she fastened her white bib apron in a smudged looking-glass.

Mrs Hagstrom shook her head. 'We're run ragged in this house. So much for giving everyone jobs.'

'Muriel, that's enough,' said Mr Garforth.

She held up her sinewy hands. 'Well, hang me for being honest. If it weren't for the dailies, I'd of dropped down dead years ago. Half the Hall's under dust sheets. For the number of staff we struggle by on, you'd think we were working for the village doctor.'

Alice returned carrying a silver tray with scalloped edges. On the tray sat a pot of tea, a tumbler of scotch, and a brown glass bottle. Delphine squinted at the label. In Dr Lansley's familiar, regimented hand she made out the words: tincture of silver.

Mr Wightman knuckled at his eyes. For a strange second, Delphine thought he was crying.

'That's the problem with this country,' he said. 'Everything's gone to ruin. All the good men, all the gentlemen and hardworking lads, got nobbled in France. All that's left are bank managers and soft-bellied Sunday golfers.' He sucked on his cigarette and it glowed like his forge. 'The old master lost his wife. He could've took the coward's way out, but he didn't. He soldiered on. Even in his misery, he was always looking for ways to help others.

'Same with his Lordship. After what happened with Arthur . . . ' He took a sharp breath and drained his glass. 'The whole Stokeham bloodline's cursed. But they fight it. They won't give in to fate.'

His hand was shaking as he ground his cigarette out.

'Oh, but you can't escape your fate,' said Alice. 'A fortune teller told my Uncle Jack that he wouldn't go on holiday this year. He went to Southend just to spite her and got hit by a trolleybus.'

Delphine imagined the shriek of brakes, the dry thud as Uncle Jack went down. She saw blood, broken teeth. She remembered Mr Kung gasping on the sand, froth pooling in his eyes.

All at once, her whisky tasted of cinders.

'I've got to go.' She was rising, clutching at her collar. 'Thank you. Sorry.'

The bell rang again.

'Delphine!' said Mr Garforth.

'I've got to go!' She spilled out into the corridor, unable to breathe. She stumbled towards the stairs. Her lungs tightened.

In unison, the Hall's clocks began striking the hour.

CHAPTER 12.

THE BRAT OF HEAVEN.

July 1935 Delphine was lying on her tummy in the treehouse, poring over Mr Kung's crumpled notes. The crabbed Chinese characters were giving her a headache. Some of the larger ones looked like crude little maps. And there was that word: 'DELLAPESTE'. Did she recognise it, or had she just stared at it for so long that it felt familiar? She slapped the page aside and heard weeping.

Delphine pressed her face flat to the floor. From somewhere in the surrounding alders and sycamores came the curt, squeaky calls and liquid trills of a goldfinch. She relaxed. She had mistaken birdsong for . . . No. There it was again. Someone was beneath her.

She slithered from the clubhouse to the crow's nest. She held her breath.

She pulled herself up and peered over the rim of the barrel. Diamonds of midday sunlight studded the woodland floor, shifting in the wind. Amongst glossy fronds of hart's tongue fern, a woman sat with her hands over her face, softly crying. Delphine saw the golden hair against the shoulder of a navy blue prefect's jacket and recognised Miss DeGroot.

Over the past couple of weeks, Miss DeGroot had begun affecting a swagger stick. The lion's head pommel lay beside her in the undergrowth. She had kicked off her chocolate-brown walking boots. She wept without ostentation.

She dragged a forearm across her eyes.

'If you're going to stare, at least toss me a peanut.'

Delphine dropped back inside the barrel. She clamped a palm over her mouth. Perhaps Miss DeGroot had been talking to herself. Perhaps someone was coming. Delphine's heart squeezed in her chest.

'I know you're up there. I can hear the boards creaking.'

Delphine held herself rigid, eyes screwed shut. If she kept still, Miss DeGroot would give up and walk away.

'Hey. I'm not mad at you. Just trying to be neighbourly.' A sigh. 'Okay. Have it your way. I plan on crying for a solid forty minutes, so I hope you weren't hoping to leave any time soon. Ah. There you are.'

Delphine stuck her head over the parapet. Miss DeGroot was standing, looking up at the treehouse.

'Hello,' said Delphine.

'Hi.' Miss DeGroot folded her arms. 'Nice cabana you've got here.'

Delphine had a tingly sensation in her belly. 'Thank you.'

Miss DeGroot's eyes were pink. The soft lines over her cheekbones glistened. She sniffed, then snorted unapologetically.

Delphine havered, then, with a weightless feeling, she said: 'You can look inside, if you like.'

A corner of Miss DeGroot's smile steepened. She looked down at her fingernails.

'You don't have to humour me. I was just kidding about the crying jag.' She swatted the air. 'Go on. Enjoy your freedom while you still have some.' She began walking away.

Delphine kicked loose the rope ladder. It unfurled with a clatter. Miss DeGroot spun round. She laughed and put a hand to her mouth.

'That's quite the red carpet.'

'It's safe. I repaired it.'

Miss DeGroot prodded the ladder with her stick. 'Okay, then.' She glanced at a paper bag lying next to her boots. 'I've got a bag of maple candies I can trade for sanctuary. How's that?'

'Acceptable.' Delphine folded Mr Kung's notes and tucked them inside her sock. She shuffled to the edge of the treehouse. Miss DeGroot placed a foot on the first rung.

'I'm not supposed to be exerting myself. I'm supposed to be an ungh invalid.' She thrust her swagger stick upwards. Delphine grabbed the cold brass pommel and helped pull Miss DeGroot the last few feet. She reached the top sweaty, panting. 'Wow. What a swell place.' Delphine caught a whiff of perfume: lemon, cedarwood. Miss DeGroot rolled onto her back and lay catching her breath, taking in the clubhouse (four driftwood walls beneath a rusting corrugated-iron roof) and the crow's nest (an old rain barrel with the bottom knocked out of it). Grey-green oak moss coated a seam where one of the walls met the tree. In the opposite corner, cobwebs crisscrossed the papery husk of an abandoned wasps' nest. 'How long it take you to build?'

'It was like this when I found it.'

Miss DeGroot half-closed her eyes. 'I like it.'

The treehouse filled with goldfinch song and the quiet gasp of wind through leaves. Delphine was not sure what to say. She looked at the old wasps' nest. A lattice of silver filaments hung across its underside. She could hear Miss DeGroot breathing. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She inhaled the scent of wet leaves and old wood, tinged with perfume. In the lower half of the web, a spider had caught something fat and struggling.

When she glanced back, Miss DeGroot had stretched her legs. She was sucking on a candy.

'So,' she said, 'what do you think about up here?'

International spy rings. Secret codes. The invasion of Britain. Giant rabid bats. My father.

Delphine turned out her bottom lip. 'Nothing.'

'You seem to have taken a shine to the harbourmaster's son. I saw the two of you gabbing down by the quay.'

Delphine's cheeks glowed. 'I was buying a knife.'

'That's okay, sweetie. No need to be embarrassed.'

Delphine prised up a loose board and retrieved a blade folded into a crude scrimshaw handle.

'There.' She slammed it down on the floor beside Miss DeGroot's head.

Miss DeGroot glanced over and laughed. 'Okay, okay, I believe you.' She held her palms up. 'No offence intended. Good for you. Boys are the dullest.'

Delphine snatched up the knife, wondering if she had been a bit rash. What if Miss DeGroot told Mother? She was placing it back in its box when she felt Miss DeGroot's eyes over her shoulder.

'Is that an air rifle?'

'No, it's . . . ' Delphine stopped herself. 'Yes.'

Miss DeGroot gazed at the double-barrelled shotgun tucked inside the floor compartment. She rubbed her palms together.

'I had one back on the farm. Used to sit up in the hayloft and use the old pump for target practice. Once my brother Stanley was fetching his bathwater and I got him right in the seat of his pants.' She mimed looking down sights, the kick of the trigger pull.

'Was he all right?'

'Naturally.' Miss DeGroot lay down again and sighed theatrically. 'Life was simple back then. You hid in barns. You shot your family.' She patted the paper bag. 'Have a candy.'