“Mrs. Campbell?” Mary raised silver eyebrows and her expression assumed a sour severity. “Ayv’e never heeard anything layke it in all may born days!” she said in heavily affected accent. “When aye was a geerl, we didn’t…”

Eilish giggled and glanced at Hester. It was apparently something of a family joke.

“When she was a girl, her grandfather was selling fish on the Leith docks and her mother was running errands for old McVeigh,” Hector said with a twist of his lips.

“Never!” Oonagh was incredulous. “Mrs. Campbell?”

“Aye-Jeannie Robertson, as she was then,” he assured her. “Two brown pigtails down her back, she had, and holes in her boots.”

Deirdra looked at him with new appreciation. “I shall remember that, next time she looks me up and down with a sneer on her face.”

“The old man was drowned,” Hector went on, enjoying his audience. “Took a dram too much, and fell off the docks one night in December. Twenty-seven, I think it was. Yes, eighteen twenty-seven.”

Kenneth’s impatience finally overcame his caution and he told McTeer to bring his dessert ahead of the others. Mary frowned; Alastair opened his mouth as if to say something, then caught Mary’s eye and changed his mind.

Oonagh made some remark about a play that was on in the city. Quinlan agreed with her, and Baird immediately contradicted him. The matter was totally trivial, and yet Hester was startled to hear in their voices an animosity which sounded acutely personal, as if the subject were one of intense importance. She glanced at Quinlan’s face and saw his eyes hard, his lips tight as he stared across the table. Opposite him Baird was brooding, his brows drawn down, his hands clenched. He looked as if he nursed within himself some deep pain.

Eilish did not look at either of them, but down at her plate, her fork idle, food ignored.

No one else appeared to notice anything unusual.

Mary turned to Alastair. “Deirdra says they are going to reopen the Galbraith case. Is that true?”

Alastair raised his head very slowly, his face set in a hard, wary expression. “Gossip,” he said between his teeth. He looked down the table at his wife. “It is repeating such things that gives ignorant people to start speculating, and reputations are ruined. I’m sorry you did not know better than to do such a thing.”

Mary’s face darkened at the insult, but she did not speak.

The color rushed up Deirdra’s cheeks and the muscles in her throat tightened. “I mentioned it to no one outside this room,” she said angrily. “Miss Latterly is hardly going to rush out around London telling people. They’ve never heard of Galbraith! Anyway, is it true? Are they going to reopen it?”

“No, of course not,” Alastair said angrily. “There is no evidence. If there had been, I would not have dismissed it in the first place.”

“There is no new evidence?” Mary pressed.

“There is no evidence at all, old or new,” Alastair replied, meeting her gaze squarely, finality in his voice.

Kenneth rose from the table. “Excuse me. I must go, or I shall be late.” He bent over and kissed his mother lightly on the cheek. “Have a good journey, Mother, and give Griselda my love. I’ll come to meet you at the station when you get home again.” He looked across at Hester. “Goodbye, Miss Latterly. I’m happy to have made your acquaintance, and that Mother will be in such able hands. Good night.” And with a wave he went out of the room and closed the door.

“Where is he going?” Alastair said irritably. He looked around the table. “Oonagh?”

“I’ve no idea,” Oonagh said.

“A woman, I imagine,” Quinlan suggested with a shadow of a smile. “It is to be expected.”

“Well why don’t we know about her?” Alastair asked. “If he is courting her, we should know who she is!” He glared at his brother-in-law. “Do you know, Quin?”

Quinlan’s eyes widened in surprise.

“No. Certainly not! It is merely an educated guess. Maybe I am wrong. Perhaps he is gambling, or going to a theater?”

“It’s late for a theater,” Baud said quickly.

“He said he was late!” Quinlan said.

“He didn’t. He said he would be late if he waited for us to finish,” Baud contradicted him.

“It is only ten minutes before eight,” Oonagh put in. “Perhaps it is a theater close by.”

“Alone?” Alastair said doubtfully.

“He may be meeting people there. Really, does it matter so much?” Eilish asked. “If he is courting someone, he’d have told us-if he is having any success.”

“I want to know who it is before there is any ‘success’!” Alastair glared at her. “By that time it would be too late!”

“Stop making yourself angry over something that has not happened yet,” Mary said briskly. “Now-McTeer, bring in the dessert and let us have a pleasant end to the meal, before you take Miss Latterly and me to the station. It is a fine night, and we shall have an agreeable journey. Hector, my dear, would you be good enough to pass me the cream. I am sure I should like cream on it, whatever it is.”

With a smile Hector obliged, and the rest of the meal was spent in inconsequential chatter, until it was eventually time to rise, bid farewell, and gather coats, baggage, and make their way out to the waiting carriage.

“Come on, Mother.” Alastair took Mary by the arm and guided her through the throng towards the London train, huge and gleaming beside its platform, the brass-knobbed doors open, the carriages with polished sides seeming to tower over them as they approached it The engine let out another billow of steam. “Don’t worry, we’ve half an hour yet,” Alastair said quickly. “Where’s Oonagh?”

“Gone to see if it is leaving on time, I think,” Deirdra replied, moving a little closer to him as a porter with five cases on a trolley pushed past her.

“Evenin’, miss.” He made a gesture to tip his cap. “Evenin”, sir, ma’am.”

“Evening,” they replied absently. They expected the courtesy, and yet it was an intrusion into their party. Hector stood with his coat collar turned up, as if he felt the cold, his eyes on Mary’s face, even though she was half turned away from him. Eilish was walking towards the open carriage door, full of curiosity. Baird stood guarding Mary’s three cases, and Quinlan was shifting from foot to foot, as if impatient to have the matter over with.

Oonagh returned, stood undecided for an instant, looking at Alastair, then at her mother, then, as if reaching some resolve, she took Mary’s arm and together they moved along the platform until they reached the carriage where Mary had a reservation. Hester followed a couple of yards behind. Mary was going to be absent only a week, but even so this was not a time when a stranger, and an employee, should allow her presence to be felt Her duties had not yet begun.

Inside, the coach was utterly different from the second-class carriage in which Hester had ridden up. It was not a large open space with hard upright seats, but a series of separate compartments, each with two single upholstered seats facing each other, either of which would quite comfortably have allowed three people to sit side by side, or, wonderful thought, one person to curl up and tuck her feet under her skirts and go to sleep in something like comfort. It would be quite private enough to feel safe from intrusion, since a glance told that it was reserved for Mrs. Mary Farraline and companion. Hester’s spirits were lifted already. It would be so different from the long, exhausting journey up, during which she had managed only brief and disturbed catnaps. She found herself smiling in anticipation.

Mary merely glanced around her as she stepped in. Presumably she had been in first-class carriages before, and this one held no interest for her.

“The luggage is in the guard’s van,” Baird said from the doorway, his eyes on Mary’s face with a directness which did not seem to be there when he spoke to anyone else. “They will unload it for you in London. You may forget about it until then.” He lifted the small overnight case with toiletries and the medicine chest onto the luggage rack for her.