She said, “Does anyone ever come out here?”

“An earful usually sends them away. They don’t expect it from a woman.”

Grace had never been at a loss for a riposte. Evangeline could remember their school and the teacher who’d once said, when Grace had been scowling about something, “Now, Grace, what’s that face for?” And Grace had replied, “It keeps all the meat from falling off my head, Miss.” The entire class had laughed, and Grace had been sent to stand alone out in the yard for all of a cold March morning. Evangeline was the only one who could see her through the window, and the teacher would ask her every few minutes for a report.

“Just standing there, Miss,” she would say.

And indeed, Grace had just stood there; unbeaten, unbowed, until finally she was recalled. Whereupon she returned to her desk without any sign of self-pity or contrition.

They walked back up to the buildings. After she’d hung the animal’s halter up on a peg outside the stables, Grace said, “Come inside. We can have a glass of water.”

So then they moved from the stables toward the house.

Grace went on, “I know the real reason why you came back.”

“Do you?”

“Yes, I do. Can’t you let it go? You’d do better to.”

“You’re sounding like my mother.”

“Your mother’s ashamed for you. Doesn’t want people to think you’ve been tainted. She thinks you should feel the same way.”

“Do you?”

“I used to.”

“Don’t you think about it?”

“I’ve been through worse since,” Grace Eccles said, and they went inside.

Evangeline understood what Grace surely meant. Grace had nursed her father through his final months, right here in this house. They couldn’t afford doctors, and there was little that a doctor could have done; it was the drink that had killed him, and his final weeks had been a harrowing time of jaundice and delirium.

The house was mean, but Grace kept it neat. Fresh rushes on the floor, meadow flowers in a small cracked vase on the sideboard. Evangeline was surprised to notice some books, but she didn’t comment. She couldn’t recall seeing a book in the Eccles house while Grace’s father had lived.

Grace had water in a jug, kept cold on a stone. Alongside it were two fine glasses, polished.

Grace poured out two careful measures and handed a glass to Evangeline.

“Taste that,” she said. “It’s so clean.”

Politely, Evangeline drank; Grace sipped at hers, and closed her eyes to appreciate it. She kept them closed for a while, long enough for Evangeline to drink again and wonder if she was missing something.

Then Grace said, “Did anyone tell you they’re trying to get me off the land?”

“I thought Sir Owain made you a promise.”

“It’s not him. It’s that doctor who lives in his house. Tells him when to eat, tells him when to sleep, tells him when to fart and make water.”

“Grace!” Evangeline pretended to be shocked, and Grace to shrug it off. She’d always liked to play the outrageous child. Because her father was said to have been a settled gypsy they’d called Grace a diddikai, and she’d turned the insult into a badge of pride.

From her father she’d inherited his touch with horses and this cottage, and the dispute that came along with it. He hadn’t owned the land, but he’d laid out hard cash for a lease that still had thirty years to run. He’d counted the money out before witnesses and made his illiterate’s mark on a deed. When he’d died, there had been some immediate question as to whether it should revert to the estate or pass on to his heir.

Grace said, “Sir Owain was always as mad as a coot, but now he’s getting worse. A man came out from London. Went over to the Hall asking questions, trying to get him locked up. It’s supposed to be a big secret but everyone knows about it. Old Arthur told me.” She smiled with some satisfaction. “The London man came to the house. I sent him off, too.”

“What did he want with you?”

“Didn’t give him a chance to say.” They pulled out chairs to sit at the cottage’s plain board table. It was heaped with brasses and bridles and a mass of other tack that Grace was attempting to clean up or repair. She had to clear a space for them to put the glassware down.

She went on, “That doctor friend of his keeps saying that my piece of paper means nothing now Father’s gone. Says the estate has to be run properly or Sir Owain will lose it. He wants me paying rent or he wants me out. Well, he can want. There’s worse than him to watch out for.”

“Like who?”

“If anything ever happens to me, I daresay you’ll know where to look to find out.”

Evangeline looked at her. Lost, unhappy Grace. With her wind-scrubbed skin and her dirty fingernails. Evangeline felt a lurching reminder of the sisterly love she’d once had for her. Motherless Grace and fatherless Evangeline. At one time it had been as if they could read each other’s thoughts. But now Evangeline looked and found the book closed, its pages blank, its text encrypted and hidden from her view.

Grace said, “Go back, Evangeline. Go back to London. The last thing you want is to find what you’re looking for.”

“I wish I could remember, Grace,” Evangeline said simply.

“No, you don’t.”

“Won’t you help me?”

“Nothing I can do.”

Grace walked her as far as the gate, where Evangeline said, “Those two dead children. They could have been you and me.”

“Sir Owain says they were torn by beasts,” Grace said. “I don’t think he’s far wrong.”

Evangeline gave it one last try. “What do you know, Grace?” she said.

“No more than you,” Grace said.

Again, Evangeline had to wheel the bicycle over rough ground to the main track. Grace did not stay to wave her off. She felt a hollow space inside her for the friend she once thought she’d keep forever, but must now acknowledge that she’d lost.

So Sebastian Becker was actually the Lunacy Visitor’s man and had his sights set on Sir Owain? That was a detail that he and Stephen Reed had chosen not to share.

Instead of pointing the bicycle toward Arnmouth village and home, she turned it toward Sir Owain and the Hall.

THE FAIRGROUNDS CAME INTO SIGHT, OCCUPYING THREE FIELDS on the outskirts of a small market town. It was almost evening now, and the lanes all around were dense with people making their way to the entertainment. The car had to slow to nose through them; the crowd treated the Daimler as part of the day’s spectacle, a piece of road jewelry as exotic as any sight they’d come to see.

First came the noise. Not one Marenghi organ, but a dozen, each one cranked up to drown out its neighbor. Heard at this distance, their tunes varied as the wind changed.

There was a gateway of painted scenery and electric bulbs that turned the entrance of a common field into a portal of wonders. Beyond it, a bazaar of light and noise. The fair was a portable city of tents and boards, of wooden towers and brilliantly decorated show fronts. Among the temporary buildings stood mighty engines like Babylonian elephants, all crashing pistons and blowing steam, powering the rides with their belts and dynamos.

The car didn’t enter the grounds, but was waved on to a field above them where provision had been made for motor vehicles and wagons. It was grazing land, unplowed, and the ground was poor. Sebastian had to clutch at a hanging strap as the Daimler bumped over ruts to find a level spot in the grass.

When they came to a stop, Thomas Arnot turned off the engine and the two men climbed out.

The entire site could be observed from here. Looking down on the contained land of people, planks, and canvas, the driver said, “I don’t see any menagerie.”