As they sat in the garden taking tea, he studied her carefully. She exuded a mixture of a mobile mind and personal charm in a greater degree than the women of the earlier generations of her family on either side. She had inherited something of the horse-face of the Nortons, but in her it was improved and softened. She had her mother’s eyes and her mother’s way of smiling before she spoke and often smiling while she listened. But when she abandoned her smile, and allowed her face its full elegant gravity, he saw a young woman whose tone and manners, her way of being both formal and friendly, were new to him. He looked forward to spending time with her.

He accompanied her through the town, proud of her glamour and enjoying her conversation, which ranged from the playful to the sharply observant. She knew how much he was watching her and how closely, in turn, they were both being observed by the townspeople. He admired her all the more for how deeply thoughtful she became as they moved along, how happy she seemed after a time to let silence reign between them and how easily now she let her face seem shadowy and meditative, her expression almost dark and forbidding, as though the mark of her ancestors had not left her.

She was over thirty now and something in her personality, something distant and ironic, suggested what her Aunt Grace had already told him – that she would not marry. She had a private income, not very large, but enough to allow her to wander freely in Italy and England and venture back to her homeland when it suited her, much as Constance Fenimore Woolson had done. He wished she had a great house to tend to, or a great name, and he sensed in her a kind of sorrow that she had settled for less, or perhaps settled for more, her independence. A few times, as they walked back towards Lamb House, her tone, the largeness of her judgement, the strange freedom in her phrases, and certain inflections in her accent, reminded him of his sister Alice. Both came from similar households where ideas were sacred, second only to good manners, where there was a pull between an ordered community who knew God and an idealism, a readiness to trust the spirit in all its flickering. Whereas all the restlessness within the Jameses had further unmoored Alice, Lily had inherited the calmness of the Nortons without sacrificing her sharp judgement. He would have given anything for his sister to have had Lily’s poise and equanimity.

Before dinner was served, he left Lily alone in the upstairs sitting room so that he might inspect the dining room. He found Burgess Noakes standing at an open dining-room door, his small face wrinkled in worry, his movements nervous. Burgess indicated to him that the cause of his concern lay in the dining room, and when Henry entered the room he found a large fresh purple stain on the tablecloth.

‘This should be replaced at once,’ he said.

‘She says it will do fine,’ Burgess said.

‘Mrs Smith?’ he asked.

Burgess nodded. ‘She won’t allow it be replaced, sir.’

When he opened the kitchen door, he saw Mr Smith at the large table resting his head on his arms. Mrs Smith was by the stove stirring a pot. When she saw him, she did not speak but shrugged to suggest her own powerlessness and indifference. He spoke as loudly as he could.

‘The tablecloth must be replaced instantly and the butler must resume his duties.’

Mrs Smith put the spoon down and moved towards the table. She stood stoically behind her husband and manfully grabbed his shoulders from above; she lifted him firmly and when he was standing straight she let him go. He had his usual glazed look as he acknowledged his employer’s presence in the kitchen, and then, in his stilted and forced way, he began to move towards the dresser in the corner.

‘In fifteen minutes, we will dine,’ Henry said. ‘I expect everything to be in order, beginning with the tablecloth.’

When he accompanied Lily Norton to the dining room, he saw immediately that the tablecloth had been replaced and the table reset to perfection. He situated Lily with her back to the door. He did not know whether Smith would serve their meal, or if Burgess Noakes or indeed Mrs Smith herself would take his place. When eventually Smith came in with the first course and began to pour the wine, it struck Henry more forcefully than ever that he was barely able to remain on his feet and could hardly see in front of him. It was a strange kind of drunkenness. Smith did not sway or stagger; it was rather the opposite – he walked straight as though along an invisible line; otherwise, he remained rigid. He was utterly silent. The alcohol seemed to have turned him into a block of wood.

Henry was careful not to look at Smith for too long; he attempted to make ordinary conversation even as Smith was pouring the wine. As far as he could ascertain, Lily Norton noticed nothing, yet he knew now that he would have to make arrangements for the Smiths’ departure. He had two further guests for luncheon the following day and Lily and one of the friends for dinner the next evening. Then he would take action, although he did not know how he would begin, or what form the action would take.

‘You know,’ Lily said, ‘I have not been in Venice since Constance died, but I have met others who have been there, and all of them say that there is something in that street, the place she fell. They all have to avoid it. And nobody can quite believe that she killed herself. It seems so unlike her.’

Her eyes lit calmly on him and then she glanced at the plate in front of her, as though some fresh thought had occurred to her. She looked up at him again.

‘I spoke at length to someone who knew her sister,’ she said. ‘The family are concerned that so many of her papers are lost, letters and diaries and other personal papers. And how she spent her last weeks is a mystery to everybody.’

‘It was,’ Henry said, ‘a sad affair.’

Smith opened the door and stood silently, peering into the room as though it were in darkness. Lily turned around and saw him. He was still for half a minute, his presence in the doorway a cross between a ghost and someone who has seen a ghost. Then he moved slowly towards the table to collect the plates. He picked them up in a set of muted and stylized gestures and left the room again without incident.

‘She was, of course, quite a sad person and very lonely,’ Henry said.

He knew as soon as he finished that he had spoken too quickly and brusquely.

‘She was a very talented novelist and a great lady,’ Lily Norton said.

‘Yes, quite,’ Henry said.

They waited without speaking for Smith to return. Henry realized that he could not change the subject now, Lily Norton’s tone somehow prevented that.

‘I think she deserved a better life,’ Lily said, ‘but it was not to be.’

In her last phrase there was no air of resignation or acceptance, but rather one of blame and bitterness. It struck Henry that she had planned this conversation, that what was happening in his small dining room was being quietly and effectively manipulated by her. At each moment he watched for Smith, hoping that no matter how drunk he was he would come to interrupt this strained talk between them which led so inevitably to strained silence.

‘All of us were there with her that summer,’ Lily continued, ‘she was so busy and so full of dreams and plans. All of us remember someone who was happy, despite her melancholy disposition. But it was shattered.’

‘Yes,’ Henry said.

Smith opened the door with Burgess Noakes in view behind him. Burgess was wearing a jacket which was much too large for him. He had the look of a tramp. Smith carried a plate of meat with the movements of someone who was about to expire. Burgess followed behind with other plates. Lily Norton turned and studied them, and in one second Henry watched her grasp what was happening at Lamb House. All her subtlety and self-control failed her. She seemed most sharply alarmed, and her smile when she turned away from the two servants was forced. Smith at that moment began to pour more wine into her glass but could not keep his hand steady. The other three watched him helplessly as he allowed some of the wine to spill and then, as he tried to correct himself, poured a quantity of wine directly onto the tablecloth. When he turned from the table, his movements became a set of doddering, staggering steps as he left the room, abandoning the serving of the meal to Burgess Noakes.