He went upstairs. Outside the locked door, plates and cups were arranged in a long queue. The food, untouched by Charlie, was providing a fine feast for the flies that buzzed over it, and there was a powerful, unpleasant smell. How many days had the Missus been leaving food here without noticing that the previous day's was still untouched? He toted up the number of plates and cups and frowned. That is when he knew.

He did not knock at the door. What was the point? He had to go to his shed for a piece of timber strong enough to use as a battering ram. The noise of it against the oak, the creaking and smashing as metal hinges tore away from wood, was enough to bring us all, even the Missus, to the door.

When the battered door fell open, half broken off its hinges, we could hear buzzing flies, and a terrible stench billowed out, knocking Emmeline and the Missus back a few steps. Even John put his hand to his mouth and turned a shade whiter. "Stay back," he ordered as he entered the room. A few paces behind, I followed him.

We stepped gingerly through the debris of rotting food on the floor of the old nursery, stirring clouds of flies up into the air as we passed. Charlie had been living like an animal. Dirty plates covered with mold were on the floor, on the mantelpiece, on chairs and on the table. The bedroom door was ajar. With the end of the battering ram he still had in his hand, John nudged the door cautiously, and a startled rat came scurrying out over our feet. It was a gruesome scene. More flies, more decomposing food and worse: The man had been ill. A pile of dried, fly-spotted vomit encrusted the rug on the floor. On the table by the bed was a heap of bloody handkerchiefs and the Missus's old darning needle.

The bed was empty. Just crumpled, filthy sheets stained with blood and other human vileness.

We did not speak. We tried not to breathe, and when, of necessity, we inhaled through our mouths, the sick, repugnant air caught in our throats and made us retch. Yet we had not had the worst of it. There was one more room. John had to steel himself to open the door to the bathroom. Even before the door was fully open, we sensed the horror of it. Before it snagged in my nostrils, my skin seemed to smell it, and a cold sweat bloomed all over my body. The toilet was bad enough. The lid was down but could not quite contain the overflowing mess it was supposed to cover. But that was nothing. For in the bath-John took a sharp step back and would have stepped on me if I had not, at the same moment, taken two steps back myself. In the bath was a dark swill of bodily effluence, the stink of which sent John and me racing to the door, back through the rat droppings and the flies, out into the corridor, down the stairs and out of doors.

I was sick. On the green grass, my pile of yellow vomit looked fresh and clean and sweet. "All right," said John, and he patted my back with a hand that was still trembling.

The Missus, having followed at her own hurried shuffle, approached us across the lawn, questions all over her face. What could we tell her?

We had found Charlie's blood. We had found Charlie's shit, Charlie's piss and Charlie's vomit. But Charlie himself? "He's not there," we told her. "He's gone."

I returned to my room, thinking about the story. It was curious in more than one respect. There was Charlie's disappearance, of course, which was an interesting turn of events. It left me thinking about the almanacs and that curious abbreviation: ldd. But there was more. Did she know I had noticed? I had made no outward sign. But I had noticed. Today Miss Winter had said /.

In my room, on a tray next to the ham sandwiches, I found a large brown envelope.

Mr. Lomax, the solicitor, had replied to my letter by return of post. Attached to his brief but kindly note were copies of Hester's contract, which I glanced at and put aside, a letter of recommendation from a Lady Blake in Naples, who wrote positively of Hester's gifts, and, most interesting of all, a letter accepting the offer of employment, written by the miracle worker herself.

Dear Dr. Maudsley, Thankyoufor the offer of work you have kindly made to me. I shall bepleased to take up thepost at Angelfield on the 19th

April as you suggest.

I have made inquiries and gather that the trains run only to Ban-bury.Perhaps you would advise me how I can best make my way to Angelfield from there. I shall arrive at Banbury Station at half past ten.

Yours sincerely, Hester Barrow

There was firmness in Hester's sturdy capitals, consistency in the slant of the letters, a sense of smooth flow in the moderate loops of the g's and the j/s. The letter size was small enough for economy of ink and paper, yet large enough for clarity. There were no embellishments. No elaborate curls, flounces or flourishes. The beauty of the orthography came from the sense of order, balance and proportion that governed each and every letter. It was a good, clean hand. It was Hester herself, made word.

In the top right-hand corner was an address in London. Good, I thought. I can find you now. I reached for paper, and before I began my transcription, wrote a letter to the genealogist Father had recommended. It was a longish letter: I had to introduce myself, for he would doubtless be unaware Mr. Lea even had a daughter; I had to touch lightly on the matter of the almanacs to justify my claim on his time; I had to enumerate everything I knew about Hester: Naples, London, Angelfield. But the gist of my letter was simple: Find her.

AFTER CHARLIE

Miss Winter did not comment on my communications with her solicitor, though I am certain she was informed, just as I am certain the documents I requested would never have been sent to me without her consent. I wondered whether she might consider it cheating, whether this was the "jumping about in the story" she so disapproved of, but on the day I received the set of letters from Mr. Lomax and sent my request for help to the genealogist, she said not a word but only picked up her story where she had left it, as though none of these postal exchanges of information were happening.

Charlie was the second loss. The third if you count Isabelle, though to all practical purposes we had lost her two years before, and so she hardly counts.

John was more affected by Charlie's disappearance than by Hester's. Charlie might have been a recluse, an eccentric, a hermit, but he was the master of the house. Four times a year, at the sixth or seventh time of asking, he would scrawl his mark on a paper and the bank would release funds to keep the household ticking over. And now he was gone. What would become of the household? What would they do for money?

John had a few dreadful days. He insisted on cleaning up the nursery quarters-"It'll make us all ill otherwise"-and when he could bear the smell no longer, he sat on the steps outside, drawing in the clean air like a man saved from drowning. In the evening he took long baths, using up a whole bar of soap, scrubbing his skin till it glowed pink. He even soaped the inside of his nostrils.

And he cooked. We 'd noticed how the Missus lost track of herself halfway through preparing a meal. The vegetables would boil to a mush, then burn on the bottom of the pan. The house was never without the smell of carbonized food. Then one day we found John in the kitchen. The hands that we knew dirty, pulling potatoes from the ground, were now rinsing the yellow-skinned vegetables in water, peeling them, rattling pan lids at the stove. We ate good meat or fish with plenty of vegetables, drank strong, hot tea. The Missus sat in her chair in the corner of the kitchen, with no apparent sense that these used to be her tasks. After the washing up, when night fell, the two of them sat talking over the kitchen table. His concerns were always the same. What would they do? How could they survive? What would become of us all?