Lady Tor sat at her dresser and applied her makeup – only pausing to wonder, now that the Captain had gone, who it was all for. And then she felt those unseen eyes upon her, and remembered.

Being married to a ghost, thought Lady Tor, was rather like having one’s worst Sunday school fears confirmed: someone always watching, day and night, observing one’s most private behaviours, prying into one’s most personal affairs. Always a man, of course.

Her gaze fell upon his photograph.

Such a handsome young man, she thought. What has death made of you, my poor, sweet Percy?

*

They ate dinner in silence, as she preferred, though the presence of that wretched man seemed to make it more necessary. Eustace, distracted, excused himself before the third course, leaving his mother to watch West greedily devour his pudding before he too left the table. In a little while, Nancy arrived to clear the dishes, clucking something about a missing salt cellar as she did so. Her thoughts elsewhere, Lady Tor barely heard her.