She lifted the lid.

Her eyes dropped to what was inside.

And the sound that came out of her was not a word or a lecture or a sneer.

It was a scream, sudden and piercing and utterly involuntary, so sharp that one of the teenage cousins flinched and knocked a water glass over onto the rug, so raw that several relatives half-rose out of their chairs in alarm.

I had never once, in three years, heard Beatrice make an undignified sound.