““Dreadful fire at Reiver’s Rest,”’ she intoned with relish. ‘“Poor” – it’s Cara, isn’t it, madam? – “Poor Cara tragically lost. Staying in Gatehouse to comfort poor mother.”’ And so on. It became clear that the telegram was not her natural genre, but I managed in the end to remove most of the adverbs and settle on ‘perished’ as an acceptable midway point between her eulogies and my apparently shocking bluntness.””
