Maisie was usually found sitting in her chair these days, so Danielle bent down and leaned in to kiss her cheek. The breath of lavender perfume she inhaled left a pleasant note in the air, and instantly took her back in time to her childhood visits there. She was invariably sent to rummage through the handkerchief and linen drawer, a treat in itself reminiscent of a bran tub forage. The sweets she carried home with her always retained the scent of the gauze bags of dried pointy flowers that were also concealed between the layers of fabric.

Nowadays the treating was reversed, and Danielle went in search of a vase for the small bunch of freesias she had brought, and a plate for two of the tiny madeleine cakes she had made in the hope that her grandma might feel able to stomach a little something light.

“Thanks, Dilly,” said Maisie, admiring the flowers.

“I’ve often wondered why you call me Dilly, gran, when to others I am Dani.”

“Oh, of course,” laughed Maisie, “you won’t remember how I sang to you when you were a tiny baby. Lavender’s blue, dilly dilly, lavender’s green. Your grandad used to sing it to me when we were courting”.

The old lady seemed to drift off from the conversation for a while. It was often the case these days, as she had become increasingly weak. She rested her head back on the chair, then turned it towards Cecil’s picture in the nearby frame. She sang softly, “When I am King, dilly, dilly, You will be queen.”

“Soon,” she said with a faint smile, “I will be his queen again.”

Maisie sat looking out of the window for a while, then suddenly sat forward in her chair. “Look, the lavender, outside the garden, lovely flowers reaching high, and the green stems are waving in the breeze, beckoning.”

Danielle stood at the window and looked over the picket fence. There was nothing but a flat green field.

“Yes, what a beautiful shade of purply blue,” she said, “and a queen bee ready to fly”.