She’d written to Didlington Hall twice before the ban and the burning of the book. They’d been letters of practice enquiry – how to apply the rules of marital duty without betraying the soul, and the methods of prayer for a child in the stages of recovery. The replies, helpful if poorly written, were signed, Yours In Christ, Ruby Smith. She’d taken a buggy from Swaffham station. It had turned in at gates fit for Inveraray and wound slowly along a drive which opened, a mile or so later, onto a red brick Palladian mansion set in parkland. Its chimneys were reflected in the lake that lay before it.

A small girl with ringlets had opened the door. “Yes?”

“I’m Enid.” It was all she’d been able to say.

The girl had taken her suitcase. “I’m Ruby.”

She’d followed her in like a puppy, grateful for the short reply. Ruby had shown her to a library festooned with animal heads, where Enid had lain down on a large, collapsing sofa. Ruby had put a tray of tea and biscuits down on the table beside her. She’d sat with her while she ate, not speaking, only smiling.

When she’d finished Ruby had led her to an attic bedroom. “This is yours,” she’d said, showing her the wardrobe, the window, the chest of drawers. “You can stay as long as you like.”

The saw of a chair across lino brought her back. Bridget was being removed for a dry shirt. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” said Mandy.

Enid stared at her empty place.

It wasn’t easy to remember it, none of it. But that bit, that moment in her life when she’d – what? – gone off? Like bad milk or soured cream, she thought, watching Mandy approach her with a plate. Is that what had happened? Had she soured and turned bad, become unpalatable? She remembered walking out, she remembered arriving, she remembered thinking that her family were better off without her. She’d lain on the bed in the room she’d been given, in the vast red brick Palladian mansion in Norfolk and thought, I’m falling.

Enid, 1924

18

Enid, 1924

She slept like the dead that night, a sleep free of dreams, and when she woke she was confused and didn’t know where she was; didn’t recognise the bed, the curtains the room. She thought this isn’t my bedroom and then remembered. She got up and wandered down the corridor of many doors that Ruby had led her along last night – the long, long rug perfect for children to run madly on, past the paintings hung on red flock walls, the half-moon tables holding trinkets and vases of flowers – until she reached the grand staircase that led down to the hall. Leaning over the bannisters, she heard the droning tone of words united coming from behind vast double doors below.