‘So if you’ll tell Mrs Lucan that I’ll highly recommend Mr and Mrs Randell as tenants, Henry, but not a word to them that the rent is a special rate, as Mrs Randell in particular will think it charity. In fact, if she should ask, tell her it’s a kind of peppercorn rent; a ground rent if you will. She’ll understand that, being a countrywoman.’

‘Very well,’ Henry said. ‘She seemed a good sort. And I’m to tell my sister that you’ll guarantee them?’

‘I will. It’s the least I can do; and,’ he added as he heard feet on the steps, ‘send the paperwork to my home address marked private and confidential, will you? I’m taking on a new administrator in the office and this is an entirely separate matter.’

Henry Thorpe touched his forehead with his fingertip as someone knocked on the door. ‘Very good, sir. Thank you. Goodbye.’

He opened the door to Lizzie. Tannerson stood up to greet her, lifting his hand in farewell to Henry as he asked her to come in.

‘Right on time, Mrs Robson,’ he said approvingly. He asked her to take a seat and then viewed his cluttered desk, which was strewn with papers, files and notebooks. ‘As you will see, I am not the tidiest of men. Do you think you can take all of this in hand?’

Lizzie looked dispassionately at the desk, at the wooden cabinets with their open and overflowing drawers, at the dishevelled piles of books and documents on the shelves, and then at the stacked boxes on the floor, filled with she knew not what, and turned to him. Then she smiled. ‘I can’t wait to get started,’ she said.

The rent agent called and Ellen paid him for the current week and the following week in advance, so that she would know exactly how much money she would have left to pay for the new house if she was told they could have it. She began to sort out the bedding and wrapped it in an old sheet, then put her spare crockery into a cardboard box along with knives and forks, only keeping out enough basics to use for the present.

It was as she was doing this that Mary asked where the little hen was. ‘She died,’ Ellen said. ‘It was her time.’

‘Oh!’ Mary said, and Sarah gazed at her mother.

‘I’m going to tell you a secret.’ Ellen lowered her voice to distract them and Thomas looked up too. ‘We’re going to live in another house.’

The three children all stared at her. ‘What about Dada?’ the girls said simultaneously, with Sarah adding, ‘He won’t know where to find us!’

Mary’s mouth trembled and Sarah shook her head. ‘I’ll wait here for him,’ she said, crossing her arms to show there would be no argument about it.