Holly groaned. ‘Oh, not you as well. I invite a friend to dinner and the next thing you lot are marrying me off!’

‘Well, from what I saw of him yer could do a lot worse,’ Ivy remarked as she loaded the dirty pots onto a large wooden tray, then she sailed from the room with an amused gleam in her eye.

Over the next few weeks there didn’t seem to be a spare minute in the day. Holly was either at work, helping her mother with her wedding plans or helping with the various fund-raising activities Emma and Sunday Branning had planned to raise money to get the workhouse children to the seaside. On one particular Saturday the women held a second-hand clothes sale in the parish hall and as soon as they opened the door, they were nearly trampled by the local women as they pushed and shoved their way in to get first pickings.

One woman grabbed a cardigan just as another woman was reaching for it and Sunday had to intervene to stop a fight from breaking out.

‘Now, ladies, I’m sure there will be something for both of you,’ she panted as she tried to hold them apart.

‘I bleedin’ seen it first,’ one of the women protested loudly. ‘Give it ’ere else I’ll black yer bleedin’ eye!’

Holly and Ivy, who were standing beside one of the stalls, watched with amusement as Sunday hastily handed the garment over.

‘Don’t blame her,’ Ivy whispered. ‘That’s Mrs Davis. She’s from the courtyards an’ she’d knock yer down soon as look at yer!’ Thankfully the rest of the women were a little better behaved although some of the foul language they used as they snatched at various items of clothing was enough to turn the air blue.

By the time everything was sold and the women had left, Emma felt as if she had been on a battlefield and her nerves were in shreds but when they counted the money, they were delighted to find that they’d raised almost ten pounds.

‘We’ll have those children to the seaside in no time at this rate,’ Verity Lockett chirped happily.

On 28 June a tidal wave of horror swept through the country as word reached the people that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, had been assassinated as the car carrying the royal couple through the streets of Sarajevo was attacked by a young man who ran from the crowd and fired a gun at them. The first bullet got the duke in the neck, the second got his wife in the stomach and she died almost instantly, the duke ten minutes later.

‘I fear this will have serious repercussions on all of us,’ Gilbert said gravely.

‘Surely not, Father,’ Emma said. ‘How could something that has happened so far away possibly affect us?’