‘Leave ’er be,’ the old woman scolded after twenty minutes when Amber was still trying unsuccessfully to get Charlotte to eat something. ‘Strikes me that one ’as been spoilt! She’ll eat when she’s ’ungry enough.’ She narrowed her eyes then and commented, ‘Them’s mighty fine clothes the little ’un is wearin’. Were yer husband a rich man?’

Avoiding having to answer Amber rose and fetched a grubby cushion from an old sofa to one side of the fireplace. Charlotte was rubbing her eyes now and clearly ready for her morning nap and once Amber had laid her down, she drifted off to sleep.

‘So what would you like me to do first?’

The old woman snorted as she took a sip of what Amber suspected was gin from an old cracked mug. ‘Use yer eyes, lass! I can’t do a lot what wi’ me rheumatics. I’m a slave to ’em. That’s why you’re ’ere.’

Amber boiled some water and washed the pile of filthy pots in the sink first, which was no easy task as they had stood so long that the grime was caked to them. She then set to and prepared a large dish of stew and once it was simmering gently, she tackled the tiny lead-paned windows. The room looked so much lighter once she could see through them again and she rightly guessed that they hadn’t been cleaned for years. The only trouble was that now it was so much easier to see how filthy everything else in the room was.

Next to be tackled was the floor and after the second mopping Amber was shocked to discover that there were quarry tiles on it. The curtains that hung at the windows were so filthy that it was impossible to see what colour they might be so she hooked them all down and left them to soak in a boiler in the outside laundry room – she would wash them tonight and hang them out to dry in the yard when Charlotte was safely asleep that night.

The men appeared from working in the fields three hours later and without taking their boots off, they trampled all over the clean floor and sat down at the table without even bothering to wash their filthy hands.

‘You could at least have taken your boots off; I’ve scrubbed the floor,’ Amber told them angrily and they laughed.

‘Ooh, ’ark at ’er ladyship,’ Harold, the older of the sons mocked with a wink at his brother, Melvin. ‘Yer’d think we were in some fancy ’otel!’