‘Right, good. Fine.’ Joseph nodded. ‘Marvellous work, ladies. I will leave you but if you change your mind about the sherry, do help yourselves.’ He pointed at the drinks cabinet on the far wall. ‘It’s not locked!’

The women were still laughing as he stepped backwards out of the room, closing the door behind him. He saved the last glance for Gwen, who’d lifted her face now. She was watching him closely, with soft eyes.

Chapter 5

The horse and cart swung sharply off the lane and onto a gravelled drive.

Maggie, sitting up high next to the driver, grabbed the rail as they went through a pair of metal gates and past a lodge on the left. She was feeling a queer mixture of dread and excitement.

There it was, at the end of a long avenue of trees: Snowden Hall. The cart rattled and shook as the men in the back stood up.

One of them gave a low whistle. ‘Now, that’s what you call a house!’

‘Mansion, more like!’

‘Surprised those iron gates haven’t gone for tanks!’

They sounded thrilled and eager to get there. Was she the only one who was a bag of nerves?

The horse started to speed up. Every few strides, his steady walk turned into a more purposeful trot and then back to a walk again.

‘’E knows he’s nearly home,’ the driver said, still staring straight ahead. He was an old chap, with a grey beard and flat cap. Those were the first words he’d spoken since Maggie and the men had climbed aboard at the station. ‘Wants ’is dinner,’ he added, with a gap-toothed grin.

He wasn’t the only one. Maggie’s stomach was rumbling. She hadn’t eaten a thing since a rushed piece of toast that morning. She’d eaten it so fast that she’d got indigestion as she tried to run for a cab, with Kath Deacon’s coins gripped firmly in her hand.

She hoped there’d be something to eat when they arrived. A sandwich would do, or a piece of bread and dripping. Anything.

Maggie hadn’t minded the driver’s silence on the slow journey from the station. It had given her chance to look about and breathe in the fresh – and sometimes whiffy – air. The horse’s rhythmic clip-clopping was soothing after the busy morning she’d just had.

They’d travelled along empty lanes, past rolling green meadows and fields of crops. In the distance, she’d spotted the tiny white dots of sheep on the hillsides. Everything looked so lush and healthy. Such a contrast to grey, sick London. It was as though Maggie had been dropped into another world.

She’d expected to see farmers, or perhaps a shepherd with a crook, but they hadn’t seen another soul the whole way. Nor a cart, carriage or even anyone on a bicycle.