‘He’s not usually like that,’ Nancy said. ‘He’s gone uppity since he got his promotion. We used to be able to rely on Ray to fix a stuck drawer or swivel chair—’

‘—or a sticky typewriter key,’ Pam said.

‘Yes, awfully good with his hands. But he won’t touch anything like that now,’ Nancy said. ‘Ray used to be good fun. And he’s the most terrible flirt!’

‘But take no notice,’ Pam added, with what sounded like a touch of bitterness, ‘of the flirting. It doesn’t signify anything.’

Maggie frowned. ‘Good fun’ and ‘a flirt’? That didn’t sound like the man she’d met. She wondered, for a moment, if there were another Ray who worked at the bank.

Nancy sighed. ‘And that’s it. All the other men are married.’

‘And ancient,’ Pam added. ‘No one’s under forty.’

‘Don’t—’ Maggie was about to say ‘Don’t worry yourself about me’. But Nancy didn’t let her get a word in edgeways.

‘Perhaps,’ Nancy said, brightening at the thought, ‘there’ll be someone here who’ll catch your eye! A stable hand or a butler? You never know your luck. Perhaps this chap who’s bringing up our bags? He might be a total dish!’

‘If he ever turns up,’ Pam said. ‘Oh, wait! That’s him now, by the sound of it.’ She sat up in anticipation, pressed her legs together and swivelled neatly off the bed.

The girls exchanged glances and frowns as the noises – grunting and rasping breaths – got nearer. Maggie wondered whether she should see if he needed help. This was the Snowden employee that Nancy thought might be a match for Maggie? He certainly didn’t sound like love’s young dream; more like someone on the verge of a seizure.

Moments later, he appeared in the doorway: a grizzled old man, not unlike the one who’d driven the cart from the station. He was loaded up like a packhorse, with bags under each arm and a case in each hand. Another bag hung from its strap around his neck.

‘’Ere’s your fings!’ he announced, as he dropped everything onto the floor in a succession of loud thumps.

When the old man had left, rubbing his arms and ignoring Maggie’s ‘Thank you!’, and the girls had finally stopped laughing at the thought of him as Maggie’s beau, Nancy suggested they should unpack.

Pam shook her head. ‘Come on, I’m tired of hanging around. Let’s take a look at the bathroom and then find out where the chaps are hiding themselves!’