When she met Mr Lester, she began to find out. He was back in the house before the evening meal and came into the kitchen.

‘Ah, you’re back, dear!’ Mrs Lester exclaimed.

Mr Lester gave a curt nod and Molly felt immediately unsure of him. He was quite a small man and, Molly realized, a good few years older than his wife. He had taken off his hat to reveal his balding pate, with strands of grey hair combed neatly over it, which the hat had apparently not even slightly disturbed, and he was still wearing a sandy brown mackintosh. Molly saw his gaze move to her and he nodded commandingly at his wife, as if to say, ‘Well, who’s that?’

‘We’ve had such a stroke of good luck this afternoon!’ Mrs Lester exclaimed, clapping her hands together and holding them clasped under her chin as if in prayer. ‘This is Molly – she’s an experienced cook and, as you can see, good and strong. Isn’t she just what The Laurels needs, dear? I think she’ll be a godsend!’

Molly shook hands with her new employer, saying, ‘How d’you do.’ There was not much response. All he did was nod at her again, not looking especially pleased. He seemed to be examining her carefully. His hand felt small and dry.

‘Of course I wouldn’t just take her on without your say-so,’ Mrs Lester went on. ‘I thought perhaps we should have her for a trial period . . .’

Mr Lester made a sound rather like a cough, nodded abruptly and then smartly left the room.

Molly tried not to let her face show what she was thinking: Well, he’s a queer so-and-so, and flaming rude with it.

But Mrs Lester waited until her husband was out of earshot and came closer to Molly. ‘I should have explained,’ she whispered apologetically. ‘I forget that people don’t know . . . You see, Mr Lester is not quite as other men. He has a difficulty with his speech, so he is a person of rather few words. He has a deformity to the roof of his mouth. It’s the cross he has to bear.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Molly said. This seemed very sad and made him less forbidding. But, she couldn’t help wondering, how did Mr and Mrs Lester talk to each other? How did they even get to know each other?

‘He does compensate so well in other ways,’ Mrs Lester added.

It didn’t become fully apparent what this meant until the next morning. Molly helped Mrs Lester serve the young couple who had come down from London straight from their wedding. The woman was buxom with thick, honey-blonde hair and a big toothy smile, the lad thin and sweet-looking, and apparently scarcely able to believe his luck.

Breakfast involved scrambling powdered egg. It also, as it turned out, involved hymn-singing and prayers led by Mr Lester. Molly had just come into the dining room from the kitchen holding a small milk jug when he appeared from the hall, and before she could even reach the table to deliver the milk, he was handing his customers a sheaf of typed papers, fastened together, which were evidently a home-made hymnal. The young couple, who were not necessarily prepared for this eventuality, looked politely bewildered. To Molly’s surprise, a white-faced Mrs Lester then appeared. Molly put the milk on the couple’s table and started to retreat.