Maria cared for Clementine too: she changed her, brought her to Flora to be fed, then changed her again. Maria adored Clementine, weaning her onto milk from the goat she had bought because she’d read that goat’s milk was healthier for a baby than cow’s, bathing her and changing her, gazing at her with so much love, her veil now entirely discarded except when she was outdoors. And the baby smiled back at her, the first person, Flora realised, who failed to realise that the face above her was all wrong.

Each morning after breakfast Clementine waved her legs on a blanket on the parlour floor while Flora read aloud from a women’s magazine and Maria sewed the small garments Clementine would need when she was out of nightgowns, interrupted only by the need to supervise the cooking, the washing, ironing, the butter making or preserving.

Sometimes, just sometimes, Flora thought she caught a look of boredom on her sister-in-law’s face. But how could Maria be bored, now that she had companionship and a life beyond her housekeeping?

Mrs Taylor served the men luncheon — yet another meal of meat, roast or stewed: kangaroo, duck, even emu, because these days Ezekiel would not waste his precious breeding stock for the table. The only mutton at their table was from a sheep that had died of injury or old age. Flora and Maria lunched when Clancy and Ezekiel went out again, on sandwiches, or an omelette if the hens were laying well, or soup, again conjured up from the poverty of the vegetable garden or wild herbs.

After luncheon, Maria would take Clementine for a walk while Flora napped, or stared at the uneven ceiling, using the excuse that even after nine months she was still recovering from childbirth instead of admitting that she was ensuring her complexion was not ruined by the months or years they must spend at Overflow.

Maria even managed to push the perambulator out into the bush, to show Clementine native flowers, strange spiky things or great wild tangles of white or cream blossom. Sometimes Maria brought bunches of native flowers home. If you kept your gaze firmly on the blooms and not on the drab leaves or twiggy stems, it was almost possible to think you had found beauty.

Dinner at least was done as correctly as possible, in the dining room that was as ornate as the parlour, even if those table legs also rested in cans of water, and none of the hideous cherub-adorned furniture or faded striped wallpaper suited the Rosemere velvet curtains Flora had had the women hang as soon as they’d been unearthed from her trunks. But the cutlery was the silver she had also brought with her from Sydney, and the china too, each piece wrapped in newspaper that it might survive the cart journey here.

Eating by candlelight it was possible to pretend dinner was just as it should be, even if it was served by Mrs Taylor, who, from the numbers of times Maria had to direct her, Flora was sure had never served at table before her arrival.