Sophia felt that she ought to have a charwoman in for an hour every day, to deal with these matters and keep the cottage looking nice. A few days after they moved in, Harry, through an introduction from Edward Sweeting, got a job at five pounds a week as assistant stage manager, with a few lines to say, in a thriller by a successful American author, which was to be put on at the Duke of Kent’s theatre; and began rehearsing immediately.

This was a glorious event, but it meant that Harry would be out nearly all day, and could neither receive loads of potatoes nor make his own bed. (Sophia made hers, but that was different.) It meant more had to be done, and made a charwoman even more necessary.

The whole crew of relations from Uncle Preston to Angela meanwhile rang up almost every evening to enquire, warn, admonish, coo and say that they simply must come over and see the house. They were all, except Auntie Loo, hoping that the children would make a shocking mess of the housekeeping, and their telephone calls were in the nature of vulture-like hoverings and anticipations over what they hoped would soon be a carcass.

Of course, none of them knew this. They all thought they were taking a kindly interest.

In spite of her many responsibilities at this time, Sophia was happy.

Her situation did not include many of the things which make most human beings happy, for she was poor, she was not in love and had no one in love with her, she was not pretty nor admired, she was usually exhausted from overwork and felt vaguely ill from the pressure of her own nervous energies, lingering grief for her mother, and from the deeply rooted misery which had struck into her nature during her childhood. She seldom experienced the pleasures of a theatre or a dance, and she had not many nice possessions; her clothes were cheap, home made and worn, and she sternly kept herself from buying the snowy collars and cuffs, the little bottles of scent and the elegant gloves which she wanted.

Nevertheless she enjoyed almost every moment of her day. She had learned, at an early age, to ignore the protests made by a tired body; this is a valuable lesson, which often serves to develop the senses of hearing, smell and taste, and to make them vivid, and obedient to the demands of the intelligence. As for her eyes – what delight they gave her! ravaging a room, a face, a landscape like buccaneers, and sending back to her brain great loads of loot.

She liked best of all to roam about London or to go for a whole Sunday into the country by herself on the top of a bus. She did not think about anything; she wandered along, falling over things and scratching her legs on brambles, vaguely looking forward to the sandwiches she carried in a little old camera case made of leather, and chewing a piece of grass. If she was accompanied by a friend, she usually took a talkative one, to whom she could politely say ‘Yes,’ ‘Indeed,’ ‘I should think not,’ ‘Oh,’ and ‘Did he, how odd,’ without hearing more than three-twelfths of what was being related. All the friends said she was so sympathetic, and Sophia would grin, and feel a little ashamed.