‘I know, with three of everything of the very best quality. But I’ll tell you this, my girl, there’s some who pay for dressing and some who don’t. Well, you do and you should remember to say thank you to God in your prayers.’

The shoe shop Lou recommended was very grand – too grand for Sarah who, when asked by one of the assistants what she wanted, could only whisper ‘shoes’, not saying who they were for. But Margaret was not put off by grandeur.

‘It’s shoes for me,’ she told the assistant. ‘I want shoes for walking and another pair for the house.’

When they sat down to try on shoes the assistant, unlacing Margaret’s boots, found it hard to hide her surprise that such a beautifully dressed little girl should be wearing, not only old clumsy boots, but thick, coarse black stockings. However she said nothing but carefully fitted Margaret out in black laced shoes and a pair of soft house shoes. Then she said to Sarah:

‘Would you care to see some stockings? These the little girl is wearing are thicker than we recommend with our shoes.’

Sarah thought stockings were stockings and that was that, but Margaret jumped at the idea.

‘What do you recommend?’ she asked. ‘And please throw away the boots. I don’t want them any more.’

Sarah was appalled. Throw away boots! She had never heard of such extravagance. The shock of the suggestion brought back her voice.

‘Please pack the boots. We do not know when they may be needed. And we do not require stockings.’

The room proved to be just what was wanted and Mrs Wallow, Miss de Lang’s auntie, immediately put Sarah at her ease. She was a thin little woman, dressed in black with a neat lace cap on her head.

‘I’ll just show you the rooms,’ she said, ‘and then perhaps you’ll have a cup of tea. It will be in the kitchen for it’s what I’m used to, never have sat in a drawing room and I’m not starting now. It’s just two bedrooms you can have. I can’t give you a kitchen but you can share mine or, if convenient, I could cook for us all, being used to it like. But I tell you what you can use and that is the bathroom. Mr Wallow and I have ours by the kitchen stove of a Saturday night as we’ve always done, but no doubt you’d fancy the bathroom.’

The rooms were small but clean, with flowered wallpapers and dark green curtains and bed coverings. Both had texts over the bed. Sarah had ‘God is Love’ and Margaret ‘Thou, God, see’st me’. Neither Sarah nor Margaret had ever before lived where there was a bathroom, they thought it superb.

‘When he has the time,’ Mrs Wallow said, ‘Mr Wallow will do up the big front bedroom for a sitting room, but there’s no saying when he can get around to it for he keeps funny hours being an odd job man.’