Both girls nodded, and picking up the case once more they trudged ahead of the handcart. Eileen picked up her box wearily and the handcart’s squeaking wheel was the only sound as they walked to the cottage that was to be their new home.

Molly stood in front of the black front door and sighed in delight. They really were here, they really had this place. They finally had a proper home. Her eyes drank in the leaded light windows that only needed a good wash, the red-tiled roof and cream-painted walls. It was all her dreams come true.

The cottages had stood there since the sixteenth century and had once boasted thatched roofs and large gardens. They had been farm workers’ cottages until the mid-1800s when they had been bought up and rented out to any Barking residents who could pay.

Oxlow Lane was still countrified, wide and sweeping and bordered by fields. Most of the people who could afford decent houses wanted to live near Stratford and Bow, if not in Barkingside, where the docks were. But Molly was astute enough to know that Oxlow Lane would be quiet for herself and the girls, while still close enough to East London which was only a couple of hours’ walk. Rainham-on-Thames was only another hour’s walk along the London Road and Molly was determined to take the girls there for the day in the summer. She had been there only once herself, when she had first married Paddy, and carried the memory with her in a kind of reverence. They’d sat on the sands as the Thames rolled by, watching the passenger ferries from Gravesend in Kent disgorge day trippers, dressed in their Sunday best. They had eaten whelks and cockles outside The Phoenix public house, and Paddy had kissed her on the beach to the scandalisation of some older women near them. Oh, she was taking the girls in the summer if it was the last thing she did!

She felt in her coat pocket for the large brass key and once more marvelled to herself. A key. For the first time they had a dwelling with a key. With a real front door. She took it out of her pocket and inserted it in the lock - then all hell broke loose. Rosalee, for some unexplained reason, decided to get herself down from the cart. She stood up amongst the furniture and somehow managed to upset the whole thing.

Eileen watched in dismay as the child was flung on to the ground with a hard thud, closely followed by the table and chairs. The door of the adjoining cottage opened and a large man rushed out. Molly saw white-blond hair and huge musclebound arms pick up Rosalee and pass her to Eileen, then the table and chairs were also picked up and stacked neatly in what seemed seconds.