Daisy had told her about Harry’s advertisement for a secretary and she wished he had asked her. He never called and he never attended any of the long, boring society events where she sat and fretted and counted the hours until she could return home to the sanctuary of books and privacy.

Harry was finding it hard to engage a suitable secretary. He did not want to make another mistake.

But at last he settled on a Miss Ailsa Bridge, daughter of Scottish missionaries. She was tall and thin with a long nose and pale hooded eyes. She was in her late thirties and had travelled extensively to the Far East with her parents to convert the heathen. Ailsa had excellent shorthand and typing. She came with a reference from Brigadier Bill Handy, who said that while she had been abroad she had provided the British government with useful intelligence about various situations in Burma.

She proved to be neat, efficient, and, above all, impersonal.

What he did not know because Ailsa did not consider it important enough to tell him was that two days after she had started work and while Harry was out of the office, she had sustained a visit from Miss Jubbles.

Miss Jubbles announced that she was the captain’s former secretary and said that the china in the cupboard was her property. Armed in her new status of affianced lady, Miss Jubbles was ready to do battle, but Ailsa said mildly that she should go ahead and take her china.

‘Very kind of you,’ said Miss Jubbles gruffly. She had brought a box and tissue paper with her and she packed the china lovingly, glancing around occasionally at what she had considered to be her ‘sanctum’ for signs of change. There were new box files in different colours. The windows had been cleaned and sparkled in the late-spring sunlight. Other than that, it all looked heart-breakingly the same.

While she packed, Ailsa continued to type at great speed, keys rattling like a Gatling gun.

‘Thank you,’ said Miss Jubbles when she had finished. Ailsa raised her hands from the keys and put them in her lap. ‘I’ll be going, then.’

‘Goodbye,’ said Ailsa politely.

Miss Jubbles hefted up the box and paused in the doorway. ‘Is the captain still running after that horrible creature, Lady Rose Summer?’

Ailsa’s nose turned pink at the tip with annoyance. ‘I do not know anything of Captain Cathcart’s personal life, nor do I wish to do so.’

‘Then you should. She’s always in trouble and she’ll get him killed one day.’

‘If you are quite finished . . .’ Ailsa’s tone was frosty.

‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ said Miss Jubbles.

When she had gone, Ailsa rose and went back to her room in a business women’s hostel in South Kensington and collected a box of china she had brought from her parents’ home in Scotland and had never used.