‘Because they’re sleeping now or we shouldn’t be allowed up,’ she said. ‘You mustn’t think about them, not for a moment. Just get your job done, quick as you can, and then back downstairs as fast as you like. And then you’ve done it, the night’s over. And if you see anything, if anything starts coming, then you hide, don’t you. As fast as you like. And you don’t get seen and you keep hold of your scuttle and if anything comes at you, you hit it, my girl, you hit it and hit it.’

‘But what would come at me?’

But she only said, ‘Mrs Piggott!’

I was left alone shortly after. I didn’t mind it at first, the space, the emptiness, just me there. But then of course it wasn’t just me there at all, there was the house as well.

I saw one of the withdrawing rooms and a morning room, the breakfast room, the Sitting Room with just one old red sofa in it, and what was called the Sun Room which was a room with more windows than most but which had a most dismal feel about it, all the glass panes thick with dirt. The other thing I had not properly understood with the old Iremonger beside me, giving directions, hurrying, panting, was that even though I was on my own in those rooms upstairs still it was far from quiet. The plumbing got very angry, and then there were all the noises of the animal life busy about the house, different things somewhere in the walls, chewing away, and I could see why I was instructed always to keep my coal shovel close by, but only to hit out if I was absolutely provoked, in genuine self-defence, but that if I killed a rat or seagull I must afterwards be sure to clean up the mess. And not to throw the bodies away for there was use in the body, they could be skinned and the skin contribute to a coat, or feathers for quills or for stuffing, their meat could be used, their carcasses could be boiled down for glue, nothing must be wasted.