‘I’m sorry about this,’ were her first words as she manhandled the heavy leather-bound trunk into the middle of the room and promptly tripped over it. ‘It’s an awful nuisance, you having to share.’

‘It isn’t your fault, I suppose,’ Dulcie sighed. ‘I’ve emptied the bottom drawer in the chest and cleared you some space in the wardrobe. Although goodness knows if it will be enough …’ She eyed the trunk, squatting in the middle of the room.

‘I’m sure I’ll manage,’ Grace said cheerfully. She bent down to unfasten the strap buckles on her trunk.

‘I hope you don’t snore?’ Dulcie said, as she watched her unpack.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And don’t break anything.’

‘I’ll try not to.’

Grace threw open the wardrobe door and gazed at the sliver of space Dulcie had grudgingly cleared for her.

‘I didn’t think you had that many clothes?’ Dulcie said defensively.

Grace gave a little shrug. ‘I’m sure I’ll fit everything in somehow.’

She fetched an armful of clothes from her trunk and started arranging them on hangers.

‘I must say, I’m very glad to be sharing a room again,’ she said. ‘I’ve been lonely since Anna Beck started living out.’

‘I don’t know why Beck is still working here,’ Dulcie replied.

‘I think she enjoys her work.’

‘Then she must be mad!’ Dulcie snorted with derision. ‘When I’m married, I intend to be a lady of leisure – watch out!’

Grace swung round with an armful of clothes and knocked Dulcie’s powder compact off the bedside cupboard. Dulcie made a grab for it just before it hit the floor.

‘You clumsy goose! What did I say about not breaking anything?’ she snapped.

‘Sorry.’

‘You would be, if you broke this.’ Dulcie snapped open the compact and checked the mirror. The enamelled compact had been a gift from a besotted medical student. Dulcie had waited until he had presented it to her to tell him she wasn’t interested.

She watched in fascination as her room-mate unpacked the rest of her belongings from the trunk.

‘You have a lot of photographs,’ she observed, as Grace arranged them carefully on her bedside table.

‘They’re my family.’ She polished a gilt frame with her sleeve and smiled fondly down at the photograph. ‘I like to see them when I wake up and say goodnight to them before I go to bed. A bit silly of me, I suppose.’ She looked shame-faced.

Dulcie glanced at her own bedside table, empty but for her compact, her lipstick and a tattered copy of Tatler.

‘Let me see.’ She reached for one of Grace’s photographs. ‘Goodness, what a lot of children!’

Grace grinned. ‘Those are my brothers and sisters.’ She looked over Dulcie’s shoulder, pointing them out. ‘Those are my older brothers, Matthew and Mark. Those two are Luke and John. They’re all away in France now. And those are the twins, Patience and Prudence, and the other girls, Charity and Mercy. And that’s the youngest, Peter. Or he was the youngest,’ she added as an afterthought. ‘Mother has had Reuben since then. Oh, and that’s me,’ she said, pointing to a face nearly lost at the back, peeping out from between her brothers’ broad shoulders.