It was an uncomfortable journey to the station. A gale tore at the ladies’ hats and plastered their thick veils against their faces.

At the station, the footmen ran off and returned with porters. They followed their luggage to where it was being loaded onto a private carriage on the train. Daisy was enchanted by the duchess’s private carriage, which was like a drawing room on wheels, complete with comfortable armchairs, the latest magazines and vases of fresh flowers.

The servants were told to make their way to a third-class carriage farther down the train, but as Benton, the lady’s maid, was to stay with them in the duchess’s carriage, Harry requested the company of Becket as well.

Becket tentatively sat down next to Daisy. He felt he could not bear her coldness a moment longer.

‘Daisy,’ he whispered.

‘Ye-es?’ drawled Daisy in a good imitation of a haughty Mayfair hostess.

‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Becket. ‘I was too hasty in turning down your idea of setting up a dress salon.’

‘You mean it?’ said Daisy.

‘I’ll do the business end, but I don’t want to have to serve ladies.’

‘No, you won’t,’ said Daisy eagerly. ‘Oh, I’m so glad we’re friends again. Miss Friendly will be thrilled. We’ll have the most successful dress salon in London.’

At that moment, Miss Friendly had just left a lawyer’s office in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She stood on the pavement dazed. She had just been informed that her Aunt Harriet, her mother’s sister, who had vowed to have nothing to do with her father ever again because of his drinking and gambling, had died and had left her a house in Sussex, jewellery and ten thousand pounds.

Miss Friendly felt bewildered and alone. She wished she could talk to Rose and Daisy. Then she remembered Phil Marshall, who worked for the captain. She had met him at a dinner the year before and he had seemed such an easy-going, sensible man.

She hailed a hack and directed the cabbie to the captain’s Chelsea address. Phil stared down at the little figure of the seamstress on the doorstep. He was practising a haughty air for the day when he hoped to take over Becket’s duties.

‘It is I, Miss Friendly,’ she said timidly.

Phil suddenly smiled. ‘I didn’t recognize you at first. Come in. You look worried. Is everything all right?’ He led the way into the front parlour.

‘Everything is very much all right,’ said Miss Friendly, ‘but I need some advice.’

‘We’ll have a glass of sherry and you can tell me all about it,’ said Phil. He poked the fire into a blaze and then fetched a sherry decanter and two glasses. ‘Sit by the fire,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’

Miss Friendly took a nervous sip of sherry and told him about her inheritance.

‘You have no more worries,’ said Phil. ‘You move into your aunt’s house and you’ll never have to work again.’

‘It’s just that I have this rather terrifying idea. Daisy – Miss Levine – once suggested that Becket, Miss Levine and myself should set up a dress salon. I have a talent for designing and making clothes. Then Becket said he did not like the idea and I am too timid to take on such an undertaking myself.’