But Daisy was distracted, looking curiously about her as they went to the back room. She seemed amazed by it, seeing all Aunt Harriet’s knick-knacks, the tasselled lamps and velvet draping on every possible surface, as if she had never seen such a room before.

‘It smells nice in here,’ she remarked.

‘I know – my aunt always uses a lovely polish on the furniture, and look –’ She pointed to the jar of lavender. ‘She says with all the chemical smells from the workshop she doesn’t want her home smelling like that all the time as well!’

Daisy nodded, still staring about her. She stood with her hands folded in front, her light hair falling down her back; she was wearing a dusty-pink dress, rather loose on her slender frame, but the colour suited her. Margaret thought again what a lovely child she was and wondered who decided on her clothes. She did not want to keep bombarding the child with questions, though.

‘Come, Daisy – sit here with me. And Aunt said we may have some cordial and biscuits a little later.’

She had bought plain paper, lead pencils, coloured crayons. Daisy looked at them in wonder.

‘What do you like to draw?’ Margaret asked. ‘Your friend, perhaps? Do you have a best friend, Daisy?’

‘My best friend is called Lily,’ Daisy said. ‘She is in my form at school.’

‘That’s nice,’ Margaret said carefully. ‘Having a friend to talk to.’

‘Oh . . .’ Daisy said, only half paying attention. ‘I talk to Miss Johnson and Miss Allen in the office as well.’ She was staring at the lavender vase, a ceramic thing, pink roses on a black background. ‘I’d like to draw that.’

She settled, absorbed, with the vase in front of her. Margaret sat beside her. As soon as Daisy started to draw, she was astonished by the girl’s draughtsmanship. Her strong fingers held the pencil as if she was born to it, and the curved, symmetrical lines of the vase, its shape, light and shade, appeared skilfully. The children Margaret had taught in the village could usually only draw the most rudimentary of pictures.

‘That’s beautiful, Daisy!’ she said. ‘Do you do a lot of drawing at home?’

Daisy looked seriously at her. ‘I draw the things that Pa makes. Sometimes he makes the things that I draw as well.’

‘You mean you design things for him?’ Her astonishment increased.

‘Sometimes, yes,’ Daisy said, turning back to her work in her self-possessed way. ‘Pa says that things must be beautiful as well as useful. So I try and make them beautiful.’ She put her head on one side. ‘That vase is quite beautiful. But the pink is a little bit . . . harsh.’

Heavens, Margaret thought, feeling suddenly out of her depth.