That Friday evening, Margaret and Aunt Hatt were working late in the office. Bridget and Susan had gone and in Susan’s place sat Daisy Tallis. She had asked if she could come in again. ‘Of course you can, Daisy,’ Margaret had said. As they were busy, she added, ‘But we’ve got a bit of a rush on. We had a special job to do last week for the German gentleman and we’re catching up on the rest of the orders now. But you can come and sit with us and do some drawing if you like.’

Daisy settled happily with paper and pencils, her face bent earnestly over her drawing. Flowers and beautifully shaped vases with ornate handles emerged on the paper.

‘Go on, Daisy,’ Aunt Hatt teased her, looking in admiration at the picture. ‘Draw a portrait of me for once – or Margaret!’

Daisy smiled up at her, shook her head and went on producing symmetry and complicated decoration under the light of the lamp.

Soon they heard Annie come back from work. She closed the door quietly and must have been hanging her hat and coat in the hall.

‘Hello, Annie,’ Margaret called. She saw Daisy look up between her thick curtains of hair and smile faintly.

Annie appeared round the door. Her eyes seemed hollowed, face almost as pale as the white collar of her dress.

‘Good heavens, Annie, you look terrible.’ Aunt Hatt launched into her usual reproaches about how Annie must give up that job immediately, she was overdoing it and what would their mother have said? ‘D’you think you’re coming down with something, dear?’

Annie was already shaking her head.

‘No, Auntie, it’s not that.’ Annie sank down on to Susan’s chair. Margaret felt her heart pick up speed. She could see that whatever news was on the way, it was not good. ‘It’s Mr Poole,’ she said. ‘He’s disappeared again. Lizzie came into work in a terrible state.’

‘Oh, no,’ Margaret said, all the sadness facing the Poole family hitting her with renewed force. ‘When?’

‘Yesterday.’ Annie shook her head. ‘You saw, Margaret – he’s a poor thing. I don’t know what he was like before the accident, but he used to earn a living all right. He can’t seem to manage anything now. I suppose he’s taken to the road again.’

None of them could think of much to say. Aunt Hatt looked very dismayed. She and Uncle Eb had been kindness itself over the funeral. Annie’s wages and more had gone into meeting the £2 needed for all the humble proceedings – an impossibly huge sum for the Pooles to have to find.

‘That poor woman,’ Aunt Hatt said in the end. ‘Whatever are they going to do?’

Margaret saw Daisy listening to the conversation, her head raised, a look of sad sympathy in her eyes.

But by the next day there was worse news still.