‘Away from the village,’ Annie said. ‘That small life. I want to get out and see the world, God’s wide world!’ She swung her arm as if to paint a vision. ‘There’s so much more to see and do – and I want to do something great. Not like Father, all those years with farmers and sheep . . . Why was he there? Instead of in London or . . . or here in Birmingham, at Carrs Lane?’

‘Father couldn’t help it,’ Margaret said stiffly. ‘You know that. It was his sensitive nature.’ She knew they were circling round it all, round everything that had happened.

‘Sensitive?’ Annie raged, so that Margaret shushed her. Annie sat fully upright and went on in a fierce whisper. ‘All this talk about him being sensitive! Who was he ever sensitive to? Hardly ever anyone but himself – and him! His protégé. Bringing him into our house like that – after what he’d done!’

‘But Annie . . .’ Margaret sounded tearful again. Her tears were only a blink away these days. ‘You know what it was like for him, losing John, then Mother . . .’

As the elder of the two she had a clearer memory of the father they had known before his infant son succumbed to fever, followed four years later by his wife.

‘I know – but we lost them too,’ Annie said furiously. ‘And just because someone keeps saying they’re sensitive doesn’t mean they are. What sensitivity has he shown to you? You’ve got to stop believing everything he says.’

‘You can’t just think you can do what you want.’ Margaret desperately wanted to move the conversation away – from home, from Father, and from those last days – and nights – when she and Annie had resolved together that they had to get out of there. All this was the source of her agony. ‘Aren’t you frightened of what it would be like, working here? And you’d cause Aunt and Uncle all sorts of worry . . .’

‘But it was Uncle who suggested it,’ Annie argued. ‘That’s what people do here – they work. And I want to do God’s work. Not just in the village, but in a big city like this! All those things Mr Rowntree wrote about how poorly people live . . . How can society be improved if we don’t go and see what it’s really like?’ She was burning with impatience. ‘It’s not going to get better by itself, is it? God needs our hands; our lips to speak his word.’

She waited for Margaret to say, and why would not country people and farmers be as worthy receivers of the Lord’s word as anyone else? That was what she would have said before – Father’s words, repeated to justify his life in their small backwater. But now, in an unsteady voice, all Margaret said was, ‘Are you ready for me to put the light out?’