That first morning she woke to the warm glow of light through the curtains, confused for a second by the sounds. In place of the quiet of home, broken only by the vociferous cockerel along the lane or the distant cows protesting, she could hear horses’ hooves and cartwheels from the street below, the ring of something metallic being dropped on the ground, clattering sounds and shouts and the tread of many pairs of feet.

It all came flooding back to her. She was not at home – she was here, in Birmingham. And she lay in the curtains’ light, red as if seeping through blood, thinking of her father, the pain of it all filling her once again.

Even before they had got downstairs, they could sense that the house was already in full swing. They were hit by a cocktail of smells: whiffs of acrid fumes mingled with milky porridge and the sour smell of a wet mop. The maid, Fanny, a bony, ginger-haired girl about Margaret’s age, was busy cleaning the landing on the middle floor. Fanny’s job, they would discover, as well as washing and general cleaning, was to wage war on the stairs and passages, which Aunt Hatt was determined to keep clean and respectable, despite the number of feet passing through each day.

Coming down the linoleum-covered attic stairs to the first floor, they could see that the door of the workroom at the front was ajar. They looked at each other, then crept closer for a moment. A man was sitting with his back to them, bent over his workbench in the bright morning light. They could see an array of tools in front of him. Margaret realized he was one of the people to whom Uncle Eb rented a room and she would have liked to go and see what he was doing, but it might have seemed rude. They said good morning to Fanny, stepping apologetically over her handiwork in the corridor. Good-naturedly, she mopped it again.

The banister of the main stairs felt smooth and well-polished under Margaret’s hand as they went down to the ground floor. The back door was open in the warmth and from the workshop out at the back of the house came sounds of thuds and voices. Doors opened and closed.

‘Good morning, Aunt Hatt,’ Margaret said, leading the way in. Aunt Harriet was already at the desk in the office, at the front of the house, leaning over a ledger. The girl called Susan was at her desk and Bridget turned and smiled at them once again, saying hello softly.

‘Ah, you’re awake!’ Aunt Hatt looked up over her wire spectacles. Margaret saw that the dress she was wearing today was in a deep, sea green. How lovely it was, she thought. How elegant her aunt looked. She was taken aback by the worldliness of her thoughts.