Meanwhile there was the snow lake, where she would presumably be allowed to come and sit in her time off. She walked and slid her way back over the ice to the shore and then up towards the sanatorium. The whitewash of the outer walls was made to look dirty by the colour of the fresh snow piled against it, but there was a warmth in the timbers and the tiles, a sense that this place might be good to her … But her future couldn’t depend, she told herself, on lifeless stones or on the kindness of people she had yet to meet.

Lena’s mood of confidence lasted until she was told by Frau Eckert, also known as Daisy, a red-faced old woman who spoke with a foreign accent, that she was more than an hour late for work. Before anything else, she would have to do some snow-clearing with Young Joseph. This turned out to be the man who had brought her up from the station; he was known as ‘Young’ to distinguish him from his father, who had been the lampman before him. He was in charge of the stables, guttering and other tasks in which he didn’t seem to want Lena’s help.

‘After that, you can clean in the main house,’ said Daisy. ‘There’s a lot of polishing to do.’

It was late morning by the time Lena was released from snow duties and given a slice of bread and butter with sugar sprinkled on it. This was served through a scullery window along with some coffee that had once been hot.

Daisy took her through a back door into the main house, down a passage and out into the main hall, an area of polished oak with a wide staircase at one end and a circular table with an empty vase. Half a dozen doors opened from either side, from one of which emerged a woman in an ankle-length green skirt with fair hair tied back in a bun, wearing small, silver-framed glasses.

She was hurrying across the hall with some papers, but stopped on seeing Daisy with the new maid.

‘Are you Lena?’ she said.

‘Yes.’

The woman held out her hand. ‘My name is Martha. I wrote you a letter.’

‘Yes … Yes, Fräulein. I … I had the letter.’

Lena had never seen anyone like this before. She seemed so young, but she also seemed to be in charge; her skin was a girl’s, but the glasses made her look like a professor.

‘Is Daisy taking care of you?’

Lena stammered an answer.

‘We’ll get to know each other later,’ said Martha. ‘Maybe we’ll have tea tomorrow. I have to take these papers into Dr Bernthaler now, or I shall be in trouble.’

She knocked on a door across the hall and disappeared.

The next afternoon, Lena found herself taken by the elbow and ushered into one of the rooms off the hall.

‘Thank you, Daisy,’ said Martha, looking up from behind the desk.