As she sat at their tea table, hunger overwhelmed her. There were delicately cut cucumber sandwiches, a trifle with cream, and cakes – a chocolate one with chocolate icing and a sponge cake with jam in the middle.

‘Help yourself, dear.’

Six sandwiches, two helpings of trifle and three pieces of cake later, Mrs Godfrey said, ‘Better now?’

Kate nodded, feeling comfortably full for the first time in weeks.

‘Now,’ Mrs Godfrey turned to her husband. ‘What ought we to do, Henry?’

‘I’ve been thinking, whilst we’ve been having tea,’ he said slowly. ‘I’m afraid we didn’t ought to let you stay with us. It wouldn’t be right. The school would be angry and your mother wouldn’t thank us for interfering. But,’ he added hurriedly, ‘we’ll write to Jonathan – yes, that’s what we’ll do. We’ll tell him everything you’ve told us and he’ll talk to your mother.’

‘Couldn’t you go and see this – this Miss Denham, Father?’ Peggy put in quietly. ‘Perhaps she’d listen to you.’ She turned to Kate to explain. ‘Father’s a deputy headmaster at the boys’ school in the city.’

Kate nodded. ‘I thought it was his school I was coming to,’ she said simply, but the note of wistfulness was not lost upon the three adults. Mrs Godfrey patted her hand.

‘I’d go and see this Miss Denham if I thought it would help,’ Mr Godfrey was saying. ‘But from what you tell us, Kate, the woman would undoubtedly see it as interference and it could make things even worse for you.’

Kate bowed her head and her long hair fell forward hiding her face. She knew what Mr Godfrey was saying was reasonable; that was exactly how Miss Denham would react. And she doubted whether a letter to her stepfather would help either. He might be sympathetic, but would her mother be?

Slowly Kate rose from the table. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mrs Godfrey, it was lovely,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Now, you can come here any time you like. Every Sunday for your tea. And in the week too, if they’ll let you.’

Kate shook back her long hair. ‘I dun’t think they’ll let me come for another two weeks.’

‘Well, come whenever you can. We’ll be here. Now, Peggy will walk back with you.’

As they walked up the hill, Peggy said, ‘I’m sorry you’re having to go back. I’d have let you stay with us if it had been up to me. But Father’s in a difficult position, being in the teaching profession too. And Mother’s afraid of upsetting your mother. She thinks the world of our Jonathan, you know, and doesn’t want to do anything that might cause trouble between him and his wife. You do see, don’t you, Kate?’

Inwardly Kate sighed. Yes, she did see – only too well!