“I only had him until Sheila was nine months. They have been long years.” Perhaps it was the garden, or perhaps the feeling which the colonel exuded that whatever was said to him he would regard as a confidence, but Maggie found herself speaking of things which before she had clamped down in her heart. “Of course, nobody seeing me now could imagine me as I was in those days. Such a silly little thing, never able to make a decision for myself, running to my husband about everything.”

“Must have been a bit hard to take the other line, and I suppose you weren’t left too well off.”

“No, there was hardly any money at all. That was what pulled me together. I think if we had been rich I should just have settled down wrapped in self-pity; you can, you know, but there were the children, needing education and nourishing food. Janet was at school, but I put Sheila in her pram, and together we cadged round and got sewing to do.” She laughed. “I got quite famous in my little way, and I thought no end of myself, and then one day when I was fitting a frock for one of my richest clients, she said: I’ve made a secret of you. People think I go up to the West End for my things; they would have a shock if they knew I just went to a little woman round the corner.’”

“Damned cheek, and not fit to clean your boots, shouldn’t wonder! What happened about the girls’ schoolin’ fees?”

“Well, thanks to the dressmaking, I was able to manage the High School. It was rather wasted on Sheila, but Janet did very well. She could have had a scholarship for a university, but she wouldn’t hear of it; right down angry she was. I’m going out to work,’ she said, ‘and with what you save on my school fees, and what I give you, that’s the end of your dressmaking. The day I bring home my first pay envelope you take no more orders, or I’ll take a hammer to your sewing machine.’”

The colonel chuckled.

“Good girl, and did she have to?”

“No. I know my Janet. She would have done it. Often I wanted to work so the girls could have a little more fun, and some nice frocks, but I didn’t dare, and I had no excuse, for any time Sheila wanted something special Janet paid for it.”

The colonel clicked his fingers at Hoover, who was snuffling by. He picked him up and sat him on his knee.

“Hear that, old man? And we think we’re bullied.” He shook his head. “Shockin’ to think of all the comfort I’ve had while there are people like you strugglin’ alone. You happy in that cottage of Sheldon’s?”