‘Thank you, Lizzie.’ Judy nodded to the maid, who had stacked a tray with the dirty crockery, half-eaten slices of bread and butter, and cake crumbs. ‘That will be all for now.’

‘Yes, Miss Begg.’ Lizzie backed out of the door, narrowly missing collision with a young woman who rushed into the room, blonde curls falling loose to her shoulders, and her bonnet hanging over her arm.

‘What have you forgotten, Molly?’ Judy asked with a sigh. Her seventeen-year-old sister carried out her duties as nursemaid to Daisy Walters’ children in a haphazard style all of her own. Scatterbrained and disorganised, Molly was disarmingly good-natured and extremely pretty – qualities that were guaranteed to make everyone forget her failings.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Molly said breathlessly. ‘I forgot Master Henry’s jacket.’ She gazed round the room and her blue eyes lit up as she spotted the missing garment. ‘There it is.’ She pounced on it. ‘I’d better hurry. They’re waiting for me.’ She left the room with a flurry of starched white petticoats.

‘That girl gives me a headache,’ Mary said feebly. ‘She’s exhausting.’

‘She means well, ma’am.’ Judy caught sight of herself in one of the gilt-framed mirrors that adorned the walls of the drawing room. The likeness between herself and her sister was striking, but Molly was the flighty one, who could get away with anything. Judy had always been the serious, responsible older sister. She raised her hand to smooth a stray curl that had dared to escape from the chignon at the back of her neck. ‘I sometimes wish I was more like her.’

‘You’re fine as you are, my dear.’ Mary fidgeted restlessly. ‘I’m not very comfortable.’

Judy plumped up the cushions, and Mary leaned back, closing her eyes. ‘Where’s your mother, Judy?’

‘She’s in the study, ma’am. It’s the end of the quarter and she’s getting the household accounts ready for me to check before they go to Mrs Ralston.’

‘I don’t know what I’d do without her, or you, come to that, Judy. I’ve no head for figures and when Mrs Ralston finally retires, you will take over her position as housekeeper. That is, if you still wish to do so?’

Judy hesitated. To agree to such an offer at the age of twenty seemed like condemning herself to early middle age, but what alternative was there for a woman like herself? She could remember what life had been like in London when she was a small child. The smell of poverty, and the gnawing pangs of hunger were something she would never forget. Life had been so much better since Daisy, having witnessed the terrible street accident that had killed their father and crippled their mother, had brought Judy’s small family to live at Creek Manor. They had nothing to complain about, although sometimes Judy found herself wondering what life would be like now if she returned to London. She had broadened her very basic education by reading as many of the books from the late squire’s library as she could, and she had had the added bonus of sharing lessons with Mary’s youngest son, Jack, who had been a somewhat unwilling student. They had been close friends since childhood, although she had seen little of him since he went away to the school that educated the sons of gentlemen and the ambitious middle classes. But that friendship had changed subtly last summer, and Jack’s return to university had left Judy feeling bereft. She had been counting the days until his return. She came back to the present with a start, and realised that Mrs Tattersall was staring at her with a puzzled frown.