‘Oh, Books.’ Mary staggered across the room, fell on to the bed and curled up like an infant. ‘She was … kind. Charming and honest and really – yes! – very kind.’

‘Humph.’ The maid shrugged. Once effort had been spent in coming to judgement, she would not go to the trouble of revising it. ‘All put on, I don’t doubt. Well, she picked a fine time to start …’

Mary gave a sad shake of her head. ‘Booker, you are a darling. But sometimes, you come across like my father …’ She sat up and hugged her knees. ‘It did not feel like pretence. Indeed, I truly believe that, for the very first time, she was at last being frank. It led me to wonder—’

‘There’s no time for wondering, miss.’ Booker rose, grabbed her hat and marched to the mirror, armed with a pin. ‘We’ve got a coach to catch.’

‘Oh, do sit down! We still have a whole, interminable hour and you are making me anxious.’ Mary needed to talk. ‘It led me to wonder how things might have been different. We could have had a better relationship, my mother and I. And perhaps I am to blame as much as she.’ Mary stared at the ceiling. ‘She must have viewed these five, motherless children as objects of terror. And we did not make it easy for her, that I confess. It was not as if we asked for a stepmother – who on earth ever would? We resented the role she was to play in our lives but, in so doing, did we ever consider the nature of the woman herself?’

‘Well, I’ve never heard such nonsense in all of my days.’ Booker stabbed pin into hat with some violence. ‘She was the adult, and she is to blame. And that reminds me …’

She strode back to the chair and, sitting erect, addressed the drawn curtains. ‘While we’re on the subject of mothers … There are things she should have told you, if you were doing all this the proper way – though I doubt even then that she would’ve, as your class never does right by its children if it can help it.’ Booker cleared her throat and adjusted her bonnet. ‘On a gentleman’s wedding night, he likes to expect—’

‘Oh, dearest Books!’ Mary collapsed back on the bed with the giggles. ‘Spare yourself, do! Remember, they sent me to school, and for year upon year. What do you think genteel young ladies discuss after lights out – the catechism? There is no need to give me the Talk: I have heard it all backwards. Though if by, say, Newark we’re half dead of boredom, you could test me and Mr Knight on our knowledge? You remember, like Miss Atkinson used to do with French verbs and tenses …’