When I was quaking with chill in my underthings I realized the water in the boiler wouldn’t be warm for another wee while. I’d been dreaming of that bath for the past half a day, I must have been going soft, living under a roof with hot water out of a tap!

I hung up my clothes on the back of the bathroom door and wrapped myself in the shawl that Nan disliked because it wasn’t a proper dressing gown. I ran cold water in the basin while I waited for the hot, pulling the stool up so I could sit and soak my hands.

A tap came at the door.

“Ellen? Shall I leave this outside?”

That was Louisa with a tea tray.

“Come along through,” I said, and she edged through the door. “All right, Louisa?”

“I’m all right.” She gave me a smile and jerked her chin at my hands. “What about you?”

“Aye, no bother. Ta very much for the tea, just set it on the floor there.”

“Mrs. Campbell sent you up some burn ointment, too,” Louisa said.

“Och, she didn’t! She’s got a soft heart under that hard shell, hasn’t she? Like an old pearl mussel stuck on a stone in a river bed.” A corner of the shawl was trailing in the basin and getting a good soak too. I sighed, and watched Louisa put down the tray and stand up again.

She didn’t leave, though.

I gave a jerk of my own chin toward the bathtub, telling her to stay. She sat down on the edge, dark eyes eager, waiting for my news.

I wiggled my sore fingers, splashing water about in the basin. If Nan had a fit of kindness and decided to bring me some sticking plasters as an afterthought, I didn’t want her to hear about our amateur codebreaking.

“Is the old woman behaving herself?” I asked. “Mrs. Warner—do you like working for her?”

“I love it,” Louisa said, and I saw that what she meant was that she loved Jane. But she wore a worried frown as she said it.

“Is it difficult?”

“It’s the easiest work in the world. I do up her buttons and help with her stockings, and keep our room tidy. And I play my flute or piano duets with her, and we listen to records or the radio, and I read novels out loud. She’s always interested and lets me read what I like. And with Mrs. Campbell giving me room and board, I can save most of what she pays me. But—”

“But there’s bombs,” I said.