It was very different from the meal that she would have eaten had she gone down to the dining room. Downstairs there would have been quails and truffles and perhaps grouse sent all the way from Scotland to be followed by great joints of meat and elaborate desserts.

Carina knew that the food would have been served on silver plates with the crest of the Lynches emblazoned upon them. There would be orchids in the centre of the table and huge peaches in Sèvres dishes for dessert and a different wine for each course.

On Carina’s tray was one dish of cold chicken served without any elaborations, a sturdy slice of bread and a small dish of butter flanked on one side with a plain china plate and on the other by a pot of tea with a cup and saucer that did not match the set.

It was all quite adequate, quite neatly set up and not in the least something to complain about. But noting the contrast, Carina could not help smiling a little and wondering if many Governesses resented the fact that they were, as the Dowager had implied all too clearly, balanced between Heaven and hell and getting the best of neither world.

Carina sipped the tea, but she was not hungry.

She decided that it would be a good opportunity for her to wash her hair. She looked and saw that the fire was laid in the grate and she set a match to it, knowing that by the time she had finished washing and rubbing her hair she would need the help of a fire to get it really dry before she could go to bed.

She wished now that she had had the sense to ask Nanny to wash her hair before she set off on this adventure. She had seldom, if ever, done it herself and she knew that it was going to be quite a task to manage alone, but at the same time it was something that she would have to learn.

The smoke from the train, the dust from the Stations and the roads along which they had come to The Castle made her feel that she could not put it off any longer.

‘Goodness knows what I shall be asked to do tomorrow night,’ she thought with a little smile. ‘It might be a request to go to the opera or to swim in the lake – nothing would seem fantastic in this place!’

She felt somehow as if the very idea of having something to do swept away her tiredness and made her feel gay.

She went to the little cupboard on the landing where the housemaids kept their utensils and, finding a big brass can such as was carried upstairs with the hot water both in the morning and in the evening, she thought that she would go downstairs and find someone to fill it for her.