‘I love you,’ she whispers in the darkness. ‘I’ve missed you.’

The beer boy from the brewery is most put out when Mary instructs him not to call around anymore. ‘But it ain’t my fault if people do indulge themselves too much is it, miss? You can’t blame the supplier for over-consumption, can you?’

It is only very reluctantly, and after the offer of a small bribe, that he finally agrees to her request. ‘Cheeky beggar,’ she murmurs, as she heads westwards, away from her poky lodgings on Folgate Street and along Primrose Street towards Moorgate. Uncle Jos is still abed, laid low with a frightful headache, but Richard has at least delivered his piece, or rather her piece, to the publisher. He is back! she thinks to herself. Richard said he’d become tired of Edinburgh, missed the wonders of London, but she knows there must be more to it. Both jobs he has taken, part-time reporter for the Morning Express and assistant editor at the New Weekly, could be seen as a step down from his more senior role in Edinburgh. Perhaps Richard feels he owes Uncle Jos a favour in return for his kindness towards him? And Richard was very fond of Uncle George. He is fond of me too, she thinks, suddenly unsure of the warmth that tickles beneath her skin.

The pie seller shouts out a greeting from the other side of the street where he’s setting up for the lunchtime crowds and she waves back with a grin before wrapping her shawl tight to ward off the cool October air.

By the time she has negotiated the City’s busy throng and arrived at Mr Gidley’s Button Emporium on Cheapside, her good mood is tempered a little for Gustavus Gidley, known more widely as Mr Buttons, is a demanding employer with an exacting eye. She waits for him to approve of her work – sets of buttons tacked neatly onto stiff blue card, ready for sale – whilst she glances around the shop, an endlessly fascinating place packed with tiny wooden drawers crammed full of buttons and fasteners for every occasion.

Mary had been scraping a living from helping Jos with his research – note-taking, bookkeeping and the like – and from additional snippets for Cousin Lou and the penny gaff, a low-rent local theatre. It wasn’t much but it was enough – until George died. Now Mary’s piecemeal work is nowhere near enough to keep both of them afloat – and Jos’s writing has become increasingly erratic, his reliability affected by the alcohol he seeks solace in. With both George and his income gone, Mary and Jos had already been forced to downsize to a cheaper part of town, their roomy lodgings in Holborn but a distant memory.