Bobo, who’d been quietly ironing Margaret’s napkins in the corner of the nursery, said, ‘We didn’t know if you’d want to be up here with us. Alah thought you might want to eat with the household staff, you being a teacher.’

‘Am I not eating with the household staff right here with you?’

Alah sniffed. ‘We are nursery, Miss Crawford. The household staff are Mr Ainslie and the others.’

‘Oh.’ Marion hadn’t realized that there was such a hierarchy.

Bobo continued, ‘And then there’s kitchen staff and house staff—’

Marion stopped her. ‘And where does the governess belong?’

Alah took up another pair of socks. ‘Well, that’s the puzzle. We’ve never had a—’

‘You’ve never had a governess before, I know.’ Marion slumped into the nearest armchair in agitated frustration. ‘I suppose it’s up to me to make my own position. That way, when the new governess arrives after I have left, you will be able to tell her where she eats, what she teaches and the hours in which she is permitted so to do.’

Bobo stood open-mouthed, while Alah tucked another ball of freshly paired socks into the laundry basket. ‘I think we need to have a little talk over lunch,’ she said. ‘Bobo, prepare the table.’

Settled with plates of sandwiches and bowls of soup before them, Alah began.

‘Miss Crawford – Marion – having been in service for too many years, I forget how lost a newcomer can feel. I was younger than both you and Bobo when I began working for the Duchess’s mother as the Duchess’s nursery nurse. I had been sent to work for them by my mother. I had experience of looking after my own younger siblings and was thought mature enough to look after a new born. I was fifteen.’

‘I was sixteen,’ Bobo told Marion.

‘Gosh.’

‘I am speaking, if you care to listen,’ Alah said, quietening the younger women. ‘Now, the Duchess’s father, the Earl of Strathmore and her mother, the Countess, live in Glamis Castle. You might know it?’

‘Aye. I do. A beautiful place.’ Marion had been to see the gardens with her parents.

‘Indeed. But for a young girl who had never left home, it was frightening. Castles are draughty and the stories of hauntings meant I didn’t get a wink of sleep in my first two weeks.’

‘I wouldn’t have,’ said Bobo, shivering. ‘Not with the ghosts and the baby up all night.’

Alah silenced her with a sharp look. ‘May I continue?’

Bobo nodded, eyes cast down.

‘So, as you can imagine, I was tired, cold, anxious over my new responsibilities – and very, very hungry.’

‘Hungry?’ asked Marion.

‘Oh yes. No one had bothered to tell me that my breakfast, lunch and dinner were waiting for me in the kitchen. When I didn’t come for it, they thought I must have my own rations in the nursery and didn’t bother me.’

Marion was incredulous. ‘But how could they not think to ask?’

‘They’d never had a nursery nurse before. Nothing had been planned for me.’