‘I agree,’ Max said. ‘That one will be perfect to put up outside the club. I shall take it to the printers this very afternoon and have it blown up into a poster advertising Miss Kitty Nightingale’s debut performance. It’ll have the clients flocking in. But now we really should do something about getting her a lady’s maid.’

Kitty felt as if she wasn’t even present in the room, the way they were discussing her. But then she supposed they all knew what they were doing so she remained silent and let them get on with it. And then for the first time she began to feel nervous as she thought of her opening night. What if she made a total mess of it? What if she forgot the words to the songs she was to sing … She suddenly realised they hadn’t even been decided on yet! And what about rehearsals? Far more than a lady’s maid, she needed a new teacher – for rehearsals and for expanding her repertoire.

And then her former teacher Miss Lark’s words came back to her. ‘Breathe in and out, relax and sing as if you are completely alone.’ Yes, that’s what I’ll do, Kitty told herself. I won’t even look at anyone in the audience, I’ll just focus on something above their heads. But the big night was getting ever closer now and she couldn’t prevent the butterflies in her stomach fluttering to life every time she thought about it.

Chapter Twenty-One

‘Here, you’ll never believe what I’ve just heard,’ Ben told Sunday as he burst into the hallway at Treetops the next morning. ‘I bumped into one of the Daweses’ maids out in the lane on my way back from town and apparently, Mr Dawes had a massive heart attack last night. They reckon it’s touch and go whether he’ll survive. And that’s not all – it was brought about when he and Maggie had a terrible row. She’s run away from home!’

‘No!’ Sunday was shocked. Despite all her best efforts, they had seen little of Maggie since she had left them to live with Stella and Victor all those years ago, but she was still fond of her. ‘I always thought it was Mrs Dawes who was unnecessarily strict with her,’ she muttered, speaking her thoughts aloud.

Tom came out of his office then and Ben immediately repeated what he had heard.

‘Oh dear.’ Tom scratched his chin. ‘Do they have no idea where she might have gone?’

‘None whatsoever, according to the maid,’ Ben said. ‘Maggie just took off late last night without packing a thing, so she won’t get far surely?’

‘Do you think she might come here?’ Sunday asked but Tom shook his head.

‘I shouldn’t think so. I think she’d already have arrived if she was going to do that.’

‘Then what should we do?’

Tom could see that his wife was distressed, more about Maggie’s disappearance than Mr Dawes’s heart attack. ‘I don’t see that there’s anything we can do without looking as if we’re interfering. And no doubt she’ll return when she’s calmed down and hears what’s happened to her father.’