Kitty helped Maggie to carry all the things she had sorted out for her up to her room, and once they had put them away she led her downstairs to introduce her to the cook and the rest of the staff. Shortly after, Maggie dined with them in the kitchen and they all made her feel so welcome that she began to feel a little better.

‘It’ll be a great help having you to assist Miss Kitty,’ Mabel told her cheerily as she speared a second lamb chop onto her plate. ‘Miss Ruby takes forever to get ready, and I’ve been running between the two of ’em like a blue-arsed fly, not knowing if I was on me arse or me elbow.’

‘That’ll be enough of that kind of language at my table, if you don’t mind, miss,’ Cook scolded and Mabel winked at Maggie, who tried hard not to laugh.

Maggie stared down at her plate thinking how very different the atmosphere was in this house compared to that in The Gables, where she’d had to watch her ps and qs every second of the day. Perhaps things really would start to improve from now on, after all.

She looked slightly brighter when she met Kitty later that evening and asked, ‘So what do I have to do in the morning and what time would you like me to come to your room?’

‘I think the staff have their breakfast in the kitchen at about seven o’clock then perhaps about nine o’clock you could come to my room and run my bath and we’ll decide what I’m going to wear,’ Kitty suggested. ‘Then after I’ve had breakfast we’ll go shopping for some clothes for you.’

She was pleased to see Maggie looking slightly better although her red eyes betrayed the fact that she had been crying. Inside, Kitty was still seething. The way she saw it, Mr Dawes should be punished for the despicable things he’d done, but she was aware that she must respect Maggie’s wishes and even if she had wanted to expose him for the pervert that he was, how would she go about it? Sunday and Tom still hadn’t replied to any of her letters so she was becoming resigned now to the fact that she never would. Oh well. She had Maggie now, and Richard of course, and the future looked rosy. Even so, deep inside she knew that she was only putting on a brave face. She felt betrayed and abandoned, and wondered how her dear family at Treetops could have forgotten her so very quickly because she still missed them every single day.

The next morning, Maggie and Kitty set off for the shops bright and early. Ruby, as usual, was still in bed but she had left what the girls considered to be a very generous amount of money with Miss Fox to cover the cost of anything Maggie might need.