The maid passed it on to Maggie who was secretly pleased when she delivered it. Kitty was looking tired and she thought a quiet night in would do her the world of good. They were few and far between at the moment, although now that Maggie had Tallulah to keep her company while Kitty was out, she didn’t get nearly so lonely.

‘Oh!’ Kitty was disappointed at first, but soon decided that it would be nice if she and Maggie had an evening in together. She felt guilty for abandoning her friend so much, but she had been so busy that she hadn’t really had much choice. Now suddenly the thought of a long leisurely soak in the bath and an early night didn’t seem so bad after all.

Kitty left the door to the bathroom open while she bathed and she and Maggie chatted through the door.

‘I was reading that there’s going to be a terrible shortage of nurses and doctors as well as young men,’ Maggie remarked. ‘A lot of them are going to be shipped over to the field hospitals they’re erecting in Belgium and France by all accounts.’

Kitty sighed. She was heartily sick of hearing about the war. It seemed to be the main topic of conversation on everyone’s lips.

‘And they reckon that women will be called on to take over men’s jobs as well,’ Maggie chattered on.

‘Doing what?’

‘Factory jobs, driving – anything the men did, really. Someone’s got to do them, haven’t they, otherwise the country will grind to a halt.’

Kitty frowned. She couldn’t quite imagine such a thing. A woman’s place had always been in the home, keeping house and bringing up her family, and it was hard to imagine a woman doing a man’s job. But then she supposed that time would tell. If what Lord Kitchener had forecast came true, the war would be over by Christmas and the men would all be returning home again.

She came out of the bathroom eventually to find Maggie staring broodily from the window down into the garden and she asked, ‘Are you all right, Maggie?’

‘What? Oh yes – yes, thank you. I was just thinking … I wonder what’s happening back in Nuneaton. Do you think anyone we know will have joined up?’

‘I should imagine so.’ Kitty began to rub her wet hair with the towel. ‘Ben may well have done, although I’m not sure if Tom, George and your father would be too old?’

As the closed look came down in Maggie’s eyes at the mention of her father, Kitty could have bitten her tongue out. Maggie very rarely mentioned the Daweses; it was if she had closed the door on that chapter of her life.

‘Perhaps you should write to Sunday and Tom to see what’s going on there?’ Maggie suggested, but now it was Kitty who stubbornly clamped her mouth shut. ‘Why should I?’ she said. But it hurt her to say the cruel words.