The vicar was a tall, thin man with a loud booming voice and a commanding manner. Kate could imagine that as a missionary he might have frightened naïve peasants into adopting Christianity simply in order to placate him. His sermons on Sundays were impassioned and very long, and although Kate and almost everybody at Warren House attended matins, she had seen Martha and Lady Lyndon nodding off occasionally. Ivy attended with her older children, who had to be bribed with pieces of cake to keep them from disrupting the service, and the little ones were left at home in the care of Tilly, a young girl from the village who had been taken on to help in the kitchen.

The biggest surprise for Kate came when her mother decided that county life was not as terrible as she had first thought. Arabella stopped talking about her old home in Finsbury Square and threw herself into committee work with Elaine Courtney. They were now in the process of organising a sale of work to raise funds for the village children’s Christmas party. Arabella had taken it upon herself to visit the large houses and estates dotted around the area, and had managed to persuade several well-to-do ladies to attend meetings and donate items for the sale. Kate could hardly believe the change in her mother from the sad, dispirited widow, to a happy energetic woman with a purpose in life. Despite the differences in their situations, Arabella and Elaine were a partnership to be reckoned with, and Kate wondered if Walthamstow would ever be the same again. There was still a little frostiness in the air when Arabella and Lady Lyndon were in the same room, but Kate continued to be optimistic. The fault was mainly her mother’s, but Kate did not expect miracles. Perhaps in time her mother would forgive Harry Lyndon for involving them in the criminal world, and at least they were safe from Monks and his gang.