As the days grew shorter and colder, Martha and Ivy were busy making preserves from the fruit grown in the walled garden and berries that the children had gathered from the hedgerows. Martha made rosehip syrup, which she swore by as a remedy for coughs and colds, and the kitchen was filled with the tangy aroma. She was an expert when it came to making herbal medicines, and Ivy was an eager learner. In the walled garden Morrison, with the help of his underlings, had built clamps in which root vegetables were stored between layers of soil and straw so that they lasted throughout the winter months. Kate viewed the pyramid-shaped mounds with admiration. She had bought vegetables from costermongers’ stalls, but she had never given any thought as to where they came from or how they happened to be available even in the worst of the weather.

The day of the sale in the church hall to raise funds for the village children’s Christmas party arrived and everyone, including Arthur Boggis, had been bribed, persuaded or bullied into helping. Even Lady Lyndon was not immune from Arabella’s determination to make the event a huge success. Goodfellow decked the Warren House carriage with swags of ivy into which the heads of the last chrysanthemums had been woven, and dressed in his coachman’s outfit he drove round the village picking up anyone who was too infirm to walk to the church hall. Martha had found an old tea urn at the back of one of the cupboards and it had been cleaned and polished until the copper shone like molten metal. Martha and Ivy had baked rock cakes and jam tarts, which they laid out on their stall, together with a large jug of milk and a pound of tea, purchased by Kate, plus a whole cone of sugar snipped into small lumps. Refreshments at a halfpenny a time were waiting for the hungry and thirsty people whom they hoped would flock into the sale.

All the ladies from Elaine’s committee were on hand to serve the prospective customers, and Annie was seated on the rostrum playing her concertina to welcome everyone with cheerful jigs and popular songs. Lady Lyndon stood next to Annie, preparing to make the opening speech. Kate could see that her mother resented the fact that Elaine had asked Lady Lyndon to officiate, but Arabella was presenting a determinedly pleasant smile despite what she must have been feeling. However, as the landowner, Sir Harry Lyndon, was mysteriously unavailable to attend, his mother was the obvious choice.