After breakfast Glass became restless as Dan piled the dishes by the sink.

‘Leave them be. Let’s go.’

He was beginning to fuss, as he usually did before a big day.

‘It’s not seven yet,’ Dan said, calmly beginning to wash the plates.

‘We need to be there before the rest of them. I want to go past Tom Harker’s place, make sure he’s coming.’

‘He’ll be coming. Flo would have come back if he hadn’t been there or couldn’t come. Besides, he likes coming.’

‘Darn him. He likes having a good look at the ground, that’s why.’

‘He likes the sport too. And the dinner.’

But he consented to leave the rest of the dishes and go to put on his boots. He knew Sir Randolph was as much of a perfectionist as his father, and it was as well to be on the safe side.

Ellen hurried up the back stairs with four shining, brass hot-water cans, two in each hand, and four clean, white, linen face towels, two over each arm.

John, who was walking along the passage ahead of her, carrying several pairs of clean shoes, stopped to watch her slightly perilous progress.

‘You’ll drop them.’

‘I won’t unless you make me. Watch out! What are you doing?’

‘I’m putting a letter in your pocket.’

Ellen bent her long legs and crouching at his feet, rested the hot-water jugs on the floor. She looked up at him questioningly.

‘A letter?’

‘I want you to read it when you’re alone. It’s quite long.’

‘Is it very serious?’

‘Yes.’

‘Oh no, what is it, John? You can’t do that, when I’m in such a hurry too. What does it say?’

He was pleased by her anxiety. ‘You’ll see.’

The menacing figure of Hortense sprang immediately into her mind’s eye.

‘You don’t care for me any more. That’s it, isn’t it?’

‘Of course I do, silly. That’s what it’s about.’

‘Oh, well that’s a relief anyway. Holding me up and giving me such a fright.’

‘Why d’you carry so many? You’re bound to spill one of them.’

‘I never have yet. And it means I get round in half the time, doesn’t it?’

She gave him an exaggeratedly patient smile and hurried on her way.

She put the hot-water jugs by the sink in the housemaid’s cupboard, covered each one with a sort of tea-cosy and laid a face towel on the top of that, so that they were ready to be collected by the various other servants who would be coming along in a few minutes. She herself would be coming back for one of them to take into Cicely’s room and put in the big china bowl on the wash-stand when she had been downstairs to fetch the early-morning tea tray. As she hurried back along the passage with this purpose, she was surprised to see Osbert coming towards her in his pyjamas and with one very muddy leg.

‘Master Osbert, whatever are you doing? Does Nanny know?’