She paused before the dining room, discovering the inlays of the panelled doors were dark with dust. ‘Look at that – my fault for spending all week in the garage.’ She ran her finger through it, showed them. ‘You’ll be used to honest graft, I know, except there’s no one here who’s going to try and keep you on the straight and narrow – you’ll see your supervising officer every month, that’s all. You’re free to come and go whenever you see fit, to learn your trade with us or not, to work the land with us or not, to join in with the spirit of this place or not. And what we hope is – just by living here, by seeing what you can achieve with us – you’ll want to stay, you’ll think of this as home. Not just for now, but, well –’ She hadn’t planned to deliver any sort of speech, yet here she was, at the tail end of one. The occasion had compelled her and the words had gathered a momentum of their own. ‘For as long as you both wish to,’ she concluded.

The Savigears just smiled politely. It saddened her to notice how the two of them were standing: single file against the wall, straight-backed, waiting to be let inside the doors. One little burst of oratory had rendered them submissive. They were so like Arthur it unnerved her. There were certain habits, she supposed, that were ingrained in borstal leavers, such as being quiet and listening when adults spoke at length. From now on, she would have to keep from sermonizing. It had taken years for her to learn which subjects to avoid with Arthur, what sort of language she could use with him, which reactions fuelled his anger or upset his mood. ‘Anyway, you’ve heard enough.’ She gave the big oak doors a push and they swung back with a satisfying heft, meeting the magnetic stoppers on the other side. ‘Let’s start here in the dining room.’

She showed them the long table Arthur had designed and built from cherry wood, with its chevron patterning around the rim and the slatted underframe that brought to mind the pipes of a church organ. Joyce expressed a liking for it: ‘Makes me feel dainty,’ she said, smoothing her palms over the surface. Charlie seemed unsure. ‘I suppose you save all this for best, miss. Entertaining and the like?’ he said, and didn’t look entirely convinced by her assurance that their mealtimes would be spent together in this room. ‘Who wants to live in a museum?’ she said. ‘Everything we have, we use. Beauty shouldn’t be distinct from function – that’s the way we see things.’

‘Wait until you’ve seen my sister eat, though. You might change your mind.’ When Charlie smirked, it came across as self-rebuking; his voice became a little softer at the edges.

‘Oi,’ Joyce said. ‘Remember I’ve got plenty on you, mouse.’

In the kitchen, they seemed more at peace, more comfortable. Charlie spent a good few minutes at the window by the sink, gazing out into the yard, across the fields. ‘It’s really pretty here,’ he said. ‘I won’t mind washing up if there’s a decent view.’ She directed them towards the household rota Arthur had prepared – they didn’t flinch at the requirement to cook and clean and launder, studying the grid with blank expressions, receiving all her information on the whereabouts of things (her book of failsafe recipes, the scullery, the washing powder, clothes horse, ironing board, and so on) without questions or resistance. ‘Have you cooked on a range like this before?’ she asked them. ‘It takes a bit of getting used to.’ Joyce told her there had been one similar at Aylesbury, and she’d seen enough of it over the past two years that sometimes it intruded on her dreams. ‘I’ll get the hang of it, I’m sure,’ was Charlie’s answer. ‘I can make a mutton stew and dumplings – that’s all we learned to cook while I was in the kitchen party, though we had to use enormous vats for that. It always needed more salt in it than they said.’