They drank their tea side by side on the tiny foredeck, legs dangling over the water.

“How d’you convince him, then?” asked Ben.

“Just told him the truth.” Lotti grinned and broke a piece of cake in two for the dogs.

“Lotti!”

“All right, maybe not the exact truth. I didn’t mention Constable Skinner, or you. And he hasn’t completely agreed. He wants to meet Clara—we’ll have to make sure she looks respectable—and if he likes her, he’s agreed to a trial period. He and Aunt Vera are going on some ghastly holiday to Scotland at the end of May. I’ve got until then to show him I can be good. Actually, not good. I have to be exemplary.” Lotti puffed out her chest, curling her lip in imitation of her uncle: “And I mean EXEMPLARY, young lady, or I shall send you away to a school where they whip you with stinging nettles before breakfast and the only food is cold worm porridge.’

Ben began to laugh. Lotti shoved him with her shoulder.

“Come on, let’s go and tell Miss Clara!”

Two days later, Clara, dressed in a pre-war suit and stockings that almost matched, went for her interview at Barton Lacey, where she passed Hubert Netherbury’s respectability test. Hubert Netherbury offered her shockingly low wages, which she accepted because she felt sorry for his niece.

Everybody enjoyed the first lesson with Clara, including Clara herself. Its content was determined by what books she had found in the public library, its structure involved a great deal of student participation and its general atmosphere was one of loud, talkative chaos.

“Here is a book about British kings and queens,” Clara informed them when they arrived at her cottage. “Please read it.”

“But it’s huge,” Ben protested.

“I’m sure you will rise to the challenge.”

“And there’s two of us and only one book.”

“You read the first half, and I’ll read the second,” Lotti suggested. “And we can tell each other what happens.”

“Excellent problem-solving, Lotti!” said Clara. “Now, here is a famous French poem. It’s one of my favorites. It’s about rain falling on the rooftops of a town, and the poet feels like it’s raining in his heart.”

“It sounds miserable,” said Ben.

“It’s actually rather beautiful,” Lotti told him. “Papa used to recite it whenever it rained.”

“Good, Lotti, then you can teach it to Ben. Right, I also found a book about the digestive system of cows. You’ll need to know about these things, if you want to be a vet. I thought you could copy out these diagrams. And look, Ben, here’s a book on famous bridges. You copy those. And then I suppose we’d better do some mathematics, although I’m not so good at mathematics.”

“I am,” said Ben.