The next day was Saturday. May tried hard to keep her mind on her work but she kept imagining what Angel’s life might be like. She remembered Isabella’s unvarying regime of classes and closely supervised tea parties. She had felt sorry for her; but at least her parents were not unkind. Her mother tended to ignore her, but she had seen her father pull her onto his lap and kiss her. Perhaps Mr McBride did the same with Angel. Perhaps her mother was not always so short with her. Maybe, she told herself, Angel really had the wonderful life she had always imagined for her; but try as she might she could not convince herself. On her work table there was still the scrap of paper on which Mr Freeman had written the McBride’s address and May’s eyes kept returning to it: 14, Devonshire Road, Toxteth. If only she could go there and catch a glimpse of Angel. She would know then if her imagination was running away with her.

That night she told Patty that she was feeling unwell and planned to stay at home next day instead of going out after church as they usually did. As soon as the service was over she slipped away from the others and caught an omnibus to Princes Road in Toxteth. She had never been this far from the city centre and it might have been a foreign country. As the omnibus rattled along with Princes Road on one side and Princes Avenue on the other, she gazed in wonder at the terraces of grand houses with their gables and towers. She had thought Rodney Street was fine, but this, she realised, was where the really rich people lived. She got off the omnibus towards the end of the avenue and asked a nursemaid pushing a perambulator for directions. Turning into Devonshire Road she found herself in an even more breathtaking area. Here many of the houses were not in terraces but stood alone, their frontages covered in white stucco with pillared porches and bay windows. No. 14 was no exception. May strolled past, staring into the windows, but all she could see was her own distant reflection. This was stupid, she told herself. All she had learned was that Angel lived in a grand house. What went on inside she had no way of finding out.