‘As Nan is going to live with her sister she will need to sell her house. I know you have come to regard that as your home, but there it is. I don’t want you living in some sleazy lodging house on your own. So I think the best solution is for you to move in with the other girls.’

‘Oh!’ This really was a blow. May knew from her friends that life in the accommodation provided by the store was much more restricted than her own had been. The housekeeper in charge saw it as her duty to guard the moral welfare of the girls, as well as to look after their physical needs, and that meant strict rules about what time they came in at night and probing enquiries about where they were going and who they were seeing in their free time. She was pretty sure her relationship with James would not be approved of, and would soon get back to Mr Freeman’s ears.

‘Sorry, May. I know you don’t like the idea, but that’s just the way it has to be, for the time being at any rate. I’m sure you’ll soon get used to it – and you’ll have friends of your own age around you.’

‘How soon will I have to move?’ May asked.

‘That will depend on how quickly Nan can sell her house. Now, you’d better get back to work. I’ll let you know when I have any more news.’

Events moved too quickly for May’s comfort after that. Nan declared that she intended to move in with her sister straight away and that she felt it would be ‘unsuitable’ for May to remain in the house alone. At the end of the week she moved into the store. It meant exchanging her familiar bedroom for a dormitory shared with four others, and the cosy sitting room, which she had had to herself most evenings, for the noisy common room. If she tried to sketch she was constantly pestered by other girls wanting to know what she was doing and why; and there was no room to paint. In short there was no peace and very little privacy.

On Wednesday afternoons she was invited to join the others in various activities, most of which involved clandestine assignations with some of the occupants of the men’s dormitory, and was thought ‘stuck up’ when she said she was going to a lecture at the Royal Institution. She was subjected to intense inquisitions, both from the housekeeper and the other girls, about who she was meeting on Sundays and was forced to invent a boyfriend who lived in Southport and came down by train. She had told James never to call for her at the store and they always said goodbye several streets away.

It was not long before she was summoned again to Mr Freeman’s office. There was a woman with him.