They set off, almost running to keep up with the man’s long strides. Gus began to grizzle and May took hold of his hand to help him along. She tried to ask the man about the place they were going to, but he did not seem to want to talk, so she kept quiet and let her imagination wander.

When her mother was alive and not too tired to talk, she used to tell them stories. They were always stories about poor little girls who somehow met a mysterious stranger who turned out to be a prince and took them to live in his beautiful palace. When May had asked what a palace was, her mother said it meant a big house full of lots of fine things. Perhaps, she thought, that was what Mrs Johnson had meant by the big house where they were going to live.

Perhaps this man was really a prince in disguise, or perhaps he was the prince’s servant who had been sent to fetch them.

It seemed a long way, but at last they found themselves walking along the side of a high brick wall.

‘Not far now,’ the man said.

May thought the wall did not look much like the outside of a palace, but then perhaps it was just a wall round the palace gardens and the palace itself was inside. They came to a big gate and the man knocked. May held her breath, waiting to see what was on the other side. There was no palace, just a cobbled yard surrounded by more high brick walls. It was cold and the ground was damp, as if the walls stopped the sun from ever reaching it. Two men in shabby clothes were sweeping away dead leaves. As they crossed the space May heard a woman’s voice, high pitched and cracked, yelling something unintelligible. The man led them down a narrow alley and up a flight of steps to a door, on which he knocked.

A gruff voice called, ‘Come in.’

The man opened the door and he put one hand on May’s shoulder and the other on Gus’s to propel them inside. ‘The two new orphans, Governor.’

A man with a bushy beard and side whiskers was sitting behind a desk. ‘Very well. Ask Mrs Court and Mr Taylor to come here.’

The man left and the one he had called ‘governor’ opened a big book and picked up a pen.

‘Name?’

May’s legs were beginning to shake. ‘May Lavender, sir.’ ‘Age?’

‘Five and a half, sir. I’ll be six in May.’

‘And the boy?’

‘He’s Gus – Augustus, sir.’

‘Age?’

‘He was three last August.’

The governor peered at her as if he thought she might be telling fibs. ‘You are May, and your birthday is in May. And he is Augustus, and his birthday is in August?’