May stood her ground, refusing to be intimidated. ‘My teacher at the workhouse, Mrs Kelly, thought I had some talent.’

Miss Parsons sighed deeply. ‘Well, I suppose if it is madam’s wish … Here, take this. I’m not giving you the best paper, but this should do.’

It was still the nicest paper May had ever got her hands on. She took two pencils from the box on the table and carried her trophies back to the little room off the kitchen where she slept and packed them carefully in her box. She did not want them to disappear, or get used ‘accidentally’ for wrapping a joint or lighting a lamp.

She was kept busy for the rest of the day, and it was not until the last boot had been polished to Mrs Wilkins’s satisfaction that she was able to think of the task ahead. She fetched the paper and the magazine and spread them on the kitchen table. Mrs Wilkins watched with tightening lips.

‘You are not proposing to start on that now, are you?’

‘I have to,’ May said. ‘Mrs Freeman wants the pictures in a hurry.’

Defeated, Mrs Wilkins picked up the only lamp. ‘Well, you’d better be sure you’re up betimes in the morning. There’s a stub of candle over there. When that burns down you’ll have to give up. I’m not wasting oil on mad ideas.’

May lit the candle and opened the magazine. She was dead tired and her eyes were smarting, but within minutes she had forgotten all that. Here was a treasure trove richer than anything she could have imagined, and for an hour she gazed and sketched and crossed through her work and started again. When the candle finally guttered out, she had her ideas down on paper. All that remained was to make fair copies.

How she managed to wake on time next morning was as much a mystery to her as it was a surprise to Mrs Wilkins, but somehow she dragged herself out of bed and rinsed the sleep out of her eyes. She went through her daily routine like an automaton and at bedtime she was ready to make her final sketches. Next morning, when she took Mrs Freeman’s breakfast tray up to her, she had the drawings, carefully folded, in her apron pocket.

Mrs Freeman sat up drowsily and waved in the direction of the window, where sunshine was streaming in. ‘Close those curtains again. I think I have one of my headaches coming on.’

May did as she was bid, though she wondered how her mistress was going to look at her drawings in the semi-darkness. She placed the bed tray carefully across Mrs Freeman’s knees and said, ‘I’ve done the sketches you asked for, ma’am,’ adding, as the older woman seemed not to understand, ‘the drawings of how we might change that gown to make it more fashionable.’