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the birds singing in the leafy trees overhead, and I knew I would far rather have her place in the earth when I died, than be put in the family mausoleum like Lord Charlwood.
    That summer, because so many young men had gone off to the war, the garden and grounds were allowed to run wild where they weren’t visible from the house, and we maids had to do much of the work that the men hadonce done, carrying the coals all around the house in heavy buckets and trimming and filling the oil lamps. We were especially busy with the approach of the funeral, because so many house guests would be staying. The day before the funeral itself, there was a great fuss because Lord Charlwood’s young widow was arriving. ‘About time too,’ said Cook sourly.
    Nell and I were cleaning the dining room on our own. It was as gloomy in there as in the rest of the house because the mirrors were covered and the blinds were drawn and I longed to be out in the sunshine. We were meant to be brushing the carpets, but Nell had peeped out of the window because she’d heard a motorcar arriving.
    ‘Oh, look.’ She turned to me, her eyes shining. ‘She’s so beautiful.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Her. It
must
be her. Lady Beatrice. Lord Charlwood’s widow.’
    I hurried over to the window too, and saw that the chauffeur had opened the door to let Her Ladyship out. Lady Beatrice was dressed in mourning, of course, but her coat was shorter than we were used to, and her lips were painted red, and for some reason my heart began to beat a little faster, especially when she stood and gazed up at the Hall with a knowing little smile.
    That night Her Ladyship’s maid – Margaret – dined with us in the servants’ hall and told us that Lady Beatrice got all her gowns from Paris. Margaret was a cut above all of us as a lady’s maid. She had a small white scar on her left cheekbone, and I wondered howshe had got it. She had, of course, her own bedroom adjacent to Her Ladyship’s suite, and after supper in the servants’ hall she retired, as was to be expected, to the housekeeper’s sitting room with the other upper servants to take tea and join in their superior talk.
    On the day of the funeral, Lord Charlwood’s hearse was drawn by six black horses with black plumes fastened to their harness while six mutes, clad all in black with their faces veiled, accompanied the cortege on foot. ‘Fair give me the creeps, those mutes do,’ Nell muttered at my side.
    Then we walked, all of the servants, to the church for the solemn service. Hundreds of mourners lined the route, and inside the church we saw the little heir in the front row, looking pale and afraid.
    Lady Beatrice, Lord Edwin and his mother left a few days after the funeral but more visitors came daily – lawyers from London, Cook told us. Cook was less discreet than Mrs Burdett, and she told us also that what with the war and declining rents, certain ‘economies’ – she pronounced the word with doom-laden weight – were having to be made.
    But my friend Nell was starry-eyed. Recently the Duke – though he still kept his elderly valet, Mr Harris – had hired a new young manservant, Eddie, to help him get around now his mobility was so poor. And Nell told me that on her afternoons off she’d started walking out with this Eddie, who also drove the Duke’s motorcar. Because he was good-looking and had a mouth as smart as Robert’s, Eddie was what was known as a catch.
    A few weeks later in our dormitory, as we lay in our narrow little iron beds next to each other, Nell reached out to touch my shoulder and whispered, ‘I’ve done it, Sophie. With Eddie.’
    ‘Done what?’ I was exhausted; I’d had to wash all the copper pots twice that night with a mixture of flour, salt and vinegar, because Cook had said they weren’t clean enough.
    ‘Gone all the way.
You
know.’
    I was wide awake suddenly. My pulse had stopped, then started again jerkily. ‘Nell…’
    ‘Oh, I know what you’re going to