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light in the town. A real do-gooder, you know what I mean?’
    Again Eve nodded. She wondered why Mrs Preston didn’t like the vicar’s wife. Her tone had been quite different when she talked about the vicar, reverential even.
    Ten minutes later they were back in the kitchen and Eve’s head was swimming with the list of dos and don’ts Mrs Preston had impressed on her. The house was beautiful.Three of the five bedrooms were not used; the vicar occupied one at the front of the house and his wife one at the back overlooking the grounds. But the drawing room, dining room and breakfast room, along with the two bedrooms and the vicar’s study - the only room Eve had not seen yet - had to be dusted and cleaned daily. She would be responsible for the laundry, ordering and buying food from the tradesmen who called at the vicarage every morning, and the cooking and serving of all meals apart from the late supper the vicar and his wife liked before retiring. This always consisted of cold meats, cheese and pickle and a light pudding which Eve must leave on covered plates on the cold slab in the pantry.
    ‘The tradesmen?’ Eve’s voice was low, almost a whisper. ‘How will I know what to buy? I don’t know what the vicar and Mrs Cunningham like.’
    ‘Don’t worry your head about things like that. I’ll tell you everything before you start.You’ll soon pick up what you don’t know.’ Mrs Preston patted her arm. ‘I’ve told the vicar he might have to be a little patient at first.’
    This was clearly meant to reassure her. It didn’t. Eve was feeling utterly overwhelmed.
    ‘Now you must make sure you’re here in the morning by six thirty, lass. You’ll need to light the fires in the drawing room, the breakfast room and the vicar’s study, and see to the range. The dining room you can leave till mid-morning.The house has to be warm by the time they come down for their breakfast at eight o’clock. They don’t stand on ceremony when it’s just the two of them but occasionally one of the married children come with their bairns and then they breakfast in the dining room. Everything has to be in covered dishes then, like the gentry do.’
    And so the instructions went on.
    When Mrs Preston eventually knocked on the study door and ushered her into the vicar’s presence, Eve was half hoping she wouldn’t be offered the job. She felt sick with agitation and fear, and now she had to face this paragon who was barely human, if Mrs Preston was to be believed.
    Half an hour later when she left the study, she felt a little more reassured. She had found the vicar to be a nice man, kindly. He had a funny, precise way of speaking and no northern burr to his voice, but he had smiled at her and had seemed concerned when she had related what had brought her here.
    ‘Dreadful business, the accident. Dreadful.’ He had shaken his bald pink head. ‘And you say this neighbour and his wife have taken you and your sisters into his home? Christian charity in operation. Good, good.’
    He had informed her she would begin work at a weekly wage of six shillings for a six and a half day week. She would leave the vicarage at two in the afternoon on a Sunday. She would eat her midday meal in the kitchen once she had finished serving in the dining room.
    Oh, and he would review her wage once the initial trial period was over, he’d added as she left the room. He had not mentioned how long he expected the trial period to last, but Eve did not mind. She had a job , that was the important thing. Now she could give Mr and Mrs Finnigan payment for their board and lodging. She didn’t mind what she did, how hard she worked or how long the hours as long as she and her sisters could stay together.

Chapter 3
    It was a blazing June. Spring had been cold and wet with acres of mud, but with the arrival of the long days and short nights the essence of summer was suddenly everywhere and the temperature had steadily risen throughout the month. Now the