Millie regarded her from under bushy eyebrows.

"I am going to change all that," Carolan continued.

"I will help with those dishes, then you can wash the floor and we can... arrange things." Millie was a most irritating person. If she had been sullen or if she had burst into protests, Carolan would have found her attitude understandable; but the complaints seemed not to touch her at all. Slowly she went on with the dishes.

"Millie!" said Carolan sharply, and caught the girl's arm. Millie let out a cry and dropped the plate she was about to plunge into the water.

The sleeve of her dress was so rotten with sweat and age that even Carolan's light grasp had torn it, but it was not at the tear that Carolan stared, but at the weal on the flesh beneath it.

"Why..." gasped Carolan.

"Who did that?”

Millie looked at her arm, and then a faint expression crept into her face the first Carolan had seen there and it shocked her that it should be one of fear.

The father," said Millie.

"Your father did that! You mean he beat you ... and that's why you are so slow? Are you in pain? Why didn't you tell me ... It ought to be dressed ... you should have said so.”

Now Carolan's irritation had melted before the warmth of her pity for Millie and the heat of her indignation towards Millie's father.

Millie said: "S'nothing. He's always doing it.”

"You call that nothing! Does it hurt? Of course it must hurt. It ought to be bathed; it's very dirty.”

So, instead of cleaning out her parents' house as she had intended, Carolan spent the morning washing and dressing Millie's arm, making her hot chocolate to drink, and trying, without much success, to get the story of Millie's life from her. All she discovered was that Millie lived with her family of ten or eleven Millie did not seem altogether sure of the number in one room at the end of Grape Street, and that Millie's father drank too much gin with results of which this was a good example.

"When he attacks you," said Carolan, 'you should hit back. If he is as drunk as you say, he should not be so formidable.”

Millie only stared at Carolan with vacant eyes.

"You should not stay there!" said Carolan.

"Could you not get a job where you could live in?”

"I dunno," said Millie.

Then you should find out.”

"How?" asked Millie surprisingly, but Carolan really had no suggestion to offer. She said: "I will think of something. And tell your father if he dares to hurt you again I... I...”

Millie waited expressionlessly, but when talking to her, Carolan had discovered that, if a sentence became too complicated to finish, it was possible to trail off without comment from Millie. She did this now, but she was determined nevertheless to add Millie to those people whom she must help during her stay in London.

The morning was speeding up, and Carolan did not notice until later that not once had the shop door bell rang.

At midday she carried a tray upstairs to her mother's room.

"Come in!" said Kitty sleepily, and Carolan went in.

It was something of a shock, remembering Kitty's room at Hare-don. Then of course there had been Therese to fold up her things. Now, the dress Kitty had worn the previous night lay on the floor, and undergarments were strewn beside it. The room smelt musty.

Carolan said: "You are shutting out the sunshine; I'll draw the curtains better than that.”

"Don't open the window, darling," said Kitty fearfully.

"I do not trust the morning sat.”

"Scarcely morning now, Mammal Did you not hear the clock strike twelve?”

"Did it? I am a lie-abed. And you have brought me a tray; that is nice. Much nicer than that foolish Millie's bringing it!”

"A cup of chocolate to begin with," said Carolan.

"Do you like that?”

"I adore chocolate, darling. Bring it here. Hand it to me, there's a love ... But first give me the mirror ... Goodness gracious! I do look a sight, do I not?”

She looked old, thought Carolan, untidy; and she had put on so much weight. The lace of her bedgown was draggled, and there were chocolate stains on it. But the voluptuous bosom, showing through the lace, was white as ever. She looked the picture of indolence, the beauty who is ageing, who has fed too well on the sweets of life and shows signs of it in her face.

Kitty grimaced into her mirror.

"How do you find I look, darling? Have I aged much?”

"Scarcely at all, Mamma," lied Carolan.

"You have put on flesh though.”

"Ah! But in the right places, as Therese used to say! What happened to Therese?”

"I do not know. She went.”

"And poor Sambo?”

"He went too.”

"And that beast, Jennifer?”

"She fell down the stairs one night... dead drunk.”

"Serve her right, the wicked creature! Carolan, there is one thing I always wanted to know. Did she beat you?”

"Sometimes.”

"You should have told me... Why did you not?”

"I do not know," said Carolan, and thought of Millie and felt inadequate and suddenly humble.

 "She will never beat you any more, Carolan. Give me my chocolate, child. I do not care for it cold." She drank greedily.

"Ah! This is good! You make better chocolate than mad Millie does.”

"Mamma... you are not sorry you ran away?”

"Ran away from Haredon? My child, how can you ask? Of course not. I would follow your father to the end of the earth!”

There she sat leaning back on her pillows, carefree, thinking of nothing but that Carolan made better chocolate than Millie.

"But, Mamma, this is so different from Haredon!”

"I do not wish to return, nevertheless. Of course, I miss Therese.

What a wonder she was! Certainly I miss her. But I hated the squire, darling. Your father is my true husband.”

"He is a dear," said Carolan.

"You are fond of him already?”

"He is so gentle, so ... everything that one would hope a father might be. But, Mamma, this place ... is it ... is it... a good business proposition?”

Kitty laughed.

"La, child! Do you expect me to understand what is and what is not a good business proposition? I was never clever enough; I leave that to your father.”

"He seemed to me a little worried.”

"Worried! Indeed he is not! He is very happy here... with me ... and I am happy. All those long years I waited for him, did I not? Waited and grieved, and he came for me as I knew he would... but the waiting was hard...”

Carolan smiled at her with tolerant affection. How fortunate to be able to believe just what you wanted to believe. Dear Mammal No wonder she had had so many lovers; she would make each feel that he was the best, the only one that mattered, while the others were mere episodes.

And she would make that belief possible, because she herself believed it so sincerely.

Carolan tried again.

"Everything down there is in such a jumble, Mamma, so untidy. The shops I passed on my way here had wares displayed temptingly in their windows. Ours is not very attractive... not even very clean.”

Kitty leaned on a plump elbow and surveyed her daughter. She began to laugh.

"What a little wiseacre you have become, Miss Carolan. So solemn. It is no use trying to make me solemn, I warn you. I positively refuse to be. Why, what should I have been now, had I allowed trifles to worry me? Old. Haggard! With a million lines about my face!" She picked up the mirror and looked at her reflection smilingly.

"Whereas ... I am ... I refuse to tell you how old I am, Carolan! And you should be ashamed to ask me! When I think of all I've gone through ... the weary waiting for your father... and then, after we came together again...”

"Yes." said Carolan eagerly, seating herself on the bed, 'afterwards, when you came together?”

"There was a terrible time I went through! Poverty! My child, you have no conception of what poverty I suffered. I... who had always previously been so free from want. Even when I was with Aunt Harriet and I can tell you I suffered in that hell-cat's house, my dear even then I had enough to eat!”

"Mamma! Were you and my father starving, then?" Kitty was rocking to and fro on the bed in an agony of remembrance.

"It was terrible! Terrible! The filthy lodging-houses! The dreadful food.... and then no food at all. Your poor father used to say: "Kitty, it would have been better had you stayed at Haredon!" I answered: "Indeed not! My place is by your side, Darrell. No matter what I must suffer, that is where my place is!" ' Was it really true, wondered Carolan, or was she playing another part the faithful lover?

No I There must be a modicum of truth in it.

"Did he do no work then, Mamma?”

"He worked for a merchant. He worked along the wharfside." She shivered and covered her face with her hands. Then she removed them and smiled radiantly.

"But why do we talk of it? Now all is well.”

"Ah, Mamma! Are you sure all is well?”

"My child! Oh, my solemn little darling! Of course all is well. We have the shop now. Your father says the shop will make our fortunes, and your father was never a man to adorn a tale. He says that after a short stay here in this perfectly frightful neighbourhood ... And let me tell you, Carolan, it is frightful, and you must always remember should I and your father forget to lock up the doors and lower windows every night...”

"There is so much I do not understand," said Carolan.

"It is such a queer sort of shop... without any customers.”