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Beth giggled. She’d never met any Canadians so she couldn’t judge if Rose’s view was accurate, but she liked people who said what they thought.

‘So what does Myles do for a living?’

‘He’s an orthopaedic surgeon. His wife, Shirley, is a theatre sister, but they don’t have any children, too career minded.

If they had I might have been keener to settle there.

’ She paused reflectively for a moment. ‘I’ve been for a holiday with them three times, but I find their way of life exhausts me,’ she said, and smiled as if reliving it.

‘Off to dinners, parties and meetings for this and that all the time. I went along with them to many of these do’s, all dressed up in my finest, but though people were kind and welcoming, it wasn’t for me. ’

‘Do they come to visit you?’

‘Well, they did come every year in the spring until war broke out. They’d whizz round to see all Myles’s old friends, and a couple of Shirley’s relatives, so I didn’t have them under my feet all the time.

But I always felt a sense of relief when they left.

At my age you need peace, not gallivanting around.

That sounds as if I don’t love Myles, I do of course, but we’ve grown apart.

His world is alien to me. I don’t mean the medical side of it, his father was a doctor too, but the big cars and houses, the striving to achieve more and more.

I always hoped he’d work here, where I could watch his progress with his patients, and though I’m very proud of him, it feels as if he isn’t my boy any longer. ’

Beth put her hand over Rose’s. She sensed that this old lady felt it was her fault he moved away. ‘You’ve been the best kind of mother,’ she said. ‘You’ve allowed him to follow his dream, never holding him back. I bet he loves you a great deal for that.’

Rose looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, I believe he does, but I think he’d like me better if I was to agree to live in Canada.’

Beth laughed at that. She found Rose so refreshing. She had to be in her seventies, yet she was still pretty and well-dressed, alert and articulate.

They continued to talk, and Beth explained how she came to be living in Ireland.

‘I do like Ireland and the people,’ she said.

‘But I’m lonely. The days seem endless, mostly, and it’s virtually impossible to find work.

If the cottage was in Dublin it might be better, that’s why when I was asked if I’d let the cottage out, I jumped at it.

I picked Bristol rather than London to come to as I thought I was bound to be able to find a job here, and it’s easy to get to other towns. ’

She went on to tell Rose about Jack, pointing out that she hadn’t spent long enough to be certain he was the One. ‘I’m not so silly that I’d leap into anything with him or any other man just so I’m not lonely,’ she added.

‘So you want a job, then? No parents to go to or other relatives?’

‘Yes, I do want to find a job, and my parents are dead.’

‘I’m sorry about that, Beth. You are too young to be alone in the world.

’ She reached out and patted Beth’s cheek affectionately.

‘You’ll have no trouble finding work here; you are very well-presented.

That striped dress is a real classic and your dark hair is so shiny.

Plus you have a lovely manner, not too bold but not a mouse either. What sort of experience have you had?’

Beth almost told her practised story about running a dress shop. But something stopped her. Whether that was because she felt Rose was worldly enough to sense a lie, or that Beth couldn’t bear to lie to her, she didn’t know.

‘I’ve mainly done domestic work,’ she said. ‘In my last position I was running the house single-handedly for the last two years as the other staff all left for war work. When I heard my godmother had left me her cottage I thought I’d plunge in and see what Ireland had to offer.’

‘What did you find?’

Beth smiled at the question. ‘There’s awful poverty for most, but the people are so warm and engaging.

It’s sad they’ve been kept under the iron grip of the Church and the government.

Historically the English treated them appallingly, too.

But it is a beautiful place. The view from my cottage of the harbour is such that I could sit and stare out of the window all day.

If I had found a job, or even someone to share the cottage, I doubt I’d have even thought of coming back to England. ’

‘So will you be looking for domestic work?’

‘If I could find the right position, more housekeeper than general dogsbody. Plus decent live-in accommodation, not a draughty garret.’

Rose chuckled. ‘Why don’t you walk home with me? I’ve been intending to get some help for several months, but I’ve done nothing about it as I live in fear of one of those domineering types turning up on my doorstep, and browbeating me into submission.’

Beth gave a peal of laughter. ‘I can’t imagine anyone browbeating you.’

‘Well, they might bore me into an early death,’ Rose said, her eyes twinkling. ‘So would you like to come and see my home? No strings attached. If you don’t like the house or the job, I won’t browbeat you. We can still be friends.’

Forty minutes later, after a leisurely stroll with Rose, stopping to window-shop en-route, they arrived at Lamb Lane.

It was a mews to the big Georgian houses in Pembroke Road, originally designed to keep rich people’s carriages, with the servants living above.

Some of the properties would’ve been workshops for artisans.

Rose’s house was perhaps the latter, as it had big double doors to the right of the front door, and it seemed to be nearly twice as wide as other properties in the street.

It was also very smart, both the double doors and the front door painted a glossy dark green with shiny brass letterbox and knocker.

‘Duncan might have been a doctor, but his hobby was carpentry. When we bought this place it was in a terrible state, but he had the dream of making what was once a stable into a carpentry workshop,’ Rose said as she unlocked the front door.

‘I used to tease him and say he only wanted the workshop to escape me.’

Beth had not been in that many people’s houses, so really all she knew was Mrs Bradley’s style, lots of good-quality family furniture, and patterned, fringed rugs over polished floors. She expected Rose’s to be the same.

She followed Rose along a wide corridor with a thick pale-green carpet beneath their feet, into a large sitting room with French doors leading onto a courtyard garden.

Beth gasped in surprise. It wasn’t a bit like the Bradleys’, but sleek and modern, in a style she thought was called art deco, and which she’d only ever seen in magazines.

Rose laughed. ‘You thought it would be old fuddy-duddy?’ she said teasingly.

‘No, just more traditional,’ Beth said, wide-eyed at the sight of two large cream sofas, and cabinets and side tables made of pale wood and glass. ‘This is kind of Hollywood.’

‘We did have quite a few passed-down antiques, but a couple of years after Duncan died, I shipped them over to Myles. He loved them, and wanted reminders of his grandparents. Duncan and I had more modern tastes; he wanted to make stylish furniture. He made that cabinet,’ she said, pointing to the honey-coloured one Beth had already noticed with stained-glass triangular shapes fitted into the doors.

Beth gasped. ‘How clever of him, it’s so beautiful.’

‘It was a shame he didn’t get the long retirement he planned, doing what he loved. That cabinet was the last one he made. Once I’d sent the old furniture to Myles, I bought other pieces similar to those Duncan would’ve liked. It made me feel he was still with me.’

Beth saw Rose’s eyes had filled with tears and she moved to embrace her. ‘I’m so sorry you lost him.’

Rose stayed for a moment or two, her face resting on Beth’s shoulder. Then she looked up and tweaked Beth’s cheek.

‘He was very sick come the end, and he was glad to go. I hope your Jack does turn out to be the One and you are as happy as Donald and I were.’

Rose took Beth then to see the rest of the house. A door in the sitting room led to the kitchen, again light and bright, with big windows onto the garden, and a solid-looking table and chairs.

‘We always ate here unless we had guests,’ Rose said. ‘The dining table and chairs in the sitting room have never been used since I bought them at Waring and Gillow’s down the road.’

She opened a door. ‘And this,’ she said with a flourish of her hand, ‘is Duncan’s workshop.’

It was huge, with daylight coming through the windows in the big doors.

It had a workbench along the party wall, and the internal wall had what looked like a custom-made storage unit, with cupboards and drawers beneath.

Above, countless pegs held tools in groups, hammers, chisels, screwdrivers, clamps and the like, arranged by size.

‘Goodness me, that’s impressive,’ Beth said. ‘And so clean. No dust and not a cobweb in sight.’

‘I enjoy looking after it,’ Rose said. ‘I talk to him in here, I can feel his presence.’

Beth felt something too. She sensed it was love, Duncan’s love of his carpentry and Rose’s love for him.

Rose opened a low cupboard to show her a huge collection of boxes. ‘All screws, nails and stuff,’ she said. ‘I spent all one day sorting them into sizes, then labelling the boxes. Duncan always intended to do it but never got around to it. I see it as my memorial to him.’

She walked back to the door, flicking off the light and smiling as if to tell Beth she was moving on from sad reminiscing. ‘Now, let me show you upstairs and the garret I’m hoping you might like.’

‘I wondered where the stairs were,’ Beth remarked as Rose opened a door she hadn’t even noticed as they came down the hall. Behind the door was a small area, and stairs went up from there. Light shone down from a skylight.

‘It wasn’t like this when we bought it,’ Rose said when they got to the top. ‘The staircase was a death trap, right in the middle of the workshop.’

Rose’s bedroom was at the back, with a bathroom next to it. At the front were two bedrooms looking out onto the lane, the smaller one used as a study, the far wall holding shelves and thousands of books.

Rose went to the second bedroom and opened the door. ‘This could be your garret,’ she said with a smile. ‘What do you think?’

Beth took in the rose-strewn chintz eiderdown on the pretty brass bed, a washbasin, a desk and chair, and a luxurious pink carpet, and felt she’d found her dream home.

‘It’s lovely, perfect even,’ she said. ‘But we need to talk about my duties and I need a day or so to think about it and to speak to my solicitor in Ireland about the cottage. Would that be all right?’

‘You take as long as you need, Beth,’ she said. ‘But I really hope you’ll come.’