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‘Darling, forgive us for spoiling your private time with dear Matthew but I got one of my headaches so we decided we’d rearrange with the Thorntons. Your father didn’t mind. He was late back from the club anyway, and he’s had a tedious week.’

She suspected her mother of being too excited for potential marriage news and was selling her a fib but forgave her. ‘Oh? What’s happened?’ she said, frowning with concern.

Charles Frobisher sighed. ‘Just the usual rancour from shareholders. There’s always something to complain about it seems and now this conscientious objection business with Arnold Rowntree is making it harder to sell our plans for expansion. People just don’t want to hear about behaviour that is cowardly.’ He raised a weary hand. ‘I know, darling, I know. I’ve been chummy with Arnold for long enough to fully comprehend he’s not a coward, and he’s a damn decent person to boot with how he’s throwing the company behind the war effort, but people see and hear only what they want to.’

‘Oh, Charles, do stop with your misery. It’s happy news I want.’ Minerva stood in soft exasperation, crossing the low-toned but predominantly red Persian carpet as a way of hushing her husband, and sat beside him on the sofa. She looked to her daughter with an expectant expression.

A piece of firewood exploded against the brass guard, causing a fleeting shower of luminous orange sparks in a timely moment, as though heralding the announcement.

Alex prolonged her mother’s agony, shooting her a soft glare of enquiry. ‘Really? And what might that be, Mother?’

Minerva slow-blinked, looking trapped. Matthew rescued her.

‘Blame me, Alex. I did the traditional thing and sought your father’s permission to ask for your hand in marriage. The truth is I wanted to ask you the moment I met you,’ he said, not at all embarrassed by having witnesses to this admission.

Minerva sighed with pleasure in the background.

‘But I did ask you the first moment we were alone.’

‘That’s true, you did,’ Alex replied.

‘You weren’t taking me seriously in the morning but I felt by yesterday afternoon that if I asked again, you may consider it as a genuine proposal. By tonight I was determined you would say yes.’

‘And did you, darling? Oh, do end the tension, I beg you!’ Minerva bleated and Alex had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at her mother’s dramatics.

She smiled, not meaning for it to be coy, but suddenly there was shyness because this felt momentous. ‘I did. I’m going to marry Matthew.’

Minerva was on her feet and toppling towards her to hug and kiss her only child. Alex felt her father’s arms around them both in a bear hug and she managed to cast Matthew a slightly embarrassed grin from beneath the outpouring of affection. Matthew winked and she felt a surge of fondness towards him. It wasn’t love, she didn’t think. But then she had no experience of romantic love or what it should feel like, but there was a new sense of possession. She belonged to Matthew and he was now hers. And while that dizzying, hard-to-breathe feeling that she’d heard friends speak about was not present, Alex felt a glow of awakening. She couldn’t describe it any other way. It was as though in this agreement she had finally turned a corner on the dark past. She could leave the sorrow of Peter behind and remove the threat of being married off to someone she didn’t care enough for. Matthew gave her a sense of safety and a path forward to the life she envisioned for herself.

Her father released them, turned to Matthew and pumped his hand firmly. ‘Good man! Marvellous news. Minerva, call Mrs Lambton, I do believe this announcement deserves a proper toast.’

‘Oh, Dad, do you think that’s wise . . . war and all that?’

‘True. I’ll go down to the cellar myself. Come on, Matthew . . . you’d better learn where we keep the good stuff, now you’re going to be family.’

The men walked off laughing and Alex turned back to her mother. ‘It’s lovely to see you and Dad so happy.’

‘It feels like all the pain of years gone has been lifted somewhat. It will never leave a mother but, oh my, this news lifts my spirits.’

Alex hugged her mother again. ‘I know. And while it’s sudden, I do think Matthew can make me very happy. I like him more in a couple of days than I ever could Duncan or the others.’

Her mother stood back, still holding Alex’s hands and beaming proudly. ‘Does a spring wedding suit?’ she asked through happy tears.

‘No rush, Mother. I’m engaged now,’ she said gently but firmly, sweetening her words with a soft smile. Alex did not want to topple her chance to work at Rowntree’s before she’d even enjoyed a day there.

6

Alex felt inclined to pinch herself that she was finally here, standing on the light-coloured floorboards of what had been fondly nicknamed the Chocolate Tin Room. Around her workers began to arrive, all women, most of them very young, none married, of course. The timber roof sloped above them but a glass panel in the centre allowed daylight to flood in and bounce off the white painted walls. Heating was kept to a minimum and she presumed this was nothing to do with the Rowntree family skimping on staff comfort but because chocolate was present. The warmth from the winter sun helped but she was sure she was so heated with pleasure at finally being here that she couldn’t feel the cold, even if it were freezing today. Tables were laid out around the edge of the room, piled high with all the clutter of elements that would ultimately find their way into the tins, many of them in pigeonholes atop the benches. One table, at least four feet wide, dominated the central aisle and that’s where the cakes of chocolate were to be packed into corrugated paper.

Gaslights with flared tin shades dangled from beams that crisscrossed over the room to hang low over all the work desks, and Alex felt impressed by the care that ensured everyone worked in such a light-filled and airy space.

Flattish cardboard boxes, printed colourfully with the Rowntree’s branding, were piled high against one wall – she guessed each might take forty or so chocolate tins. A pleasing touch was vases of flowers placed at intervals on individual shelves above the workstations, which added a punctuation of colour. The scent of daphne, jasmine, wintersweet and lemon-scented honeysuckle shrubs was interspersed among iris and narcissus blooms and ultimately those blends of perfume drifted to collide with the warmed, fruity, intoxicating aroma of dark, shiny chocolate.

The young woman standing next to her, introduced as Nel, looked unsure. ‘Have I explained that all properly for you, Miss Frobisher?’

Alex blinked herself out of her thoughts and smiled. They were around the same age and she’d anticipated some of the staff might feel odd about her presence. ‘Perfectly, in fact. And please call me Alex. I’m keen to be considered just another member of staff like all of you while I’m here.’

She cast a glance around at the team of women; they were all wearing white aprons, only a few matched each other. She wanted to ask why the aprons weren’t uniform but the query died as she noticed her companion blush. ‘Is something wrong?’