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scrubbed tabletop, her lips pressed tight. Everything was wrong. This was not how things were supposed to be at all.

“I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country for my part  …”
    James Smith had presented himself in the kitchen for Mrs. Hill’s inspection some hours previously, as Mr. Bennet had required him to do. Mrs. Hill took one long assessing look at him. He was thin. He was very thin. You could see his skull through his skin, at the edge of his eye sockets; you could see the ridge of his jawbone and its joint by the ear. And he was dirty: his fingernails were black, his hair filthy, there was a rime of grey about the skin and clothes. And the clothes themselves looked as though they’d been stolen off half-a-dozen different washing lines. He had a beard. It was straggly and unkempt, but it was certainly a beard. He had been on the tramp a while.
    “What’s first to do, then, ma’am?”
    She lifted the kettle from the range, and jerked her head towards the scullery.
    “Let’s get you sorted out.”
    She poured him hot water from the kettle into the scullery sink and let it down with water from the tap; she gave him a slip of soap and a linen towel and a comb, then fetched Mr. Hill’s razor and stropped it for him. She left her scissors on the drainer, for his nails.
    In the kitchen, she scrubbed down the table with salt, and set out the bread, and butter, and cheese, and listened to him huff and splash. When he had rolled back his sleeves at the sink, his arms had been twisted rope, just bone and muscle. These were hard days indeed, to be between employments.
    The table laid, she sat and waited. He came up the step from the scullery, his hair still damp and dripping around his ears. His beard wasgone, and his skin was pale and soft where it had been. He was ill at ease, moving awkwardly in the confined space of the kitchen, with its obstacles and hurdles, its clutter of stools and chairs, tubs and fire-irons and skillets. He was one of those men, it seemed, who are not quite at home indoors.
    “So, what’s to be done now, ma’am?”
    She drew out a chair for him at the kitchen table. He looked down at it.
    “Sit.”
    She poured him a cup of tea, set the milk jug beside it, and placed a bit of sugar on the edge of the saucer. She cut the bread and the cheese, then went to the pantry to shave a few slices off the ham. When she had set all this down in front of him, he was still just looking at the cup; the drink itself was untouched. His lips—he rolled them in, bit down on them—were cracked and peeling.
    She sat down opposite him. “You don’t drink tea?”
    “No, I—”
    “Would you prefer milk?” She pushed her chair back. “Or we have beer. Would you like a mug of beer?”
    “I do drink tea, it’s not that.” His gaze was uneasy; it scudded around the room.
    “What is it, then?”
    “To earn it. I should work first.”
    “No,” she said. “Not here. You eat first here.”
    He looked at her then, with his clear eyes.
    “There will always be food for you here. Breakfast, dinner and tea. You eat, and then you work,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about that any more.”
    He smiled then, and it was a transformation; all unease gone, he softened and seemed young. He picked up the sugar lump and set it aside, then lifted the cup and sipped.
    “It’s good,” he said. “Thank you.”
    “But you don’t like sugar?”
    “I do, I suppose. But I don’t take it.”
    She shunted the plate of ham a little closer, watched his Adam’s apple roll down, then back up his throat. She dug a knife into the butter, slid it towards him too. He smeared the bread with butter, laid on ham and cheese, folded it in half and bit. When he had finished, she was readywith a broad wedge of gooseberry tart, and a dish of thick yellow cream with the little silver spoon stuck in it.
    “Go on,” she said.
    He looked up at her. Then he shook his head, and softly