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in Moorfields. They are a good firm and I suggest you try them.’ He nodded curtly. ‘Goodbye.’
    The next day, after feeding the baby, Evelyn left Eliza in charge and went into the city. She soon found the letting office in Moorfields and asked for information on six-roomed houses. The clerk gave her a list of addresses, saying the rent of each depended on the area in which it was situated and the condition of the property. After listening to Evelyn’s cultured voice, he recommended two that she should try first. They were in a good area, and as they were in sound decorative order, she could move in straight away.
    From there, Evelyn went to order a pram to be delivered the following day. Then it was time to head for home before the baby started screaming to be fed. Once satisfied, Amelia settled down and would sleep for at least two hours, so Evelyn set off to look at the two houses. She wasn’t very happy about having to move to such a small place, but was afraid the Lister-Sinclairs could make her life unpleasant if she didn’t agree. One of the houses had a small front garden, and looking through the letter box and the windows, it seemed clean and bright. So she took the tram down to the letting office, was told the house was three shillings and sixpence a week, and was asked to pay two weeks in advance. She told the clerk she was a war widow and that her name was Mrs Sinclair. When the forms were filled in, she received a rent book and a set of keys.
    Evelyn hated the house. It seemed so poky after the one she had grown used to. Nevertheless, having had to give Eliza notice, she found it impossible to clean and feed the baby, and keep up with the other washing and ironing, shopping and cooking. As she had no idea of the value of money, she bought the best of everything, even though she had no money coming in. It didn’t take her long to fritter her savings away. When she’d been in the new house a year she had to pay her first visit to a pawn shop. Over the next year, all the expensive ornaments, pictures and mirrors, brought from the house in Princes Avenue, found their way into that shop. She was too naive to realise the pawnbroker was only giving her a fraction of what the items were worth, and she would never have the money to redeem them. She lived from day to day in a dream world, thinking that somehow she would be taken back to the riches and wealth she loved so much and which she thought she deserved. She never blamed herself for her situation, it was always the baby who had ruined her life.
    One day as she sat at the bare table, she thought of the empty larder and her empty purse. There was nothing left for her to pawn except the rings on her finger. She knew they were very expensive because she’d been with Charles when he bought them. The wedding ring she’d have to keep or people would think she was an unmarried mother, and common sense told her the engagement ring would be better sold to a jeweller than to a pawnbroker. It was a beautiful ring with a huge diamond in a claw setting. She had to get a good price for it because the money would have to last a long time. She couldn’t take it back to the shop it was bought from because they had known Charles. So she found another well-known jeweller’s, and for once stood her ground and refused the fifty pounds she was initially offered for it.
    ‘My husband paid four hundred pounds for that, and you offer me fifty? That is nonsense and you know it! I shall try elsewhere and am sure I’ll get what the ring is really worth.’
    She was right, of course, as the jeweller was well aware. ‘What price were you expecting to get for it, madam?’
    ‘At least half what my late husband paid for it.’
    The man removed the glass from his eye. ‘I’m sorry, madam, but you won’t get that from any jeweller. It is after all secondhand which lowers its value considerably. I would be prepared to give you one hundred and fifty pounds for it, which would leave