The Angels of Lovely Lane by Nadine Dorries

why, Victoria stepped into her path and blurted out, ‘Aunt Minnie, I want to be a nurse, just like Mummy.’
    *
    Two meetings with the solicitor and two weeks later, auctioneers’ agents arrived to catalogue the contents of the house. Gerald was nowhere to be seen. He moved like a ghost from room to room, avoiding everyone, unable to bear the thought of dismantling his precious library.
    ‘Choose the books you want to take with you to the dower house,’ Minnie suggested.
    The dower house only had six bedrooms. To Victoria’s father, the very thought was a profound humiliation. Victoria had hoped there would be enough money left over from the sale of Baker Hall and its contents to keep them in some degree of comfort, but Roland had disabused her of that notion as she escorted him to his car after his first visit. Victoria had warmed to Roland as soon as he had arrived at the Hall. His manner towards her had been gentle and caring and as she had shown him to her father’s study he had said, ‘The last time I saw you, you were cycling away from my house with your mother, your pigtails flying behind you.’
    Victoria had blushed. ‘I was dreadfully sorry to hear about your father,’ she said. ‘Mummy was very fond of him, and I loved coming with her to change his dressings. He always had a toffee apple for me. It was worth the journey just for that.’ They had both laughed and their eyes had met and held until they heard Aunt Minnie.
    ‘Come along. We have much business to discuss.’
    ‘The personal debts on the estate are enormous,’ he had told her. ‘It’s not just the final instalment of the death duties. Your father has been borrowing against assets for some time just for the upkeep of the estate. Although the paintings should clear most of the debts, it may come to the point where the cottages and the dower house also have to be sold.’
    ‘What? My father will be left with nothing? Not even a house?’ They were standing in front of the stately home where generations of Victoria’s family had lived. The portraits of her ancestors, which had hung on the walls for four hundred years, were to be sold on to strangers. She felt as though the fabric of her world was crumbling.
    ‘My father tried his best to persuade him to sell the house years ago. From the time when your grandfather died and the first demands for death duties arrived. Of course now, due to the delay and with all the compound interest...’ Victoria’s eyes filled with tears as Roland fell silent. He could see that she was barely able to understand the magnitude of what was happening. ‘I will do my utmost to achieve the best for you both. Are you going to be all right?’ His voice was filled with concern, which he knew had grown from a feeling of protectiveness born of the fond recollections he had of her as a child and the care she and her mother had shown to his father. A feeling that had nothing to do with his duties as the family solicitor.
    Victoria looked up at him. The genuine warmth in his eyes and the kindness in his voice was almost more than she could bear, and now her tears broke free and ran down her cheeks, unchecked. Tears she had hidden from her formidable Aunt Minnie, fearing that she would be regarded as weak, like her father.
    ‘Dearie me.’ Roland awkwardly put an arm round her shoulder. ‘Your parents kept you out of the loop for your own protection. I know it makes all of this an enormous shock, but they were only trying to do their best for you. You know the estate will come to you, but frankly the debts are so huge...’ His voice tailed away again, leaving unspoken the fact that no man would want to marry Victoria and take on such a huge financial burden.
    Victoria lifted her chin proudly. ‘I have already decided I want to become a nurse, like my mother,’ she said, and Roland smiled.
    ‘I still remember you wearing a nurse’s apron.’
    ‘Oh, yes.’ Victoria brightened. ‘I used to love wearing that