Wednesday 6 August 1930
Milly takes Preston out shopping (and, surreptitiously, to get her out of herself a bit more; the group is starting to feel that this romance may not go well); meanwhile, Bessie, Gertrude and Audrey get through the gap in hedges between the two houses and into Peters’ garden, which is divided roughly evenly between the greenhouse and a vegetable patch (with a small shed at the far end). Gertrude recognises a number of interesting medicinal plants. A bucket of fertiliser has a fair bit of shine on it. An orange tree is fighting for space. Gertrude suddenly notices that a plant she thought she’d seen is no longer visible, and gets the others out quickly; from outside the greenhouse, she spots it in a different location, a single purple funnel-shaped flower that’s entirely outside her experience, and that she’s pretty sure isn’t a known species at all.
Bessie detects a very slight smell of formalin around the kitchen windows and effects an entry; the kitchen and larder don’t look heavily used, though they’re clean. In front of the kitchen is a parlour cum dining room, which seems unremarkable. Following the smell leads to a cupboard under the stairs, which when opened reveals a staircase and a crude electric lighting system; when Bessie presses the switch, there’s an intermittent snuffling sound from below. (But she’d been assured that Peters had no pets…) She closes the door, and everyone erases the signs of their passage as they get out again.