Jennet kept trying to catch the eye of Mrs Hall to ask her if she could go up and see Mary, but the woman was run off her feet serving all her customers and soon Titus stood up to bang on the table to bring the meeting to order.

He spoke again about Dr Bowring and how he would work for them and try to ensure that they all got a vote, regardless of the rent they paid. All the men, that is, thought Jennet as she listened. But she felt proud to hear Titus speak. He was articulate and people listened to what he had to say.

‘This election is only the beginning,’ he told them. ‘We will not rest until every man has a vote regardless of property. We work hard and we pay our way and we should have a say in the way this country is run. The power has been in the hands of the rich and the privileged for far too long, and they have abused that power. The time of the working man is coming! We will have our vote – and it will be a secret ballot so no pressure can be brought to bear. We will vote freely and with our consciences for what we know is right!’

A few other men stood up to speak, but Jennet thought none of them were as good as Titus, and she was proud of him. When they were first married he’d been nothing more than a humble handloom weaver and she’d never dreamed that he would take an interest in politics. He’d always been happy to let others take the lead until he ended up in the House of Correction at Preston. It had changed him, and she didn’t think the changes were the ones that those in authority had intended. He was fervent in his pursuit of Reform now. He’d found his purpose in life and she knew that he would never be satisfied until he himself could cast a vote in the elections.

Jennet was about to go up to see Mary when she saw James Hindle threading his way across the parlour to speak to them.

‘No Hannah?’ he asked as he perched on a spare stool. He sounded disappointed and it reaffirmed Jennet’s suspicion that he genuinely liked her. It would be a real step up in the world for her sister if she could marry a schoolmaster, she thought.

‘Not tonight. I think the Feildens are back in town,’ she said.

‘Aye. They are. That’s why I wanted to see her – to see if she was all right.’

‘All right?’ asked Jennet. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’

‘Apparently there was a bit of trouble about a book,’ he told her. ‘It was one that Mr Feilden had lent to me, but he’d neglected to mention it to his wife and she thought it had gone missing.’

‘What’s that got to do with our Hannah?’ asked Titus.

‘Well, Mr Feilden said that his wife had got alarmed and the house had been searched for it and that although the book wasn’t there, she’d uncovered some papers in the maid’s room that upset her. I wondered what it was all about.’