James delved into his trouser pocket for his key and unlocked the door. He glanced around before he opened it for her to go inside and she realised that he was taking a risk too. He might be dismissed from his job if anybody saw him taking a woman into the schoolhouse.

The inside of the house was as neat as a new pin. There was a scrubbed table with two chairs and a wooden rocking chair by the hearth with a well-used cushion lying on it. In front of the fire there was a rag rug crafted from a variety of coloured cottons and she wondered who’d made it for him. He poked at the fire and added another couple of big cobs. It smoked and then the coal caught alight with a blue flame and the room began to warm.

‘Sit down,’ he said, pointing at the rocking chair and she settled into its curves, thinking that his was the last body to sit there. She plumped the cushion and put it behind her back; then she unfastened her bonnet and slipped it off. The room lacked a woman’s touch, she thought as she looked around curiously. The walls were bare except for one picture of a place she didn’t recognise and there seemed to be hardly any personal items at all.

He opened a drawer and took out some sheets of paper. She saw that his handwriting was neat, as she would have expected, and not too small. He handed them to her.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said, going into the back kitchen for water. She knew exactly how he felt. She would never have been able to stay in the same room with him if he was reading her work. The verses were very good though, and clever too. There were some words that she didn’t know and she wasn’t sure of their pronunciation, although the rhymes gave her a clue. She wondered if she dared ask him what they meant, but she didn’t want to sound stupid.

He was ages coming back and when he did he looked worried. She smiled at him. ‘I like them!’

‘Do you? I’ve never shown them to anyone before,’ he admitted. ‘There’s a poets’ corner that meets in the beershop on Nab Lane. I keep thinking I should go along and read some out, but I worry that they’re not good enough.’

‘Tha should go,’ she told him as he filled the kettle and put it on to boil.

‘Aye. Maybe I will. It would be nice to hear what others are writing too.’

‘What sort of folk are they?’ asked Hannah, wondering if any of them were women.

‘All sorts, I think. Working men. Not gentry.’

‘Gentry don’t seem to hold with it,’ she reminded him.

‘It’s a pity you can’t come with me. If you’d been a mill girl you’d have finished work by then, but the Feildens seem to keep you working all hours.’

‘Aye. But it’s all right at the Feildens’ really, though it’s best when they’re at the country house. It’s a bit of a holiday then and Cook might let me slip out for an hour or two.’