He put his hand on her shoulder and patted it. ‘Come and see me if tha wants a job,’ he told her.

She made an excuse that she had to be somewhere. She just wanted to get away from him, so she went back out into the rain and wandered about for a while. She bought a hot potato from a cart for her dinner and sat in the wet to eat it. Then she walked down to the marketplace where the stalls were packed away and the cobbles were slick. She was cold and miserable and she knew that she ought to go back to the Star, but she couldn’t face it in case William Hart was there. He wouldn’t let her alone.

In the end she went back to the theatre and pushed her way in again, hoping that Hargreaves wouldn’t see her. She was soaked through to her petticoat and one of her fancy boots had let in water. She guessed that the little feather on her bonnet would be a sorry sight too and she was glad that she hadn’t caught a reflection of herself in a window.

It was busier now that the time for voting was approaching its four o’clock deadline. Men who’d been busy all day came rushing in and approached Mr Fleming at his table. They gave their names and told him who they voted for: Mr Turner, Dr Bowring, Mr Feilden. The votes seemed evenly spread and as Mary sat in her damp skirts she listened to the whispers around her as people predicted the winners.

Soon Mr Fleming stood up and banged his gavel several times in rapid succession. ‘It is now four o’clock and the voting is closed!’ he announced. ‘I will total the votes and shortly there will be an announcement of the new members of Parliament for the town and surrounding district of Blackburn!’

He reseated himself and took up his pen with an air of quiet concentration. The candidates looked tense and the crowd fell silent so as not to disturb the calculating.

Mary decided that she would wait for the announcement and then go back to the Star to tell them. She knew they were all hoping that Dr Bowring would get a seat.

Hannah was helping Cook prepare what was expected to be a victory supper, although she couldn’t help but wonder if their certainty was a little misplaced. Although Mr Feilden was well known and well respected in the town, she knew that men could be fickle and, like not counting chickens until they were hatched, she wondered whether the Feildens weren’t being too optimistic. Besides, she was secretly hoping that Mr Feilden would lose. There had been talk of her and Cook as well as Mr Horrocks accompanying the family to London. The Blackburn townhouse would be closed up or even sold, and when they did return next summer, when Parliament took its recess, they would go to their country house and Hannah feared that she would be required to stay in London. The thought of it made her want to cry because it would mean that she would never see James Hindle, and just when he had begun to make it plain that he actually liked her. It was too cruel.