He shook his head. ‘I’ve nowt at t’ moment,’ he said. ‘Try Brookhouse.’

Mary spent the rest of the afternoon trailing from one mill to the next, with no luck. Nobody seemed to be taking on. She hadn’t thought that it would be so difficult to get work and by the time she arrived back at the Star she was seriously worried about what she was going to do if there were no jobs.

It was almost five o’clock so she washed her face, tidied her hair as best she could and went down the steps to the kitchen to see what her duties would be.

‘Is that all tha has to wear?’ asked Mrs Hall when she saw her.

‘Will it not do?’ she asked. She’d thought that the dark skirt and white blouse would serve her well.

‘It’s a bit plain.’

‘Plain?’ repeated Mary, surprised.

‘Aye. The gents that come in ’ere like to see a prettily dressed lass bringing their drinks,’ she told her. ‘See, here’s Alice. She knows how to dress.’

Mary looked at the girl who’d just come in. She was wearing a flimsy cotton frock that reminded Mary of the dresses that Mr Sudell’s daughters wore. Her hair was piled up on her head with ringlets hanging down around her ears. Her shoulders were almost bare and Mary thought that she looked more like she was going to a dance at the Assembly Rooms than to work.

‘I’ve nowt like that,’ she said, wishing that she had. She’d only ever had enough money to buy serviceable cloth to make plain clothes.

‘Well, tha’ll do for now,’ said Mrs Hall. ‘If tha decides to stay on we can get thee sorted out wi’ summat more fitting. Right, this is what tha’s to do. It ain’t hard,’ she said as she showed Mary how to pour the beer into the pots and where to wash them up when they’d been used. ‘Main thing is to smile and be polite. That’s what t’ customers like. And as long as tha fetches ’em what they asks for and gets the right money for it, tha’ll not go far wrong. Now we’ll have us tea and then we’ll be ready to open.’

Mary followed her back into the kitchen where Mrs Hall doled out hotpot into dishes and set them on the table. ‘Eat up!’ she told them and Mary perched on the edge of a stool and tucked into the meal. She was hungry, which was surprising when she considered how much she’d eaten earlier, but it had been a long and trying day.

Mrs Hall sat down with them, shook out a napkin and tucked it into the top of her low-cut frock so that she wouldn’t splash any food on it. Mary watched in fascination as her ample bosoms quivered as she chewed the meat from the lamb chops, holding them between her fingers and licking her lips. ‘Is tha walkin’ out wi’ anyone’?’ Mrs Hall asked her.