He’d had his hair trimmed, she noticed, and his shirt was new. In a moment of jealousy she wondered where he’d been the week before and who’d sewn it for him, thinking that she could probably have made him a better one.

She frowned and tried to concentrate on the vicar’s lengthy prayers for the sick and the needy. There were still plenty of those despite the Reform. And Mr Turner was showing little enthusiasm for representing the town in Parliament. He hadn’t even gone to London yet, saying that he was far too busy with his mills. Titus was right when he said the fight was far from over.

After the last hymn the congregation spilled out into the churchyard. It had turned very cold and there’d been a first frost on the Friday morning. Folk welcomed it. They said it would kill off the last of the cholera. Her family had been lucky, she thought as she glanced at all the extra graves the illness had brought about. Peggy could easily have been buried in one of them and she wondered how much her survival had been owing to Titus insisting that she had something to drink when she was so thirsty. Perhaps his disrespect for authority was sometimes a good thing.

‘Hannah!’ She looked behind her as James called her name. ‘May I talk to you?’

‘Aye, of course.’ Her heart soared as he took her elbow and led her away from where Jennet was waiting to speak to the vicar’s wife. She was still hoping for a favourable decision about her washhouse, although it seemed more and more like a lost cause.

‘How are you?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine,’ she lied, noticing that his cravat was coming loose. She longed to reach out and tidy it for him.

‘How’s the writing?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve not done any more.’

‘Not even a poem?’

‘No.’ It was untrue. Her new notebook, that she kept hidden in a drawer under her petticoats away from little Peggy’s prying eyes, was filled with page after page of verses into which she’d poured out her sadness and heartbreak.

‘I’m sorry I’ve not seen much of you lately.’

‘I’ve been to all the Reform meetings.’

‘Aye. I couldn’t bring myself to come,’ he admitted. ‘I was so furious with Titus that I was afraid of what I might say.’

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jennet grasp Peggy and Bessie by the hand and set off for home. She was grateful that she hadn’t walked across to tell her to hurry up.

‘He meant it for the best,’ she said. ‘And I think he’s sorry. He’s been nice to me ever since and there’s been no hinting about me outstaying my welcome.’

‘But you don’t want to stay there for ever, do you?’

‘No. They’re good to me, but they do have a tendency to treat me like a child, and after a taste of independence it can be hard. I’ve been helping Jennet with the washing, but it’s not much of a job.’ She was glad she was wearing gloves. She would have hated him to see the state of her hands from scrubbing with the lye soap. ‘I need to find summat better,’ she said.