‘But tha forgives him.’

‘I don’t know about that. I puts up with him,’ she said.

Hannah watched her sister butter some oatcakes and place them carefully on a plate. ‘Dost tha ever regret it?’ she asked. ‘Not going to America with George?’

Jennet was silent for a while. ‘Sometimes,’ she admitted at last. ‘On occasion I think I should have gone for our Bessie’s sake, if not for my own. But it’s too late now.’ She handed the plate to Hannah. ‘Take that through,’ she said.

When Hannah went back into the parlour Titus was showing James the pamphlet he’d been reading. ‘Chartism,’ he was telling him. ‘That’s the new thing. I think we should begin a movement here in Blackburn. Carry on the fight.’

James looked up at her and smiled. He might not have forgiven Titus any more than Jennet had, but she was glad that he was willing to talk to him again.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mary was in the parlour, sweeping up the remains of the previous night’s detritus, when there was a tentative knock at the door.

‘It’s not opening time yet!’ she called.

‘Mary? Can I talk to thee?’

She recognised her friend’s voice straight away and propped the brush against the wall to hurry over and lift the sneck. ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Mrs Hall’s not here.’

Hannah stepped inside and Mary locked the door again behind her. For a moment they stood looking at one another awkwardly until Mary broke the silence.

‘I came to see thee, but they wouldn’t let me in. I wanted to thank thee. If tha hadn’t made ’em send for Dr Barlow that night, I don’t know what would have happened to me.’

‘Jennet said tha’d tried to see me, though no one at the house told me tha’d been.’

‘I heard as they’d dismissed thee.’

‘Aye. Tha heard right. I’m back at our Jennet’s again.’

‘What did tha do?’ asked Mary. ‘I heard that it were over a stolen book, but I know tha’s not a thief.’

‘It were because of how I got the job,’ Hannah told her. ‘Tha knows I never had a letter of character. But Titus wrote one for me. That’s why I couldn’t tell thee about it, because he would never have written one for thee. I think he only did it to get me out of the house. I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Tha knows I were worried about thee stoppin’ here, but there was nowt I could do.’

‘Aye. I can see that,’ said Mary, although she wasn’t sure that she really forgave Hannah. She should have been honest with her from the start. ‘How did they find out?’

‘Someone told Mr Feilden that no one from Woodfold had been given a character and so they checked and saw mine were a forgery.’

‘And do they know it were Titus that wrote it?’

‘No. I couldn’t get ’im in bother again.’

Mary stared at her friend. So much had changed over the past months and she knew that things could never be the same between them.