‘Aye. Well, stick to thy water then,’ said the first woman. ‘And good luck to thee!’ She shook her head as she began to fill her buckets. ‘Lot of nonsense in my opinion,’ she told Jennet. ‘Folk deserve a bit o’ fun when they’ve worked hard all day and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s water and not beer as is spreadin’ disease.’

‘Aye,’ agreed Jennet. ‘I warned my neighbour about takin’ water from t’ river. The smell’s that bad down there it can’t be healthy.’

She filled her own buckets, putting a little into the small pail that Bessie carried. There was no point overfilling it because she would spill most of it before they got back home. The heavy load pulled on her arms as they walked in the heat and she was glad to get back. The sun had gone off the yard now, but it was still warm enough to get another load hung out to dry before she had to go and get Peggy from school. Perhaps it was time to let her walk home on her own, she thought. Most of the other children did because their mothers were at work in the mills. But she worried so much about Peggy. She knew that she was overprotective of her ever since she’d come down with the scarlatina as a baby. They’d so nearly lost her and Jennet was always afraid that illness would strike again in this filthy town. Titus was right when he said that they had to protect her, but Bessie needed protecting too. Although she’d had such a difficult birth, Bessie had thrived and was rarely ill, but Jennet had heard talk about how cholera could strike a child down in the morning and by teatime they could be dead. It was a horrifying prospect.

Back at home, Jennet watched as Bessie plunged and scrubbed some of the smaller items of clothing in the dolly tub. She was wet through again but her frock would soon dry as they walked up to Thunder Alley. Bessie squeezed the items together and plunged them again, copying the way that Jennet washed. It was still a game to her and Jennet hoped that she would never have to do it as a living. She had ambitions for both her daughters and although Titus always talked about how clever Peggy was, Jennet knew that Bessie was clever too. She wasn’t as talkative as her sister, but she watched and listened and it saddened Jennet to know that she had begun to understand that Titus always favoured Peggy. It would have helped if she looked less like George, thought Jennet. But she was the image of him and even if she’d tried to keep it secret she could never have passed her off as Titus’s daughter. Perhaps it was as well that George had gone, though on days like these, when she struggled to get all her work done and the tea on the table in time for Titus coming home, she wondered if she might have had an easier life if she’d gone to America.