They walked on, keeping to the side of the busy road as the traffic clattered past them, stirring up the dust. It was July and it had been dry since the beginning of June. Out in the countryside the dust had been bearable, but as they approached the town Hannah could see the low-lying haze clinging to the mills and the rows of terraced houses that lay in the valley. The noise increased as well. Birdsong was replaced by the thumping of the engines that drove the looms, the shouting of the carters as they unloaded the bales of raw cotton at the warehouses and took away the lengths of calico to the mills up at Darwen where they would be bleached and printed to make the pretty dresses that the daughters of the gentry wore – dresses that clung to their bodies in the breeze and showed every curve – dresses that Hannah had wished she could wear rather than the stiff black gown she’d been given to work in up at Woodfold. She’d left it behind on the bed. It wasn’t really hers and she had no intention of wearing it again. Although she could have cut it up to make something else. It could have been sewn into a little jacket, she thought as she regretted her hasty decision. Time was a luxury they’d not been granted that morning and she’d had no idea when she got up and dressed that she’d be back in Blackburn, with no job, before dinnertime.

The river Blakewater was low with the lack of rain and in the heat a stench rose from it that made her feel nauseous. She wondered why Jennet and Titus had come to live here. Such bad smells weren’t healthy and she knew that her sister worried about Peggy since she’d had the scarlatina as a baby.

Number six was the only house with the door ajar and Hannah knocked and called. ‘Jennet?’

There was no answer so Hannah stepped into the parlour to be met by a damp fug. Every rung of the airer was filled with drying underwear and more was arranged on a maiden set in front of the fire where a kettle boiled, adding steam to the already hot and damp atmosphere.

‘Jennet?’ she called again, going through to the back kitchen and out into the small walled yard where she found her sister, surrounded by bed sheets flapping on the clothes line.

‘Hannah! What’s tha doin’ here? What’s happened?’ she asked, glancing over Hannah’s shoulder at Mary.

‘We’ve been put out.’

‘Why? What’s tha done?’

‘Nowt!’ protested Hannah. ‘Sudell’s lost all his money and run off in the middle of the night.’

‘No!’ Jennet stared from one to the other, not able to believe what they were telling her. ‘Tha’s havin’ me on.’

‘We’re not, Mrs Eastwood,’ said Mary. ‘It’s true. Bailiffs have been. They’ve turned us out and chained up the gates.’

‘Good Lord,’ said Jennet. ‘How come he’s lost it? He were that rich. What’s he spent it all on?’