‘Yes. I’m not sure how it could be done though,’ said Mrs Whittaker. ‘And it wouldn’t be cheap. But I’ll mention it to Mr Whittaker and see what he thinks,’ she promised before she bade Jennet ‘Good morning’ and moved on to speak to another parishioner.

‘She’ll do nowt,’ said Titus when Jennet told him. ‘They’ll not spend money on summat like that, especially when they’re not the ones to come up with the idea. A sack of potatoes here and there, and a roast at Christmas makes ’em look good and charitable, but when it comes to asking ’em to put their hands deep into their pockets they’ll not agree. What we need is a good member of Parliament who’ll speak up for us. Someone like Bowring. He talks sense. Tha’d be better off askin’ him rather than yon vicar’s wife.’

‘Would he speak to me?’ she asked.

‘He often stops to speak to folk when he comes. Not just those with the vote. He’ll be here this afternoon when the candidates are announced. Tha could come with me. We’ll all go. Our Peggy’d like to go, wouldn’t tha, Peg? Dost tha want to come and listen to Dr Bowring?’

Jennet had been hoping to have a bit of a sit-down and do the mending that had piled up in her work basket, but she was so disappointed at Mrs Whittaker’s lack of enthusiasm for her idea that she thought she would go. Perhaps if Titus was right and this chap Bowring was going to be voted in as a member of Parliament, he would be the one to appeal to concerning the welfare of the townsfolk.

Hannah was dusting in the morning room. It was early on a Sunday and quiet outside. The sun was barely peeping in through the window and Mrs Feilden was still upstairs. It was chilly, she thought as she flicked her duster across the surfaces of the tables and the mantelpiece. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be expected to light the fires. The heatwave was over and in a few weeks’ time the leaves would begin to turn on the trees – not that there were many trees in Blackburn, but there was a small beech in the garden that she could see, struggling to thrive in the drought and the fetid air.

She walked across to Mrs Feilden’s desk. She always worried about disturbing anything there and took the trouble to place everything back exactly where she found it. There was a book. She picked it up and traced the letters on the spine with her fingers to see if she could read the title. A New Book on Penmanship, she read. Curious, she opened it and saw that there were pages and pages of examples of handwriting – bills of parcels, promissory notes, receipts and more, each showing the various styles of the formation of the letters of the alphabet. It must have been for Mrs Feilden’s daughters to practise their writing, thought Hannah. The script was beautiful and she wished that she could form her own letters with such flair and style.