‘We’re used to walking, doctor. How else would we get about?’ She’d given a watery smile. As a Holderness man he ought to have known, she thought, except of course he might always have had the use of a horse and carriage. ‘Harry occasionally borrowed a wagon when he was on ’farm, and if I wanted to go to Withernsea I’d sometimes catch ’carrier, but apart from that we walked. What other option was there for folk like us?’ She’d said it without a trace of envy or rancour; that was just the way it was.

‘I’ll ask about,’ he said. ‘I often hear what’s happening and who’s moving on where.’

She had felt slightly heartened by his words even though she wondered whether Harry would be able to go back to the same kind of work; but surely, she thought, the doctor of all people would know about the state of his injuries and their effect on his prospects for employment. After he had left, Anna and Edyta had insisted that she remain in bed for the rest of the day and not worry about anything for the time being. Anna would stay and entertain the children upstairs in Edyta’s room and Edyta would go back to work for the afternoon shift.

She slept for an hour and felt a little refreshed when she woke. She could hear the children’s voices upstairs and wondered what she would have done without her friends. Family and friendship are so important, she thought later; Anna had fed all the children, having sent Filip out for bread and eggs, and before they left she had prepared Ellen’s three for bed and said she would come back the next morning. Edyta had come home from work and stayed with her until the children’s bedtime, when she had given them and Ellen cocoa before going up to her own room to sleep.

Ellen lay quietly in the flickering firelight and realized that she must write home to tell Harry’s family about his accident. I’ll drop a postcard to Billy and ask Edyta to post it. He’ll tell Harry’s father and sisters, but maybe not his mother; I don’t want to upset her, seeing as she’s not well. Unsteadily she put her feet to the floor, and holding on to chairs and table she crossed the floor and took a postcard and pencil from the table drawer.

She told Billy as much as she could in the few words she could fit on the postcard about Harry’s accident and her own miscarriage, assuring him that Harry would improve in time, as she would too. She also told him about the support she had had from their friends, for she didn’t want their families to be anxious about them, but simply to be aware of what had happened.