As they walked towards the mill, Ellen spotted Anna and the children coming out of the baker’s and called to her. ‘I was coming to see you,’ Anna called back. ‘Are you feeling better?’

Ellen crossed the road and put her arms about her. ‘I am,’ she said, and introduced her to Lizzie.

‘Edyta told me that your sister was staying with you; it is why I haven’t visited. I didn’t want to intrude. She said that you seemed a little better. It is good to have family with you, is it not?’

‘Family and friends.’ Ellen smiled. ‘I’m blessed to have both,’ and Anna squeezed her hand.

Ellen told Anna that she was on her way to see Mr Tannerson, to which Anna replied that Filip was with him also; he had gone to discuss working there once the new machinery had arrived.

‘Oh!’ Ellen said on a breath. ‘So perhaps it won’t be long before the mill reopens. There’ll be work again.’

‘Yes,’ said Anna. ‘For everyone. Filip has some leetle work, you know, but he needs more bigger jobs for – erm – comfort, do you say?’

‘Consistency?’ said Ellen; ‘Security?’ Lizzie added.

‘Security,’ Ellen agreed. ‘The kind of regular work that we all need to go to every morning, so that we can earn an honest living to put bread on ’table and food in our children’s mouths.’

They went their separate ways, agreeing that they would meet the next day at Anna’s house. Lizzie told Ellen that she would buy fresh bread and cheese tomorrow to take with them, as she had a little money with her. Ellen told her that Anna would want to prepare her own food for religious reasons, to which Lizzie responded in astonishment that she had never met anyone who did such a thing.

‘Well, there you have it, Lizzie,’ Ellen replied, pleased to think that she knew more than her older sister. ‘When you come to live in a place like Hull, you learn all kinds of things that you never knew before.’

The mill gates were closed but not locked and Ellen pushed them open, suggesting that Lizzie wait in the yard with the children whilst she went up the steps to the office.

She could hear voices from inside and tentatively knocked. ‘Yes?’ a voice called, and she opened the door a crack.

‘It’s Mrs Randell, Mr Tannerson,’ she said, and although she had told Lizzie that it was all right to speak to him she was anxious; anxious that perhaps there wouldn’t be any money due yet and that there wouldn’t be any of the promised work when Harry was well enough.

She heard the scraping of chair legs on the wooden floor and Tannerson’s voice calling for her to come in, and found on entering that Filip was still with him.

‘I’m so sorry to interrupt,’ she murmured. ‘I’ll come another day.’