‘That must have been really hard for both of you. Being lifted out from all you’d known.’ She wore a serious look. ‘I remember how I felt when my mother said we were moving to Hull. She was born here, you see, and wanted to come back after my father died.’ Then her face lit up with a beam and Ellen thought how lovely she was and how Dr Lucan must have fallen in love with her the very day they’d met. ‘But it was ’best thing that could have happened to us – to me and my brothers and sister.’

She leaned forward. ‘I do hope that your fortune changes soon, Mrs Randell. My husband said that your husband is in hospital following the mill explosion – but that’s all he did say,’ she hastened to add. ‘He doesn’t discuss his patients.’

‘That’s all right,’ Ellen assured her. ‘I’m hoping that Harry will be home again before long.’

‘And have you given any thought to renting the cottage that my brother showed you?’ She clasped her hands together. ‘I do hope you decide to take it. It’s so important that we have someone living in it who’ll treat it as their home.’ She glanced at the children. ‘The garden can soon be made nice again. The previous tenant, a widow, wasn’t able to give it the care it needed, but it would be a safe place for the children to play.’

Ellen hesitated; now that the moment had come she was no longer sure it was a decision she could make on her own. She and Harry had always discussed matters together before, but he was in a hospital bed with no means at present of looking at the cottage. She explained this to Mrs Lucan.

‘I do understand,’ the doctor’s wife said quietly. ‘But there are times in a woman’s life when we have to decide one way or the other, and whether we choose the right way or the wrong one is a chance we have to take. I know that for myself.’

She began to smooth on her gloves in preparation for leaving and Ellen felt a sudden panic; she desperately wanted the cottage and she was sure that Harry would love it once he had seen it.

‘The rent, Mrs Lucan? Is it – will it be more than we can afford?’ She told her how much they were paying for this room.