Lizzie waited to talk until the children had gone to sleep. Sarah was the last to drop off, spending her time staring at the ceiling, drawing attention to the cracks which she said made pictures and then talking softly to herself.

‘She’s ready for school,’ Ellen murmured. ‘Perhaps I’ll find somewhere after we move.’

Lizzie nodded. ‘Yes, I’d say she was ready. She’s a bright little girl.’ She half rose to her feet. ‘Shall I make ’tea?’

‘I’ll do it,’ Ellen forestalled her. ‘You’ve been at work all day.’

Lizzie gave a small grimace. ‘It’s hardly working wi’ a team o’ plough horses or harvesting,’ she said. ‘I’ve had an easy kind of day, though rather a strange one, especially this morning.’ Whilst Ellen made the tea, she told her about Tannerson’s going to see the vicar about the boys’ funeral, about Ellison’s sudden appearance in the office and Tannerson’s subsequent anger, culminating in going to a hostelry for midday dinner.

‘It was whilst I was in ’hostelry that I suddenly felt guilty.’ She stared into the fire, dry-eyed. ‘I should have been wearing widow’s weeds, weeping and tearing my hair, and even though I said to Tannerson that in ’countryside widows had to get on with their lives and couldn’t sit about in mourning but must work to keep a roof over their heads, it was a lie.’

‘What was a lie?’ Ellen asked, handing her a cup of hot tea, knowing in her heart that if it had been Harry who had died in the mill fire she wouldn’t have ever recovered from grief.

Lizzie turned to her. ‘All of it! I haven’t mourned Albert. I’m sorry that he died, but I never should have married him in ’first place,’ she said bluntly. ‘I realized that in ’first week of our marriage. He wanted somebody to clean ’house, cook his dinner and warm his bed. He didn’t require anything else, certainly not conversation. He might as well have stayed at home wi’ his ma, cos she could have provided all of those things and put a hot brick in his bed instead of a wife.’

‘But if you’d kept ’babby you were expecting,’ Ellen whispered. ‘That would have made a difference, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes.’ Lizzie’s voice was low and she glanced frankly at her sister. ‘It would have tied me to him even tighter. But I didn’t keep it, did I?’

Ellen briefly closed her eyes and opened them to see Lizzie still gazing at her. She didn’t need to hear more; she could guess the rest. There was always someone who would help a young woman out of an unwanted pregnancy, but usually it would be an unmarried one.