‘Oh!’ Ellen stopped slicing the loaf. ‘Yes, I’ll tell him. Meg said not to worry him, but he’ll want to know.’

Harry, coming in through the door and shooing the children before him, heard her. ‘Who’ll want to know what?’

‘Your ma isn’t well, Harry,’ she explained. ‘Meg said before we came here not to tell you that she was failing; she said there were enough of them to help out.’

He stood still. ‘What’s ’matter with her? Is she sick?’

Ellen shook her head. ‘She’s tired, I think. She’s had a hard life. Time now for her to sit back and let others do for her.’

‘But I’m here, aren’t I? Her only son.’ He pondered for a minute, clearly worried. ‘But how do I get there and back? It would mean taking time off work to catch ’carrier, an’ I’ll lose pay.’

Billy spoke up. ‘Your ma wouldn’t want that, and I reckon there’ll be nowt much you can do if you are there,’ he said. ‘It’s women who tek care of bairns and owd folk when they’re sick. But leave it for a week, say, and I’ll borrow ’wagon again and come and pick you up after work on Sat’day and fetch you back on Sunday. How’d that be?’

Harry clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Great,’ he said. ‘You’re a mate, Billy. You always were.’ He turned to Ellen. ‘You’ll be all right for one night on your own, won’t you?’

‘Yes, fine,’ she said, thinking that it would be the first time Harry wouldn’t be there since the day they were married.

The weather was beginning to turn and rain fell almost every day of the following week, and when it wasn’t raining the lowering clouds were dark and gloomy, blotting out much of the light. Harry brought home pieces of timber from the yard and walked by the river bank to collect kindling and fallen branches to burn on the fire; some of it was damp and didn’t burn but gave off a smouldering choking smoke and the children coughed even more.

On the Friday, Mary coughed and coughed until her eyes streamed and said that her chest was sore in spite of the vapour rub and the honey and hot water. Ellen sat with her on her knee during the night and rubbed her back. ‘I think I’d better look up the doctor Dr Selby recommended and ask if he can call,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if he lives round here. I should have asked about that before.’