Frank, I know by now you will be staying with Mrs Gable and that, perhaps, your new home is not as comfortable as my own, but I hope I have not bored you with my stories. One day, when I can send for you, we can be together again and I will look after you like always.

Your loving sister,

Nancy

Nancy put her ink pen down and read the letter back. In truth, she doubted that Frank would read it. Her brother had never been good with words. She remembered him as a boy, how he’d refuse to hold his pencil, no matter how fiercely she tried to instruct him in his letters; how he wanted nothing more than to run wild with the other miners’ sons. Nancy had often wondered how different her brother might have been if he had had a mother, instead of an elder sister just trying to do her best.

Perhaps Frank might have Mrs Gable read the letter to him – but first, of course, he would wait until the other miners he was lodging with were away, or out of earshot, for fear of being called a pansy, a mummy’s boy, or worse. Yes, Nancy decided, Frank might have been a mummy’s boy – if only he’d got the chance.

Thoughts like this could make her maudlin. She didn’t like to think of the old Nettleton cottage with a new family in it, nor of her brother stuck following the same path through life as their father, who had been taken from them far too young when his lungs – diseased after so many years in the mine – could go on no more. One day, she hoped, she would be able to send for Frank and they might have a new kind of life together. But not today. Today was for her. Life had been about them for so long. She was twenty-four years old and she deserved a little something for herself.

Nancy opened her wardrobe. Her feet were still aching, but what did that matter? If I don’t dare do it, if all I do is curl up and go to sleep, what use is there in living? Nancy, you’ve got to be brave . . .