‘Daniel took her to old Aggie’s last night. She didn’t want to but he made her. An’ she was awful when she come back, I could hear her moaning and crying all night, but he don’t care.’ Daisy’s voice was bitter. ‘Went off this afternoon as happy as you like to see to some business down at the docks, an’ Ellie not knowing what to do with herself. When Howard said about gettin’ someone, Dan went for him, but the bleeding won’t stop.’

‘Daisy, who’s old Aggie?’

‘One of the backstreet midwives who’ll fix you up if you pay for it, but they use dirty crochet hooks an’ all sorts. Ellie was terrified he’d make her see one of ’em when the castor oil and hot baths didn’t do it – scalded herself, she did, she had the water so hot, but nothing worked.’

Ruby’s blood had run cold.

‘He’s a maniac, that Daniel,’ Daisy went on. ‘Howard’s had enough of him and this is the final straw. We’re gonna clear off down south on the quiet, but don’t tell him that,’ she added, looking suddenly terrified.

‘I’ve got to go to her.’ Ruby looked at Bridget. ‘Make some excuse to Mrs Duffy about where I am, say there was an emergency at the workhouse and I’ve agreed to stand in for someone, something like that.’

‘You can’t, lass. What if he comes back and finds you there?’ Bridget was literally wringing her hands in distress.

‘I don’t care. She needs a doctor.’ They’d had a young girl left at the workhouse doors just the other day who’d had a botched abortion. Terrified at the shame of unmarried motherhood, the fifteen-year-old had attempted to terminate her pregnancy with the help of her mother using a home-made purgative containing soap and aloes and liquid paraffin, and when that hadn’t worked, her mother’s knitting needle. She wouldn’t give her name or say where she lived and had died in agony of an incomplete abortion that had also punctured her bowels, and had been buried in a pauper’s grave without even her name to mark the place. Ruby had spoken with Clarissa about it and her friend had said it was one of the things Lady Russell was campaigning about; up and down the country the gynaecological wards in hospitals were full of women suffering terribly for the same reason and many died, most of them from the working class.