‘Oh, Ellie, lass, don’t talk like that, you’re going to get well,’ Ruby murmured softly as she straightened up. ‘I promised I’d call the nurse if you woke up – I won’t be a minute.’ But then, as Ellie’s fingers moved to grip hers, she whispered, ‘All right, I won’t go, but shut your eyes now and go back to sleep. I’m here and I won’t leave you.’ She bent over and kissed Ellie’s cheek again, and when she drew back it was a few moments before she realized what had happened. Ellie had gone. Just like that.

She stared at the still figure, an emotion tearing through her that was too great to express and compounded of such grief and loss and disbelief that its very intensity was numbing. This wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. In a minute or two Ellie would take another breath and then another and another. Anything else was unthinkable. She sat willing it to happen, believing it, screaming it in her head because if she didn’t accept that Ellie was gone, then it wasn’t true.

Even though she knew it was.

Chapter Fourteen

Daisy and Howard arrived at the workhouse just as Ruby walked out through its gates. The weather had changed again and a few desultory snowflakes were beginning to drift from a low, leaden sky as she saw Daisy jump down from the horse and cart Howard was driving and come towards her. As Daisy reached her, she said softly, ‘Oh, no, lass, no. She’s not passed?’

Ruby nodded, she couldn’t speak. She felt her heart had been cut out, the feeling a hundred times worse than when she’d found out about Adam and Olive. She had remained sitting by Ellie until the nurse had come to check her again, and when the girl had said quietly, ‘I’m afraid it was too much for her,’ and had leaned across to pull the sheet over Ellie’s face, she had made the nurse jump when she’d said sharply, ‘No, don’t do that, she likes the light, she’s always liked the light. Her da used to shut her in a cupboard when she was little and she’s frightened if she can’t see anything.’

The nurse hadn’t said anything to that, but when ten minutes later she still hadn’t been able to persuade Ruby to let go of Ellie’s hand, she had fetched her superior, who in turn had sent for Matron Henderson. She hadn’t cried in front of them – the shock of Ellie’s passing had been too great for tears – but she had been adamant they weren’t taking Ellie down to the morgue. It would be Ellie’s worse nightmare to be shut in there.