‘He doesn’t like you, not in any way. He loathes you, you sicken him. He wants me to go down south with him and get married there, and he said you could go into the workhouse for all he cares.’ Ruby’s words were dipped in the poison of her hate but nevertheless carried the unmistakable ring of truth. She saw Olive blanch and felt a moment of bitter satisfaction. ‘But don’t worry, I wouldn’t let him touch me now if he was the last man on earth, not when he’s been contaminated by you. You can have him but just remember he’ll never forgive you for this any more than I will.’

‘Ruby, lass, don’t say such things.’ Cissy tried to take her daughter’s arm but as Ruby jerked herself free, she added, ‘Olive is your sister, your own flesh and blood, and with the lads gone—’

‘You’re right, Mam. She’s my sister but she’s never liked me and you know that as well as I do. Nothing I’ve done has been right as far as she’s concerned, not from when we were bairns. She’s spiteful and cruel—’

‘Lass, I know you’re hurting and the good Lord Himself wouldn’t blame you for feeling the way you do, but Adam’s more to blame than Olive, you must see that? To give a lass a bairn . . . Well, it speaks for itself. And Olive hadn’t been with another lad – it was her first time.’ Cissy was desperate to pour oil on troubled waters. ‘She didn’t know what she was doing, that’s the truth of it, and Adam was drunk and took advantage.’

‘You’re saying he raped her?’ Ruby could hardly believe her ears, or that her mother was so gullible. ‘Is that what she told you? Well, let me tell you, Mam, that there was a raping all right, but not on Adam’s side.’

‘Ruby!’

The shock in Cissy’s voice conveyed itself to Ruby, and she said tightly, ‘Don’t look at me like that, Mam. It’s the truth.’

‘No, lass, no. I don’t believe that.’ The reproach in Cissy’s face cut Ruby to the quick. Somehow she was the one who had been put in the wrong. And when Cissy further compounded her blundering by saying, ‘This is a terrible thing to have happened and my heart goes out to you, hinny, you must know that, but Olive is as much a victim as you are in all this,’ she knew she had to get out of the house before she said something unforgivable to her mother. Her life was in ruins; it was supposed to be her wedding day tomorrow and instead Olive had taken Adam away from her, apparently with their mother’s blessing.