‘I can quite understand you thinking like that but all I’m saying is give it a few days until you are feeling a little better. Now is not the time to make such decisions.’

Ruby inclined her head. ‘You are probably right but I can’t stay. I have to go now. I – I don’t want to see anyone I know.’

‘You don’t have to. I will make sure of that.’

She wouldn’t be able to. Ruby looked at the old lady whom she thought of as more of a grandmother than an employer. She had never known her own grandparents – both her mother’s parents and her father’s had died before she was born – but they couldn’t have been nicer than Mrs Walton. And she knew Mrs Walton was talking sense and that she meant well, but she had to leave the town now, today, before Adam tried to see her or her parents came round, especially her da. She might weaken if she saw her da and she couldn’t afford to do that because she knew she would go mad if she remained in Sunderland. Adam would marry Olive; the combined weight of both sets of parents and not least Father McHaffie would see to that. Olive’s stomach would swell and some time in the early autumn Adam’s child would be born, and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t play the auntie when that happened.

‘I’m sorry, Mrs Walton, but my mind’s made up.’

Vera sighed and made one last effort. ‘Ruby, you know how much I think of you, don’t you? Having your company here for the last four years has made them the happiest of my life since my poor Maurice died.’ She had told Ruby more than once how her husband had perished in the last few weeks of the Boer War, one of over a thousand British casualties lying dead in the hills at Spion Kop, seven miles from the garrison town of Ladysmith. She had mourned him ever since and still wore black from head to foot. ‘I wasn’t going to mention this until it became necessary but I made a new will a little while ago and you are my sole beneficiary, dear. This house is bought and paid for and the business provides a steady income. Moreover, you enjoy the work, don’t you, and you have a gift for it, remarkable in one so young. Your life would be very comfortable and it would certainly mean a great deal to me if you stayed. We get on well, don’t we?’