Ruby was saved from entering the house by Ellie appearing behind her mother in the next instant. She took one look at Ruby’s face before saying, ‘What’s the matter? What’s happened?’

Unable to reply at that moment for the swell of emotion in her throat, Ruby shook her head, at which point Ellie said, ‘Wait there, I’ll get me coat.’

Two minutes later they were walking away from the street at the back of Palmer’s Hill Engine Works, and once round the corner, Ellie stopped, saying again, ‘What’s the matter? You look bad.’

Ruby faced her friend as she said simply, ‘I’m not getting married, Ellie.’

Ellie blinked in surprise. ‘Has there been a fall at the pit? Has Adam been hurt?’

She wished it was as simple as that. Forgive me, God, she thought, but I could have coped with that, however devastating, and been there for him. She shook her head. ‘No, there’s been no accident or anything, not in that way at least.’ For a moment the irony brought the urge to laugh to the surface but she knew if she started she would never stop, like poor Mrs Longhurst two doors down who had lost her mind after her only son had been killed on his way home from the pit when the milkman’s horse had bolted and the cart had crushed him against a wall. Mrs Longhurst had been calm at first, her mam had told her, and then she’d said, ‘I prayed each day the pit wouldn’t have him and it didn’t, did it, but I never thought about a horse,’ and she had started laughing, terrible laughter that had gone on for days until she had been taken away to the asylum.

‘Ellie –’ She paused. How could she word it? And then, swallowing hard, she shook her head almost in disbelief at what she was going to say. ‘Adam’s taken Olive down and she’s expecting a bairn.’

Ellie gasped, her thin face with its great sad eyes stretching as her mouth fell open and her eyes popped wide. ‘No, no, not Adam. She’s lying, Olive’s lying.’

‘He told me himself. It was like this . . .’ She told the story with painful flatness, willing herself not to break down.

Ellie continued staring at her for a moment after she finished speaking, before saying in a low, aggressive tone, ‘Her, your Olive, she wants stringing up. It’s not your fault that you’re so pretty and she’s got a face like a hen’s plucked backside.’