‘But why not? You’re on the early shift, aren’t you?’ Adam was a miner at the Wearmouth Colliery like his father and older brothers, and since they’d become engaged on Ruby’s sixteenth birthday she had been collecting her bottom drawer. Adam had saved hard too after paying his board to his mam. They had both been determined to rent a two-up two-down terraced house when they got wed and to have enough money to partly furnish it too. A few weeks ago a house had come up in Wood Street, a stone’s throw from the colliery, and Adam had snapped it up. They’d had a lovely time buying furniture, even if it was all second-hand, but she didn’t mind that, nor it being a bit of a walk to her place of work in Southwick. She knew she’d landed on her feet when she’d taken up the position of trainee dressmaker with Mrs Walton. The elderly widow had no family and treated her more as the daughter she’d never had than an employee. Mrs Walton had helped her sew her wedding dress along with the two bridesmaid’s frocks for Olive and Ellie, Ruby’s best friend, and she’d insisted on paying for the material and the hundreds of tiny seed pearls on the bodice of Ruby’s dress. It was her wedding present, she’d said, in a tone that brooked no argument.

Adam had been staring at her and now he said quietly, ‘It’s nothing to do with what shift I’m on. I – I had to talk to you without anyone else around.’ He took a deep breath, his voice cracking as he muttered, ‘Oh, Ruby, Ruby. I can’t believe it’s happening.’

‘You’re frightening me.’ She took a step backwards.

‘Promise me you won’t hate me. Say it, say you won’t.’

Ruby had always loved Snowdrop Lane. It was a favourite spot for courting couples, especially in the summer. She and Adam had often met here in the past when wild flowers dotted the grassy banks either side of the path and dappled sunlight slanted through the trees. Although only a short distance from the gridwork pattern of terraced streets stretching to the north and east of Wearmouth Colliery in Monkwearmouth where a pall of smoke hung day and night, the air smelled different in Snowdrop Lane. You could almost imagine you were in the country. But tonight their special meeting place wasn’t working its magic.

Again she said, ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

‘It – it’s down to New Year’s Eve.’

‘New Year’s Eve?’ Ruby echoed in bewilderment. That was weeks ago.

‘You know, when you and the others came to ours to see the New Year in.’