‘No, I’ve told you, she took me. I tried to throw her off but it was too late, and afterwards . . . I hoped it wasn’t true, that I’d dreamed it or something, but she came to the colliery gates as bold as brass a couple of days later. She said I’d wanted it as much as her, that I’d been giving her the eye all evening, that I’d . . . Oh, all sorts of rubbish. She told me she was going to tell you if I didn’t.’ His jaw clenched. ‘And I said I’d kill her if she breathed a word. I meant it an’ all. And she knew I did because she didn’t come back, not then, not till yesterday. She was waiting for me and she told me. I could have strangled her with my bare hands.’ His face worked and his breath caught in a sob.

The sky above them was running rivers of gold. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets she had ever witnessed, and with the birds mostly having settled for the night and just the occasional faint noise from the industry lining the River Wear in the distance, Snowdrop Lane was magical. It added to the unrealness of what was happening.

Numbly, Ruby whispered, ‘What did Olive tell you?’

‘There’s going to be a bairn.’ He scrubbed at his wet eyes with the back of his hand. ‘I didn’t believe her, not last night when she told me. No one falls for a bairn the first time. I met her at Dr Upton’s this morning because I said I wanted to hear it from him and he said it’s true right enough. An’ she’s told Father McHaffie an’ all. Apparently she went straight there to the church yesterday when she left Dr Upton. According to her, Father McHaffie’s going round me mam’s tonight to tell them I’ve got to marry her for the sake of the bairn.’

Feeling was surging in, hot and fierce, cutting through the initial shock. She wanted to hit him, to pound her fists into his chest; but instead she said, ‘Why didn’t you stop her when you realized it wasn’t me? You could have done something, you must have known.’

‘It was too late by then. She’d got me fired up and – and I hardly knew what I was doing.’

‘You knew enough to give her a bairn.’

‘Ruby—’

‘No, don’t say you couldn’t stop because you could have if you’d really wanted to.’