There had been a great change in Ellie over the last couple of years, one that left Ruby at a loss at times. Within a few months of them being settled in Newcastle, Ellie had taken to going out at night and at weekends with Bridget and some other girls. Ruby had accompanied them once or twice at first, but it hadn’t taken her long to realize she found the incessant chatter about lads irritating at best and a little shocking at worst if Bridget’s friends really did get up to all they said they did. Ellie, on the other hand, seemed to admire and envy them. She had her hair cut in a bob and became obsessed with the latest fashions, regularly returning late at night smelling of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Ruby knew Bridget’s pals frequented some of the less salubrious dockside pubs and gin houses where they let men buy them drinks for – as one of them had put it – a bit of slap and tickle, but Ellie always insisted she didn’t get up to anything untoward when Ruby questioned her and had become increasingly hostile to any probing.

Ruby had reluctantly accepted that to keep the peace she had to let Ellie follow her own devices but she worried about her friend constantly, and could never fall asleep at night until she knew Ellie was safely home. Things had got worse in the last little while since Ellie had got herself an admirer, a young man called Daniel Bell. Initially when her friend had begun to mention one lad in particular, Ruby had been pleased. She’d hoped that having a steady beau would calm Ellie down. In a way she could understand the desire to make hay while the sun shone after the awful life Ellie had had at home, but it was that very thing that made her friend susceptible to a glib tongue. At the bottom of her, Ellie wanted to be loved and cared for, that was all. And now she was saying that she was going to up and move into the house that Daniel and one of his pals lived in.

Ruby tried again. ‘Ellie, take some time and think this through. Please, for me. We’re friends, aren’t we? We’ve always been there for each other.’

‘I don’t need to think it through.’

‘But to move in with him before you’re married—’

‘Howard’s lass lives with him.’ This was the other man Daniel shared the house with.

‘That doesn’t make it right for you.’

‘You’re so old-fashioned, Ruby. No wonder you’re Matron Henderson’s pet. Smoking, drinking, wearing make-up and dancing – she’s against all that, isn’t she, and forever going on about loose behaviour and suchlike.’