It was now the beginning of August and Ruby had a week’s holiday, something that was a mixed blessing. When she was working and then in the evenings attending her classes or a suffrage meeting, it only left the void of Sunday to plan for. She would clean her room from top to bottom, do her week’s washing, complete any outstanding homework from her courses, write her weekly letter to Mrs Walton and generally keep herself busy. Now she had seven days to try and find tasks to keep her occupied, which was impossible. The year before, Ellie had been around and when they weren’t doing things together, she had made sure she spent hours reading at the library or sewing a new summer dress for each of them. But Ellie had gone.

Ruby woke up on the Monday morning and lay staring at the ceiling. Ellie had said she didn’t want to be like her, that life was passing her by, and she was probably right. It hadn’t felt like that when she had company, but now she felt all at odds with herself. She was only twenty, for goodness’ sake, and she was living like an elderly spinster. Just last week Matron Henderson had commended her for having an old head on young shoulders, saying she had the attitude and viewpoint of someone three times her age. It had been meant as a compliment but thinking about it now it didn’t feel like one. Just the opposite.

Oh, what was the matter with her? Irritated now, she jumped out of bed and padded over to the small fireplace where the coals she had banked down the night before with damp tea leaves and slack showed a faint glow. Even in the warmest weather she kept the fire going; it was her only means of making a cup of tea or toasting bread or having a supply of hot water.

Stirring the embers into flames she added more coal and then hung the kettle she’d filled from the tap in the yard the night before over the fire. She would feel better when she’d had a cup of tea, and in truth she had plenty to be thankful for. She was comfortable enough living here; she had money in the bank and a good job that paid very well, more than lots of men earned these days with the dole queues growing and more than two million unemployed. And it wasn’t even as if those families that could draw the dole were provided with an adequate means of survival; every week they were seeing more folk coming to the workhouse doors, either that or they starved in their own homes. She had to count her blessings and stop being silly.