Clarissa drew her into the back seat of the car, which was enough to take Ruby’s breath away. Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined herself sitting in the back of a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. Cars of any kind were still mainly the playthings of the upper and middle classes, although now there were more Baby Austins and Morris Minors in the town to rival the ‘Tin Lizzie’, the Ford Model T. The only people Ruby knew who owned a car were the senior doctor at the workhouse and Mr Henderson, the master, and they both had one of the Fords. She’d read in the newspaper that down south traffic jams in the city of London were becoming a problem with the roads clogged by taxis and the new motor buses, but as yet Newcastle had no such difficulties.

‘Now,’ Clarissa continued once Pearson had shut the door and taken his seat in the front of the car, ‘what made you come to hear Lavinia today?’

That was easy. As the car started, Ruby tried to relax again. ‘I have a week’s holiday from my place of employment and thought it was a good opportunity to hear Lady Russell speak.’ The car was moving now and Ruby found it much more disconcerting than riding in a tram or on the train.

‘Oh, you work?’ This was said not in a patronizing way but with keen interest.

Ruby nodded. Her head was aching, no doubt from the bump she’d received when she fell, and the car seemed very low down and unprotected compared to a tram. ‘I’m an assistant laundress at the workhouse,’ she said quietly. No good dressing it up.

‘And you live at home with your parents?’

‘Not exactly.’ Ruby stifled a sigh. She had a feeling that Clarissa Palmerston, as well bred and ladylike as she was, was a person who, as her mam would have put it, made it her business to know the ins and outs of old Maggie’s backside. Resigned now to her fate, she said flatly, ‘I came to Newcastle two years ago following a broken engagement. My family’s in Sunderland.’

‘I see.’ Clarissa didn’t see at all but she was determined she would by the end of the afternoon. This beautifully dressed girl with the lovely face intrigued her. There was lots about her that didn’t add up somehow. Her clothes were exquisite and clearly expensive for one thing; until she spoke one would imagine she came from the top end of society, but there again, although she had the northern burr in her voice it was soft and muted and her enunciation was perfect. But overall there was a sadness about her, not that she appeared dejected or downcast but more as though she had known heartache or grief. Of course, a broken engagement wasn’t a pleasant thing for anyone to go through.