The woman stood looking down at her, her brown eyes full of concern and something else Kate could not quite understand. There was more than just sympathy for her bedraggled state; there was a sadness in Beth Eland’s eyes. ‘Katie, ya’ll have to forget our Danny now and make new friends at school. Ya going to a new school soon, aren’t ya?’

The child’s green eyes flashed with renewed vigour. Her mouth was set in a line of rebellion. ‘I dun’t want to go. I won’t go!’

Mrs Eland sighed heavily. ‘If it’s what yar mam wants . . .’

Kate gazed up appealingly at the older woman. ‘Couldn’t you speak to me mam? Mebbe she’d listen to you . . .’

‘No!’ Beth Eland’s sudden sharpness startled Kate and the mug she held wobbled, splashing hot milk on to her bare leg. The woman’s eyes softened, but there was still a deep-rooted pain in their depths. ‘Yar mam and me dun’t talk to each other, child. Ya know we don’t. Not since – not for a long time.’

She turned her back on Kate and went back to the sink, plunging her hands deep into the water and wringing out Kate’s dress and pinafore, twisting the fabric in her grasp with a pent-up anger.

‘But . . .’ Kate began and then fell silent. Mrs Eland’s back was rigid; it was obvious that further pleas would be fruitless. ‘Where on earth have you been?’

Kate faced her mother’s anger squarely. Inwardly she was trembling but she clenched her jaw stubbornly, her bottom lip pouting.

The tirade continued. ‘We’ve been worried sick. Your father’s been up and down that lane three times searching for you, right as far as the school. He even knocked on the school-house door to ask the headmistress . . .’

Kate’s insides quivered afresh. That would mean more trouble at school in the morning. She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘I got me clothes soaked and I – I . . .’ She hesitated but there was no point in lying. Her mother was sure to find out the truth. Mrs Eland wouldn’t tell her, but Grannie Harris very well might.

When Danny’s mother had rinsed her clothes and hung them outside in the wind to dry she had come back into the cottage and stood before Kate once more. Her eyes were gentle and concerned again; the sudden, unusual hostility of a few moments before gone as swiftly as it had come.

‘You ought to be going home, Katie. Yar mam will be worried.’

Kate had looked away, staring into the flames. ‘I dun’t reckon she’ll miss me, not now she’s got the babby.’