‘Even if it’s only to bring those ghastly bootees you’re trying to knit, Mave,’ Isobel drawled. ‘Poor child!’ she added, but now there was no malicious bite to Isobel’s teasing.

Mavis laughed good-humouredly. ‘You’re right there, Iso. I’ll never win prizes for knitting and that’s a fact!’

They walked with her to the gate and helped her into the back of the lorry which was taking her into Lincoln. Kate waved as the lorry drew away, but then her glance went beyond them, taking a last look at the station that had been her home for over eighteen months. So much had happened here and she had made so many friends, she mused, as she watched the two waving figures grow smaller and smaller. She had fallen in love with Philip and known a very different kind of love that had obliterated the unhappy childhood romance, so cruelly shattered.

Danny . . . Her mind shied away from thinking about him. But she couldn’t – not for ever. Where was he, her beloved brother? Was he alive? He must be. Surely she’d know – she would feel it – if he wasn’t? What was it he had said all those years ago? ‘What would I do if you were no longer in the same world as me?’

She thought of Rosie waiting in the tiny cottage at Fleethaven Point with the son Danny had never seen.

Kate ran her hand over her stomach.

Oh Danny, her heart cried silently. I wish you were here for me to tell you about this.

How am I going to get through it without you?

Kate was surprised how quickly she settled in the terraced house with Mrs Godfrey and Peggy. For appearances she wore a ring on the third finger of her left hand and when giving her name she just said Kate Hilton and left it to others to add the ‘Mrs’ themselves.

Soon several ladies were coming to Mrs Godfrey’s front parlour with their sewing or dressmaking demands. All were Mrs Godfrey’s former clients and word soon spread that there was a very clever little dressmaker back in business at number eight. Kate enjoyed the work, even though as the months passed she found it increasingly difficult to bend over her bulge to operate the sewing machine.

‘You’ve done Mother a power of good,’ Peggy told her.

‘Have I? How?’ Kate asked, surprised.

‘Now she can’t get about, while I was at work she used to get so lonely before you came. Oh, she’d have a few visitors, but not like now when your clients pop through for a bit of a chat about the old days. She’s loving every minute of it.’

Kate pulled a face. ‘She might not when there’s a squalling infant keeping her awake half the night.’