She did not answer straight away but picked up a large silken envelope, embroidered to look like a letter. The penny stamp in the top corner must have taken some careful stitching. Perhaps the item was intended for some sale of work because across the centre, where the address would be, she had embroidered “The Lady of the House”.

I thought about how many hours she must spend in this room alone.

She took a sheet of paper from her silken envelope. “There is more than one thing for you to look at, Kate, but see this first.”

It was a handwritten list of children’s names. Beside each name there was an age, a date and a name and address. “You see, there is a record of where the children from the home went, and they are all in good hands.”

I looked at the list. “It must have taken you a long time to find places for them.”

“Oh we had some help. Some childless couples are willing to take an infant. It’s harder to find apprenticeships, but a few of the boys and girls of working age have been placed. We paid a teacher to come in after school hours to train the boys as shoe repairers and the girls to cook and sew. They have that under their belts now.”

“Eight children have gone to the same address, 112 York Street?”

“Yes, that’s Stoneville. They’ll do well there. The Bluebell Home may once have been a desirable residence, but it was no longer. From the outside, it looked like a castle but there were three rooms and a kitchen downstairs and three up. The children are much better off in an urban setting. That’s where the opportunities are.”

She had said there was something else. I waited. Perhaps she thought better of it and did not want to show me the “something else”. She refilled our sherry glasses. “We have had a lot to put up with, Kate. It is not easy having a large workforce and their families reliant on one. We have the mill, two old pits that need so much maintenance. We cannot be everything to everyone.”

“I’m sure not.”

“And yet since the strike, something has grown up in this area that makes me afraid. I am going to show you letters that were sent to Benjie. Vile letters.”

“Will he want you to show them to me?”

“Whether he does or no, you’re going to see them. He doesn’t want me to go to the police but something must be done.” She thrust the embroidered envelope at me. “They are in there. You look. I can’t bear to, not again.”