‘I promise. I’m sorry.’

‘Then you are forgiven.’

She bent to kiss Alice’s damp cheek and went to find Louisa.

Louisa Leigh was paid by Walter to do the heavy cleaning work around the house. She didn’t live in, although Walter was her sole employer. The windowless room she had been offered off the kitchen was too small and cold, ‘as snug as a bleedin’ coffin,’ was how Louisa had described it. Walter had employed a carpenter to erect shelves on the back wall and it now served as a pantry. Louisa arrived at six in the morning and worked until four in the afternoon, seven days a week with Sunday afternoons off. Her last task was to help prepare the evening meal and, if time allowed, she would share a pot of tea with Harriet before undertaking the long walk home to Malin Bridge. Harriet cherished this precious time with Louisa. The two young women had bonded over their similarity in age and from this tenuous connection a true friendship had grown, entirely separate from their roles as mistress and maid. At least, that’s what Harriet hoped.

She found Louisa sitting at the kitchen table examining her hands, which were covered in red, peeling skin.

‘No better, then?’

‘Nah,’ Louisa sighed. ‘That cream tha recommended. No use. Cost a bleedin’ fortune, an’ all.’

‘I’m gasping.’

‘Here.’ Louisa poured tea into a china cup and passed it to Harriet. ‘Does her ladyship want a cup?’

‘I’ll make a fresh pot for her. Can you take the unguent back? Or I can recompense you for it. It was my idea after all.’

‘No, I can give it to Hilda for the baby. Betty’s got awful sore bum cheeks from teething.’

Harriet laughed. ‘A poorly bottom? Where is she growing her teeth?’

‘It’s givin’ her terrible runs, poor lamb.’

‘And how is Hilda?’

‘Copin’. War’ else can she do?’ Louisa sipped her tea and gave Harriet a sly look. ‘I’ve got a bit o’ gossip about that situation.’

‘Do tell!’

‘Her ’usband’s been spotted wi’ the landlady from the Grindstone Tavern on his arm, no less.’ Louisa nodded sagely, then frowned. ‘I can’t think o’ her name now…’

‘I don’t know it. Doesn’t matter. Go on.’

‘Seen on the road to Chesterfield! Where they’ll be settin’ up house together, while poor old Hilda Armitage is left to run a boarding house wi’ a babe in arms. Feckless man. I wouldn’t ‘ave him back if it were me.’

‘Oh, my goodness. Will they divorce, do you think, now he’s…?’

‘Well, Hilda can’t get shot o’ him, can she? Unless she, y’know, does the same as he’s done, and then he can divorce her for adultery. Or if he stays away, she can do ’im for abandonment.’

‘Oh my! Poor Hilda.’

‘Better off wi’out him, she’s sayin’. Led by their… anyway, all men are the same, she reckons.’

‘Well, that can’t be true. She’s upset by this latest development.’

‘Puttin’ it mildly. She were ’oping he’d been squashed under the wheel of a wagon.’ Louisa lifted the teapot and Harriet held out her cup for more. ‘Think there’ll be any husband material at your uncle’s little supper club tonight? Are tha invited to this get-together?’