Louisa took down her shawl and wrapped it around her shoulders, lifting the frayed edge to cover her head. ‘I should’ve brought me bonnet. I’ll get soaked. Summat to look forward to though. Hilda’s layin’ on rabbit pie for tea.’

‘That sounds lovely,’ said Harriet, hoping she didn’t sound too wistful. She wasn’t talking about the food. She imagined a cosy dwelling with a large fireplace around which the residents would gather, passing red-cheeked Betty between them to rock her to sleep. Harriet recalled the buttery scent of Alice as a baby. No, she shouldn’t begrudge the turn her life took when her parents died. She loved Alice as much as she adored her brother, despite his absence.

Louisa opened the door and stuck one arm outside and they both marvelled over the hard drops of rain that pattered off the palm of her hand. ‘I’ll be a drowned rat by the time I get ’ome. See thi tomorra.’

Harriet watched her hurry down the path and through the gate then closed the door and turned reluctantly into the darkening kitchen. Time to light the lamps. There was a yell and a clatter from upstairs. The deepening voice of Adam ordering the other two about. She ought to check on Alice. If she had been a second later into the parlour…

A cold shudder rippled across Harriet’s shoulders as she reached for the matchbox she kept on a high shelf.

Aunt Polly would say it meant someone was walking over her grave.

Chapter 3

John Gunson strode away from the squat cube of the valve house that nestled at the base of the dam, his cloak tugged and yanked by a witch of a wind that shrieked in his ears. The weather forecast had driven him from the relative shelter of the town to the upper reaches of the valley where the elements raged unimpeded. It would appear the Admiralty warning in this morning’s newspaper for strong gales had been correct.

Nevertheless, all was well.

As chief engineer of the Sheffield Waterworks Company, Gunson might have sent a subordinate to check on the reservoir, but he acknowledged to himself that it would gnaw at him if he remained snug and dry in his office and something was missed. It was his duty. He had driven his gig over the cobbles of the town, through the industrial districts of Philadelphia and Neepsend towards Owlerton, then headed west through the villages of Malin Bridge and Little Matlock to reach the hamlets of Damflask and Low Bradfield that sat at the foot of the Dale Dyke reservoir.

There were few people abroad. A combination of the foul weather and the fact it was late Friday afternoon and pay day would account for that. The public inns would be busy enough tonight.

He remembered standing in this valley some five years ago – in fact, it had been the very first day of 1859 – when the official ceremony was held to turn over the first sod of earth. The weather had proved challenging on that day too, soaking the fine garments of the great and the good who attended. The gorge they had congregated in was gone now, straddled by the dam, and the commissioning of the reservoir only weeks away. Once the valves were opened and water released to thunder through the pipes, the company would be meeting its commitment to the operators of the corn, paper, snuff and steel mills, grinding works and forges that jostled for space on the banks of the Loxley River. A guaranteed supply of power driven solely by the pressure of seven hundred million gallons of water from the reservoir above.