He’d felt duty bound to protest and defend Nat at the time, but secretly, after he’d thought about it, he had accepted that there might be more than a grain of truth in what Rose said. He didn’t understand why she was so down on Nat though, especially because his friend went out of his way to get on with Rose. Nat always brought a little something for her when he called at the house. When they were in season, there wasn’t a week that went by that Nat didn’t present her with a single rose wrapped in fancy paper. ‘A rose for a Rose,’ Nat would say, smiling, but although she always thanked him David could detect an edge to his wife’s voice.

He shook his head mentally and sighed at what he saw as the contrariness of the fairer sex. He would never understand the way women’s minds worked if he lived to be a hundred. Look at his own mam, for one. Just because Rose had been brought up in the workhouse and her mother hadn’t been married, his mam had been dead set against him marrying what she’d termed ‘workhouse scum’. His face darkened. He’d never forgive her for that. His mam had turned his da and sister against Rose too. Real nasty, his mam had been and in the end she had forced him to choose between Rose and his family. And who the hell was his mam to turn up her nose at anyone? His sister had been born six months to the day after his mam and da had got wed, he’d found that out when his mam and one of the neighbours were having a barney.

Lost in thought, he barely noticed what he was eating and when Nathaniel leaned forward and said, ‘Penny for ’em?’ David realized some minutes had gone by.

‘They’re not worth a penny, man. Just thinking about me mam and our Phyllis. The pair of them were shopping in the market the other day and looked straight through Rose apparently. Like she didn’t exist. Rose had the bairn with her an’ all. You’d think me mam would want to see her own grandchild, wouldn’t you, especially with Phyllis and Jack not having any and them having been married for six years now.’