Another customer stopped at the stall and Cissy made herself scarce, but the meeting with Major Bembridge had disturbed Rose and for the rest of the day she felt unsettled. Later that night as she lay in bed she found herself going over the incident, picturing his rugged face and deep-set grey eyes before she realized what she was doing and gave herself a mental talking-to. She would probably never see him again, nor did she want to, she told herself firmly. And even if he was interested in her – which could be purely her imagination – she didn’t have to worry about it. There had been lots of men over the last four years since she had been in Consett who had made it plain that given an ounce of encouragement they would like to take her out, but that encouragement had never been forthcoming, and the last person she’d consider as a suitor would be a member of the upper classes. She agreed with Cissy – that would be prone to disaster from day one and no good could come from it.

Nevertheless, she found it difficult to fall asleep in spite of her exhaustion, a restlessness gripping her that saw her down in the kitchen at two in the morning drinking hot cocoa as she gazed up at the criss-cross of paper chains dangling from the ceiling that she and Betsy had made that evening. She needed to get on with the next stage of her life, that was the problem. Once she found suitable premises and set up her business she’d have too much to do to waste time on idle thoughts, and she had no need to be anxious anyway. Nothing had changed, everything was just the same as it had been yesterday and the day before and the ones before that. It was, it was.

Chapter Seventeen

‘It’s Christmas Eve, Mam.’

‘Aye, I know, hinny.’ Rose smiled down at her daughter. She’d just gone into Betsy’s room to wake her up for breakfast, but as soon as she had opened the door the child had sat bolt upright in the bed, obviously having been awake for some time, her shiny chestnut curls tousled about her elfin face.

‘I can hang my stocking up tonight for Santa.’

‘You can indeed, but before that I’ve got a surprise for you so why don’t you come down for breakfast and I’ll tell you what it is.’

Betsy was out of bed like a shot, and pulling on her dressing gown she followed her mother downstairs. Once in the kitchen she quickly washed her hands in the scullery and then wriggled herself onto the bench at the kitchen table, her face expectant. As Rose deposited her bowl of porridge in front of her, she said, ‘What’s the surprise, Mam?’