She could see straight away that one of the slabs had been disturbed, and again she had to use all her strength to heave it aside. A small portion of the earth in the middle of where the slab fitted had been scooped away and she could see two little bags tucked deep in the hole. Trembling now, she lifted first one and then the other out. They were heavy and the contents jingled.

The dawn chorus was beginning, and she didn’t stop to look in the bags, stuffing them into the deep pockets of her apron. She replaced the slab and then manoeuvred the mangle inch by inch back into place. All the times she had fought with this beast on wash days and she had never known what was beneath it, she thought when it was finally back in position.

The faintest blush of pink was stealing across the morning sky as she hurried back to the house, feeling as though the Devil himself was after her – but then she’d met him the night before last, she told herself bitterly. Betsy was still sound asleep, curled into a ball like a little dormouse, and going downstairs again she made herself a pot of tea and then sat down at the kitchen table. She undid the cord on the neck of the first bag and tipped the contents out, staring at the coins it had contained. There were a number of sovereigns as well as a mixture of other coins, but nothing under a sixpence. The second bag held even more.

She drank a cup of tea as she was feeling shaky, and then counted up. Ninety pounds, fourteen shillings and sixpence. She sat back in the chair, her hand to her throat. He had stowed away all this money, a small fortune that would buy a three-roomed cottage in Sunderland, and yet he had baulked at paying her the three shillings a week they’d agreed. She had transformed his home, cooked four substantial meals a day for him and tasty ones at that, in spite of the cheap cuts of meat and motley vegetables he bought reduced on market days; she had washed and cleaned and kept everything spotless, and he had pretended he couldn’t afford to pay her wage.