Harry could have argued. He could have insisted that he had heard her and Alice rowing, but what good would it do? His mother was obviously not prepared to admit it. Maybe he was questioning the wrong person. ‘You could be right,’ he said, hoping that would settle her. ‘I’ll get back to my work. Is there anything you want before I go?’

‘A drink maybe.’

Going to the dresser, he took up the jug and poured a small measure of water into her glass. He lifted her head gently and waited until she had drunk. ‘Sleep now,’ he said, and she closed her eyes.

Softly, he went out of the room. Alice had things to answer for, he thought angrily.

But when he went into the parlour, she was gone. Going to the window, he stared out, to see her and her man arm in arm beneath the gaslight. ‘I envy you,’ he murmured. ‘At least you have a choice. As for me, I’ve lost all chance of ever making Bridget mine. But there is no one else to blame. I did what I did, and now I’m paying for it.’

He returned to his bench. For what seemed an age, he sat there reviewing these past turbulent years. A smile crept over his features. ‘All in all,’ he whispered, ‘I did a wrong thing, but I’d do it again, for I love her with all my heart.’ He thought of Bridget, with her long hair and brown, honest eyes, and his heart swelled. ‘You’ll never know how I long to hold you again,’ he murmured. But his moment of loving was gone, and deep down he suspected there would never be another. He recalled how Bridget had looked at him after Tom’s funeral. The coldness in her eyes had shocked him to his roots.

It was painfully obvious that Bridget deeply regretted the night they had lain in each other’s arms. But for him it was a night he would carry in his heart to his dying day.

Laying a measure of thick, woollen cloth over the bench, he bent his head to his work, deliberately pushing away the memory of that wonderful, terrible night.

Chapter Eight

‘Well, gal, what have you got to say for yerself? Is it getting serious between you and Bob Morris, or what?’ Lounging on the grass by the canal, Fanny squinted into the sun as she tried to focus on Bridget. ‘No lies, mind,’ she warned. ‘I’ll know if you’re not being honest with me.’

Quietly contemplating her answer, Bridget watched the two children playing on the grass. ‘I can’t believe how much Billy has grown,’ she commented evasively. ‘He’s a proper little gentleman.’

‘Makes me proud, he does,’ Fanny declared, a mother’s light shining in her eyes.

‘He’s like you.’

‘So they say.’

The boy was taller than Ruth, with long, lean limbs and a thick, wild shock of dark hair. He had a hearty laugh like his mother, and a way of teasing Ruth that made her giggle.