All three children were born in the very room where Harry’s mother now spent most of her waking days. All her births had been bad, each taking its own particular toll on her health. The last one had weakened her heart, until now she barely had the strength to lift herself up. Maud had never been a strong woman, but she was brave. It was not in her nature to bemoan her lot in life. She dearly loved both her daughters – Fay, with her bright smile and homely ways, and Alice, with her lofty ideas and delusions of grandeur. But Harry would always be her favourite. He was reliable and loving, with a deep, quiet nature and a well of goodness in his soul.

Maud knew Harry’s every mood. As a rule, there was nothing he could hide from her. Lately, though, she sensed there was something preying on his mind and, try as she might, she could not persuade him to confide in her.

Her eyes strayed to the window. ‘Where are you, lad?’ she muttered. Maud had always called him ‘lad’, and as the years rolled on, taking with them the best part of her senses, she found pleasure in hanging on to the old habits. It helped her feel that life was not altogether passing her by.

Outside, Harry stood, a lone, sad figure, his right hand in his pocket, holding the bottle of medicine he had been sent to collect. He looked up at the old house and wondered if he would ever be free of his responsibilities. ‘Oh, Bridget,’ he sighed. ‘If only it could have been different.’ But it wasn’t, and unless he was to lose everything he knew and clung to, it never would be. His mother was old and feeble, and with his father working so hard it was up to Harry to look after her. Being the peevish, bone-lazy person she was, Alice increasingly shifted more and more of the work and responsibility on to his shoulders.

As for his younger sister Fay, she had made a new life as a teacher at the Blackburn orphanage; bright and generous, she would have gladly given up her work to take care of her mother, but Harry would have none of it. ‘You’re too young and talented to waste your life,’ he insisted. In the end, secure in the knowledge that all was well and that she had Harry’s blessing, she went her own way, coming home to visit whenever she could snatch time away from the orphanage.

For a long time, Harry stood in the darkened street, oblivious of the rain running down his neck and soaking through to his shirt. ‘We shouldn’t have done it, Bridget,’ he muttered. ‘But I’d do it again. If only it was possible, I’d take you away and love you and care for you…’ From somewhere deep inside a sigh of regret rose to stifle him. ‘But we both know you’re not mine, and never can be. And I don’t blame you for avoiding me at the big house. I know how it is, and I’m sorry. Once we were good friends, but even that’s gone now. My fault. Not yours.’