Eventually the sounds ceased, the front door was quietly opened and closed, and the silence told her the woman was gone.

Emotionally drained and physically exhausted, Bridget fell into a fitful sleep.

Daylight was creeping into the bedroom when she awoke. It wasn’t dreams or noises that woke her this time, it was the pain of contractions.

When they eased, she carefully made her way downstairs. ‘Tom! Tom, the baby’s started.’ Throwing open the parlour door, she leaned against the wall, waves of pain gripping her and growing stronger.

Tom was in a drunken stupor and, try as she might, she could not rouse him. ‘Dear God, what am I to do?’ Nelly came to mind. ‘I’ll have to wake her… got to help me.’

Nelly answered the frantic knocking on her door with her hair in tin curlers and a look of sheer panic on her face. ‘What the devil’s up?’ she demanded. ‘Banging on my door at four o’clock of a morning. I thought it were the police. By heck! You frightened the life outta me.’

Bridget bent double as another tide of contractions engulfed her.

‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ Nelly cried. ‘The poor little bugger’s started afore her time.’

Chapter Five

Bridget had been with Nelly for two days.

Lying in bed, racked with pain yet with no signs of the baby arriving, she was losing energy, and losing hope. ‘I’m dying, aren’t I, Nelly?’ And the truth was, she didn’t care.

‘No, lass, course you’re not dying.’ Nelly did her best to reassure her, but in her heart she was worried out of her mind. ‘Us women are all made different, you see.’ She managed a smile. ‘There are them as can drop a dozen bairns one after the other, just like they were shelling peas, and there are them, like yerself, who make a hard job of it. You’re such a tiny little thing, that’s the problem. The babby don’t have much room to turn and push.’ Picking up a damp rag, Nelly wiped the sweat from Bridget’s face. ‘But I am worried about you, and that’s a fact,’ she admitted.

A spasm of pain gripped Bridget. She didn’t cry out. Instead she lay, white as a sheet, her eyes tightly closed and her fists clutching Nelly with such force that her fingernails left their mark on Nelly’s skin. Bridget knew she could not stand much more of the pain. It came and went, and nothing happened. The child stayed fast, and she grew weaker. She felt that the child, too, was beginning to give up. ‘Please, Nelly,’ she gasped, ‘I need help.’

‘All right, lass.’ Nelly held her until the pain eased. ‘There is somebody I could ask to come and have a look at you. She lives on Armitage Street and goes by the name of Molly Dewhirst. I’ve never liked the old bugger, and I never shall, but I’ll tell you this, Bridget, lass, she knows her stuff. She’s brought many a young’un into the world, and there’s many a grateful mammy still walking the earth because of her.’ And some who weren’t, Nelly knew, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. ‘I’ll scour the streets for a runner, then I’ll be right back. If the pain comes on you again, take long, deep breaths, and for pity’s sake, try not to tighten up.’