‘That’s just what I was thinking,’ agreed Molly. She did not stop work, but began softly humming the pretty song again. However, when Nelly came to sit beside the table saying, ‘Your Sal is a bright and quick little gal,’ Molly was at once attentive. Putting her cloth on the table and straightening her back with a little groan, she looked directly at Nelly, a lovely smile on her face and a mother’s pride in her voice. ‘Oh, she is! She is!… Right from when she were so high.’ Molly stretched out her hand to indicate a figure not much taller than Tom was now. ‘She wanted to know everything. Whenever she found something to puzzle about, she’d ask “Why, Mammy”… “Why”… all the time “Why?”’ Molly laughed softly at her own private memories. ‘Drove me nearly crazy with her questions.’ Suddenly, she was regarding the older woman with a more serious expression. ‘You’ve done wonders for little Sal,’ she murmured, ‘we’ll never be able to thank you properly. If it weren’t for you… little Sal would not have had any learning. Certainly not from me, because I’m a very poor scholar myself… though, thanks to my Jack, I can read a little.’

‘Molly, please come and sit aside o’ me for a minute… let the polishing wait. There ain’t nothing important about putting a shine on a table. Come and set yersel’ here.’ Nelly pulled out the chair next to her. ‘I want us to talk a while.’

Whenever anyone told Molly they wanted to ‘talk’, she always assumed the worst. ‘There’s lots more to be done yet,’ she argued, remaining where she was, ‘and it’s almost midday… I’ve to be back home within the hour. Can’t it wait, whatever it is?’ Her heart sank when Nelly slowly shook her head. Reluctantly she walked round the table to the other side and seated herself on the standchair, her slim back as stiff as a rod and her dark eyes anxious as she asked, ‘What is it you want to talk about, Miss Nelly?’

‘Aw, fer goodness’ sake, gal!’ Nelly threw her hands into the air in an expression of frustration. ‘Ain’t I asked yer afore… time and again… don’t call me Miss Nelly! Yer mek me sound like a bleedin’ gentry!’ She poked Molly’s arm with a stiff, angry finger. ‘How would you like it if I kept calling you Miss Molly, eh?’ When she saw Molly’s face break into a smile, she slapped her chubby hand to her knee and roared with laughter. ‘There y’are then… it sounds bloody daft, don’t it, eh? Miss Nelly this, and Miss Nelly that!’ Here she gave a cheeky wink, saying in a furtive whisper, ‘Mind you, gal… I don’t complain when the servants call me by that title, ’cause my good friend Emma… well, she’s telled the buggers, “You must address my companion as Miss Nelly!” Oho, what a to-do there was, when Emma heard the housekeeper telling the scullery maid how “that Nelly woman is no better than we are”… well! My Emma were up in arms. Told ’em she did… not to refer to me in such an undignified way again.’ Nelly chuckled. ‘I would ’a loved ter see the face on that cook when Emma telled her off… miserable, po-faced bleeder she is – I never have liked her.’