I was at work? An’ I do have to work, yer know. There’s no one to keep me.’
‘Well, there’s an easy way round that, woman. I could have her in the day for yer. Or there’s another option: that loom upstairs is standing idle. Yer could always work from home again if yer decided that yer did want to keep her.’
Molly pondered on her words. The only other alternative for the poor little mite that she could think of was the workhouse, and the very thought of leaving her there made her shudder.
‘In the meantime yer should think of giving her a name. We’ve got to call her somethin’, haven’t we?’ Bessie went on.
Again Molly thought of her own three stillborn daughters and the names she had once so lovingly chosen for them.
‘We’ll call her Amy Elizabeth Hannah,’ she said softly.
Bessie grinned. ‘By, that sounds posh,’ she giggled. ‘All o’ my brood have but one name each.’
‘But where would we tell everyone she came from?’ mused Molly as her thoughts raced on ahead, and again both women lapsed into silence.
‘I know,’ said Bessie eventually. ‘We could say she was yer daughter’s child. That she lived away an’ died giving birth. That she were a young widow, and you’ve taken your granddaughter in.’
Molly thought about it. ‘I suppose that does sound believable,’ she admitted, ‘’cos by the time Wilf an’ I got this cottage we were of an age that we could have had a daughter that had moved away to live. But that’s only to be considered if we can’t find her mother.’
Bessie nodded. ‘Of course,’ she agreed. ‘I’d help yer all I could and it would be our secret, just yours and mine. No one else need ever know any different.’
Molly balked at the thought of the lies she would have to tell. But then the other option, the workhouse, was just too terrible to even contemplate. It was a dark forbidding place that the people of the town avoided whenever possible, and it was a well-known fact that many of the infants who were placed in there never came out again.
This had turned out to be a strange Christmas Eve and no mistake, both women thought as they sipped at their tea and sat admiring Amy Elizabeth Hannah who was sleeping peacefully in her makeshift crib.
Chapter Two
1835
As Bessie entered Molly’s bright little cottage on a blistering hot day in 1835, she was as usual struck by the difference between her neighbour’s home and her own. Molly’s place was as spick and span as a new pin. Everything seemed to gleam – the copper pans suspended above the fireplace, the plates on the wooden dresser; even the stone floor with the brightly coloured peg rugs scattered here and there looked spotless.
Bessie sighed as she thought of her own cottage. She had yet another baby to care for now and her tiny home was bursting at the seams. Jeannie, her new baby, made her brood up to five children. There was Toby, the eldest at thirteen, followed by Mary, Beatrice, Henry and now little Jeannie, and there would have been seven of them, had she not lost two children the previous year to measles. Her husband, Jim, was a good man, a hard worker who tipped his wages up as regularly as clockwork every Friday. But even so, it was a continuous battle just to keep the wolf from the door. Even with Toby’s wages it was still hard to cope with the demands of her ever-growing family.
Toby had recently joined his father at the Griff Hollows pit. Her firstborn was the apple of Bessie’s eye and she had adored him since the moment he drew breath. She always laughingly told anyone who would listen that she had named him after the Toby jugs that were so popular at the time, because of his scrunched-up little face when he was born. He was a good lad, and although she was grateful for the extra money he earned, it hurt her to see him doing such a menial job, for her Toby was bright, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Every day before beginning his shift at the pit he would study, and he never tired of telling his mother that one day he intended to be a teacher. Bessie did not doubt him: she felt her son was destined for better things and encouraged him in his ambition as much as she possibly could.
Bessie guessed that this was what had