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let a man do that to me,’ she said.
    A ghost of a smile played at Meg’s lips. ‘Just mind you remember that when you find a sweetheart!’ she said tartly. ‘But she’s a married woman! And she’s had learning too – what was she thinking of?’
    ‘Maybe he forced her,’ Nell suggested.
    Meg tossed her head. ‘Who would dare force her?’
    Nell had no answer to that. She didn’t want to think of Lady Harvey behaving wantonly with a man, but then she didn’t want to think this tiny baby was a result of force either.
    ‘Will you take her, Mother?’ she asked, and pulled the sovereign Bridie had given her out of her pocket.
    ‘I’ve got too many children already,’ Meg said, but she was already looking down at Hope with the same tender expression that Nell had seen her give her own babies. ‘We’ve got no room; it gets harder to feed them all each week. If I take her, a week or two from now Lady Harvey will be off to her parties and balls without a thought for anyone but herself and I’ll be left struggling.’
    Nell nodded, for she knew her mother was right. Until Nell went to Briargate she knew nothing of how the gentry lived. They were just the folk in the fine clothes who sat in the front pews at church, or those her father doffed his cap to as they rode by on their sleek horses. She was so excited when the Reverend Gosling arranged for her to have a position at the big house that she didn’t think for one minute she would miss living here with her family, or that her work as a servant would be a hundred times harder than the chores she’d done at home.
    In fact for the first year she was at Briargate, she cried herself to sleep every night, for it was do this, do that, every waking moment of the day. As scullery maid she did the very roughest work, scouring pots, scrubbing floors and laying fires, at everyone’s beck and call. At home there was love, laughter and chatter along with the work; her mother cared if she had an aching back or a cut finger or was just tired. Her father would take her on his lap in the evenings and say she was pretty and clever. She got none of that at Briargate.
    She learned to cope with it all eventually. Slowly she climbed the ladder to parlourmaid. Now there were only Baines, Mrs Cole, Bridie and Cook above her, she didn’t do rough work, and even had free time to sit with a cup of tea and chat to Cook or Bridie.
    But the best time of all was her weekly afternoon off, and the one Sunday in four when she came home after the morning service at church. Her family might be poor but they had pride, dignity and big hearts.
    ‘I’ll do my best to see you don’t have to struggle.’ Nell held out the sovereign again. ‘This is what I got for helping and Bridie will see you get more. I’ll make sure she gets James and Ruth taken on at Briargate too. That will help.’
    Silas, Nell’s father, believed himself to be a fortunate man. When he’d had a couple of pints of cider he was prone to boasting that he had the best wife a man could have, ten happy, healthy children, and that this cottage was in the prettiest spot in the whole of Somerset.
    Yet the fact remained that however hard Silas worked they lived from hand to mouth, and in periods when he had no work, they were often hungry. Matthew, who at fifteen was the oldest of Nell’s brothers, was also a farm labourer, so he brought in a regular wage. But James and Ruth, who were fourteen and thirteen respectively, still hadn’t yet managed to find permanent work. After them came Alice, Toby, Prudence, Violet and Joe, from nine down to two and a half, and finally baby Henry, who had just recently had his first birthday.
    ‘I counted on keeping Ruth home to help me with the little ones, but Alice is good with them too,’ Meg said wearily. ‘Oh, Nell, you’ve been such a good girl. It’s never right you should have this thrust on you.’
    Nell thought how selfless her mother was. If she agreed to take the baby, she