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scullery before the stain would begin to shift, but as she began to serve up the meal she was humming to herself. If she married Alf, he wouldn’t mind her still nipping along to see to her da and Tom and granny, she knew that. He understood that looking after her granny was like caring for a bairn, with the washing and feeding and making sure she was able to use the chamber pot when she needed it, and that her da and Tom would need a hot meal every night they weren’t out on the water. Aye, he’d understand all that.
     
    As Daisy began to sing ‘Blaydon Races’, more enthusiastically than tunefully, Nellie found herself relaxing back against her bolster again with a small smile touching her slightly blue lips. Her lass was singing and that was a good sign. It would all come right, Daisy and Alf, once the lass had had a chance to think about him as a lad and not as one of the family. Daisy was canny, she’d see what side her bread was buttered sure enough.
     
    Nellie shut her eyes, the agitation and panic which had been making her heart race ever since Daisy had arrived home beginning to subside. She wanted to see her lass settled and happy before the Good Lord called her home, and there was none better for her than Alf. Not on this side of the ocean. Salt of the earth, Alf was, and he was right gone on the lass. Anyone could see that. Daisy would be safe married to him and she was too beautiful to be left to her own devices for long. They weren’t all like Alf, not by a long chalk. But it would be all right; if she knew anything about Alf Hardy he wouldn’t take no for an answer where Daisy was concerned.
     
    A touch of excitement took hold as Nellie pictured Daisy on Alf’s arm, and then as mistress of the bonny little cottage at the far end of the village. The next few months were going to be ones of change, she felt it in her water, and pray God it would all be good.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Daisy was the first to rise early the next morning as was normally the case when her father and brother were taking the boat out. She always slept in her vest, flannel drawers and shift in the colder months, over which she wore a long calico nightgown, and after sliding her feet out of bed she made her way downstairs in the pitch blackness, feeling her way until she could light the oil lamp. Over the years she had perfected the exercise until now she moved without a sound.
     
    Her granny’s rasping snores told her the old woman was fast asleep. She made her way to the table, and once the lamp was lit padded into the icy-cold scullery where she stripped, hastily washing herself all over with water from the barrel and the blue-veined soap which never lathered.
     
    By the time Daisy had donned her underclothes again her teeth were chattering, and after nipping through to the main room once more she quickly gathered her petticoat, thick serge dress, shawl and boots from a chair in front of the range where she had placed them the night before to catch any warmth from the fire.
     
    After dressing she wasted no time in stoking up the range and putting fresh wood and coal on the fire, once she had raked out the ashes and tipped them into the bucket for the privy. Then the kettle was on the hob, and the big pan of porridge she had prepared the night before - so the oats were well soaked - was warming. She always made sure her father and Tom went out into the raw mornings with a full belly, and there was nothing like an outsize bowl of hot salty porridge made stiff enough to hold the spoon for warming a man through.
     
    ‘You want a sup tea, Gran?’
     
    Nellie had been awake for a few minutes but lying quietly. Now the old woman hitched herself up in the bed as she answered, ‘When you’re ready, me bairn, when you’re ready.’
     
    In the distance a ship’s horn made a low, drawn-out sound, eerie and melancholy, and Daisy paused in mashing the tea, her gaze going to the window where a tired dawn was struggling to break