The Shopgirl of Ironbridge

by Mollie Walton

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Romance; Victorian Romance

Synopsis

A dramatic and heartwarming Victorian saga, perfect for fans of Maggie Hope and Anne Bennett.

Will she find love again?

Ironbridge, 1893. When eighteen-year-old Maria Keay is offered an exciting job in a department store in Shrewsbury, she is keen to spread her wings and leave her hometown behind, including her childhood sweetheart Charlie Woodvine, the local schoolteacher.

She loves her new job in Shrewsbury and it's not long before she falls head-over-heels for the enigmatic and charming German chemistry student Oskar.

But as the exhausting work and exploitation of shopgirls becomes her everyday life, Maria must decide if moving away from home - and Charlie - was the right decision, especially when her relationship with Oskar takes a dark and devastating turn . . .

Praise for The Ironbridge Saga:

'A compelling blend of real history, rich period detail, and a gritty, authentic story brimming with love, loss, intrigue, hope, and bitter revenge' Lancashire Evening Post

'A Journey. Compelling. Addictive.' Val Wood

'Walton has created a brilliantly alive, vivid and breathing world in Ironbridge' Louisa Treger

'Evocative, dramatic and hugely compelling . . . I loved it' Miranda Dickinson

'Feisty female characters, an atmospheric setting and a spell-binding storyline make this a phenomenal read' Cathy Bramley

'Such great characters who will stay with me for a long time' Beth Miller

'The attention to period detail and beautiful writing drew me right in and kept me reading' Lynne Francis

'Vivid, page-turning drama' Pippa Beecheno

'A powerful sense of place and period, compelling characters and a pacy plot had me racing to the end' Gill Paul

'A story that is vivid, twisting and pacy, with characters that absolutely leap off the page' Iona Grey

'Beautiful and poignant' Tania Crosse

Release date: April 10, 2025

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 400

Sample

Ironbridge

March 1882

Maria didn’t want to walk into town. Her feet hurt. She sullenly dragged them along, trying to muster tears to prove how hard done by she was. She wanted to stay in their cosy little home on Paradise and be lazy that spring Sunday, to sit in a patch of sun in the woods and read a book, maybe take a nap and dream of forest fairies. But her mother and father insisted. They were all trooping down to Ironbridge to see her uncle, who was visiting for the day and would meet them at the Tontine Hotel, opposite the bridge. She’d never met her mother’s brother before. All she knew was that he was a farmer and lived a few hours’ ride away. After a long week at school and helping her mother with sewing work most evenings, the last thing Maria wanted was another walk after church and then to have to listen to the adults droning on about tedious matters all afternoon. Enough was enough. She stopped dead in the road and burst into faked tears, pointing at her feet.

‘Ah, come now, there’s a good wench,’ said her father. ‘It inna far.’

‘My feet are aching summat terrible!’ she sobbed.

‘That’s only because you were skipping all evening with that little chit of a girl from number seven,’ snapped her mother, losing her patience. ‘You’re too old at seven years of age to be carried or to be whining like a babby. Don’t take on so!’

But Maria wouldn’t budge. She would stand there till kingdom come if necessary.

‘I canna walk another step, not a single step.’

She folded her arms and stuck out her chin, until she heard a slow clip-clop approaching from a side road and glanced towards it.

‘See here, my beaut,’ said her father nicely, a softer touch than her mother. ‘That’s our friend Mr Transom, the miller. Maybe he’ll give us a ride to town on the back of his cart.’

‘Can we, Mam?’ Maria beseeched her mother, all tears gone. It was never Dad who had the final say in the Keay household.

Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘You spoil the lass, Alfred,’ she sighed at her husband though she smiled a small smile too, maybe at the thought of a ride into town to save her own tired feet, maybe at her husband’s kindness. Maria saw him approach the miller, who called out ‘Whoa’ to his horse. The nag looked old and tired itself.

Maria watched her father share cheery hellos with the miller, who laughed heartily at something else her father said. Everyone liked Alfred Keay, the maltster: all the men at the malthouse where he worked the cooler months, all the men at the Talbot Inn where he worked the warmer months, all the folk in the rented cottages beside them along Paradise. He was just one of those people who got on with anyone. His wife was shyer and more reserved, while his daughter was just like him.

‘Afternoon, little’un,’ said the miller and winked at Maria and she grinned back at him. ‘Hop on, then.’

‘Say thank’ee to Mr Transom,’ said her mother. Maria called up her thanks to him and he nodded, then she stopped on her way to thank the old horse too, who stood patiently, staring at the road.

‘What’s her name?’ asked Maria.

‘She’s no name as such, this’un. I’ve had her so long and always called her Oss. Just Oss.’

‘Thank’ee, Oss,’ said Maria and touched the horse’s soft muzzle. The old mare nudged her warm, damp nose into Maria’s hand.

‘Stop with your messing about, lass,’ scolded Maria’s mother, as her husband took her hand to help her onto the back of the cart. He lifted her up to seat her and gave her waist a squeeze.

‘A fine figure still, Charity Keay,’ chuckled Maria’s father, making her mother blush and push him off, smiling as she did so. He turned to Maria and called, ‘Where’s my devoted darter then?’

‘Here I be!’ she cried and trotted over, to be grasped and lifted up high in the air, giggling all the way. She was plonked down next to her mother on top of a flour bag, her father climbing up to sit beside her, the three of them in a comfy cwtch. The flour dust from the bags made her mother sneeze.

Off they went, swaying down the road to Ironbridge. It wasn’t far. She’d made a big fuss about nothing, Maria knew that. But just look what rewards her tears had brought! A ride on Mr Transom’s cart and a horse’s-eye view of the journey, looking down her nose at roadsters as they passed.

It wasn’t too long before they turned off Paradise onto Wharfage. The road was busy with pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles, as usual, the centre of Ironbridge a hubbub of activity clustering around the iron bridge of its name arching gracefully over the mighty River Severn, which also teemed with traffic, a bringer and taker of goods and people, industry and economy. Maria understood little of the world of work, just loving the river for its sparkle on sunny days and its darksome moods on dull days. She was fascinated by its speed and its murky depths. As they plodded on along Wharfage, she wondered what monsters may live in those waters, along with the fish her father sometimes caught for supper. She was an imaginative child, often prone to flights of fancy. The river was high and fast-moving that day and she saw it rush by with dark purpose.

They were coming up to The Swan inn opposite the Severn Warehouse, that extraordinary gothic building that looked more like a church than a place to store earthly goods and always gave Maria a sense of wonder. She heard a dog barking madly nearby, disturbing her little reverie. At first, she did not see the ox passing by the inn but she heard it. An unearthly sound: an animal in distress, panicked by the stray dog that yapped and snarled at it. The great ox bolted from its owner and charged across the road. In its panic, it headed straight for the miller’s cart. Maria whipped her head round to see where the strange noise was coming from. She just caught a glimpse of the brown bulk rushing at them before the poor horse reared up in terror. The cart tipped violently to the right and Maria was thrown into the air. The world spun over as she tumbled through space and landed with a thump on her side in the mud. Bags of flour seemed to explode around her, filling the air with thick white dust. She heard a great splintering of wood and the crack of metal and snap of leather as the cart smashed back down onto the road.

In her confusion and pain, she did not see the miller’s horse career down Loadcroft Wharf into the river. She did not see her parents and the miller hauled into the water by the horse gone mad, dragging its load, its passengers, its cart and itself into the roaring Severn. The swift, deep river took them all, tumbling and tangled. She did not see her parents and the miller dragged into the depths of the river as the cart sank, nor the horse itself sink from great, panicked gulps of river water. She did not see the miller caught on a branch of a tree that had fallen into the Severn and gasp for air and survive. She did not see her parents lose their fight against the rushing current and drown downstream.

All she saw was a kindly face, a woman, older than her mother, looking down at her in the mud, the white flour from the upset bags swirling about them both like a thick and dusty snow. The woman asked her urgently if she could move her legs and arms.

‘I can,’ said Maria and scrambled to stand up, helped by the lady. She was too shocked to cry.

People were crowding around, shouting and chattering, pointing and shaking their heads. The lady helped her over the road into The Swan inn and sat her down on a wooden stool.

‘Where are they, Mam and Dad?’ Maria asked the lady.

‘Oh, my poor child,’ said the lady. ‘My poor, poor little ducky egg.’

Maria looked up into the lady’s pitying face. Suddenly, her arm ached like billy-o. Shock had kept the pain away and now it assaulted her with a ferocity she’d never known. She cried out and grasped at her arm, which made it worse. For the second time that day, she wept and wept, real tears this time, tears of pain and fear, confusion and questions, tears of the most terrible loss a child can fathom.

Ironbridge

January 1892 – ten years later

‘You’re the lass who wrote me such a fine letter, then?’

‘I am. I’m Maria Keay.’

The barber squinted at her. His unruly eyebrows were as thick as well-fed caterpillars and seemed to wriggle as much, as he regarded her with scrutiny.

‘Said you’re seventeen. You dunna look it. You look younger’n that.’

‘Fresh-faced: that’s what they say about me.’

In fact, she was only just seventeen as she’d had her birthday a few days before.

The barber muttered, ‘Hmmm . . .’ and eyed the top shelves behind the counter. ‘You’re little too, a ratlin of the litter. You think you can reach top shelf?’

Maria looked at the tobacconist section of the barber’s premises. He cut men’s hair and shaved their beards in the three raised chairs, each with a step up, in a row on the right-hand side of the shop, while the tobacco products were kept in drawers and on shelves behind a decidedly dusty and cluttered counter on the left.

‘All I’ll need is a milking stool to step on. I’ve got one at my lodgings. I’ll bring it tomorrow. I can do this job, Mr Boden. I promise I can.’ She held herself upright and tried to look as tall as she could.

The barber sighed and glanced at the clock on the wall behind the counter. It was five minutes until opening. His appointments were scribbled on a slate propped up on the countertop, just a barely legible list of names. Most of the barber’s customers would come whenever they felt like it, Maria guessed, but some arranged it in advance to fit their busy work days. There were no times written down. There were several heaps of coins scattered across the counter too, in no particular order, mixed up with a fallen pile of blank receipt notes, screwed up knots of waste paper and all scattered liberally with flecks of dried tobacco. On the floor were strewn hair clippings mixed with dust balls and crumbs of mud and leaf litter brought in from outside. The two small windows facing the street were smeared with a deep layer of grime. He must have to squint to see his customers’ necks when he scraped a blade up them.

‘I’ll clean this place from top to bottom, every day. I’ll get you a proper ledger and write all your names and appointment times out in a neat hand, just like my letter was. And I’ll keep a track of money in and money out, so your accounts will be as neat as a pin. I’ll give this counter and all the drawers and shelves a good dusting. I’ll arrange a proper good display in the windows and give them such a polish they’ll shine and show off all your most expensive items. And I’ll serve customers with a smile and persuade them to buy things they didna know they needed. You wonna be sorry you hired me, Mr Boden, I swear you wonna.’

‘How d’you know all about accounting, eh? Slip of a wench like you.’

‘I was taught by the village shopkeeper back in Middleton-in-Chirbury, the lady who wrote such nice words about me in the reference I put in the same envelope as my letter to you. She taught me everything I know.’

Maria could feel her cheeks blooming. Normally, she was a hopeless liar. She never had the knack for it. Exaggeration, yes. Embellishment, certainly. But she wasn’t a born liar. Luckily, instead of eyeing her, Mr Boden was looking about his shop with an expression of annoyance. Her little speech seemed to rouse him, perhaps to realise she was right about what a mess the shop was, but he was also a bit put out that she’d detailed it all so precisely. It was a gamble. So was the reference she’d forged from the village shopkeeper. She’d been in that shop every chance she could get in the last ten years, but she’d never officially worked there. She was good at faking handwriting and taking on the persona of a kindly shopkeeper giving a glowing reference. She just hoped Mr Boden never wrote back to check it. Seeing what a muddle his paperwork was clearly in, Maria doubted it.

She knew it was wrong when she did it, but she knew also that finding shop work with no reference would be hopeless. After all, it was a white lie, really, as she hadn’t had a job at the village shop as such, but she’d been so enamoured of it – filled with a cornucopia of goods to serve the rural folk for miles around – that she’d spent as much time as she could there, the patient shopkeeper putting up with her presence, her dawdling and her questions about how shops worked. So she knew a thing or two about shop work, enough to start her off in a small place like this, she was sure. But had she done enough to get the job? Maria waited and watched him. She’d come a long way. She was tired but driven to succeed. She just needed a little bit of luck.

‘You’re on then, lass. Start . . . now?’

‘Now it is! Shall I clean first?’

‘Do the cleaning. It needs it, you’re right. I’ll deal with customers this morning. When it’s shipshape, then maybe you can start serving custom, we’ll see.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said and nodded emphatically.

Maria got to work straight away. She didn’t ask questions, just used her common sense, as well as the years of experience cleaning the farmhouse, from where she’d travelled eastwards the day before. She wanted to sweep first, so went to the back room between the counter and the barbering area, finding a broom and some old rags out there. She also came across a few odds and ends of cleaning materials in crusty containers, yet with the lids off she saw they were adequate and would do the job fine. She set to sweeping the floor. Mr Boden opened up the door and the bell rang, while a rush of chilly January air assaulted them as a man came in for a shave.

The customer, a middle-aged man with mutton-chop sideburns and a stooping gait, stared at her.

‘New wench?’ he said to Mr Boden.

‘Started today.’

‘Bonny lass,’ said the man and seated himself, ready for a shave, yet turned his whole self round to keep looking in her direction. ‘Hair as yellow as a Viking and eyes as blue as forget-me-nots. She dunna cut gents’ hair?’ he added, hopefully, with a wink at her.

‘Nay. She’ll mind the tobacconist while I do the barbering, thank’ee. Now, stop yer jabbering or I’ll slice yer throat and it wonna be an accident.’

The customer turned back around in his chair and settled himself.

Maria continued her cleaning frenzy as the barber’s customers came and went, all commenting on the girl and what a peach she was. She wasn’t haughty with them, but she didn’t encourage them either. She’d dealt with enough farm boys to know how to keep a male at bay. She was polite with them, yet focused on her work. She tidied all of the paperwork into piles and found the wooden cash tray in the drawer beneath the counter with sections, where she arranged the different coins, each type in its own compartment. She polished the counter as well as she could and cleaned up and down its sides. Soon, the whole shop was brighter than ever and it seemed to cheer Mr Boden, whose mood improved as the morning went on. Every time she finished a job, he inspected it briefly and nodded. Maria was pleased with her work.

Now the shop was as clean as she could make it, she tackled the two window areas. The so-called displays had a few items strewn about, with some advertisement cards propped up, thick with dust. She took everything out and cleaned the whole area. She used water and soap to scrub the windows, as they were mucky as mud, the day beginning to stream through as she did so.

‘Let there be light!’ said one of the customers, having his hair trimmed, watching her in the mirrors placed all along the right-hand wall.

She smiled and carried on scrubbing till the glass was gleaming, then began to place items back in the display areas, neatly arranging them in patterns that were pleasing to the eye. There were all manner of pipes, including clay pipes from Broseley Pipeworks down the road and a selection of wooden pipes. One curious pipe had the bowl held by a carved wooden hand. She put that in pride of place in the centre, raised on a little box, to catch the eye of passers-by. There were several earthenware jars filled with tobacco from faraway continents, including Africa and the Americas, each with its tobacco’s place of origin lettered on the front: exotic locales such as Martinique, Cairo and Tennessee, which filled her mind with wonder. How marvellous it would be to travel to such places one day. She organised the jars in arcs, as well as dusting off the advertisement cards that sang the praises of their wares in once-bright colours: Smoke Ogden Midnight Flake! Enjoy St Julien Tobacco! She took some cigars from their box behind the counter and arranged them in an intricate tower, to lure the smoker to lick his lips and want a puff enough to come in and buy. That was the whole point of having a window display, she knew from her time ogling the windows of the one village shop for miles around, not far from the farm she’d grown up in this last decade – the farm she was taken to the day after her parents were lost to the Severn, the farm run by her uncle with an iron fist. The farm she hated with every fibre of her being.

By lunchtime, the shop was transformed. Mr Boden was delighted. He told her she could have a half-hour off to go and eat but she said no. She’d brought bread and cheese with her and would eat it in the back room, while she cleared it up. While there, she found an old ledger that had once been used, perhaps by a previous owner. There were once neat accounts kept there in a sloping hand. Maria dusted it off and brought it through, asking her employer whose work this was.

Boden looked down at his toes and muttered something she didn’t hear.

‘It’s my wife’s,’ he repeated gruffly. ‘It were, I mean to say. Lost her three year ago. I’m a widower.’

‘I see,’ said Maria quietly. ‘She did a grand job, I can tell.’

‘She had a lovely hand, so she did.’

‘She did indeed. Wouldna’it be nice if I carried on in the same book, keeping your accounts all nice and neat, like before?’

‘It would, lass,’ he said and, with a sniffle, he turned away to hide his emotion that had spilled out momentarily. Boden paid his full attention instead to his chairs, brushing them down of hair detritus before the next customers came to be seated. Maria took up the broom and cleared the floor in readiness.

She was putting the broom away behind the counter when the doorbell rang and in came a young man. Maria looked up and instantly knew the face. She was expecting to see boys and girls from her childhood, grown now like herself, around and about in Ironbridge – that was, if they were still recognisable from the last time she saw them ten years before. But this man was older than her, she was quite sure, and yet his face was sharply familiar – though the last time she’d seen it, she was sure it hadn’t included his current broad brown moustache.

He had beside him a dog, a black and white Border collie. She knew collies, as her uncle had two who lived out in the barn and were called Collie younger and Collie elder, their names being both their breed and the name of their owner, oddly. They were treated rather roughly by her uncle Solomon Collie, as he treated everything close to him, and so she never made friends with either. This pretty Border collie, however, was wagging its tail like mad, its tongue lolling out good-naturedly. The dog was on no lead, yet behaved perfectly as the man pushed the door to. The handsome dog seated itself neatly next to its owner and looked up at him expectantly, lovingly. The man was looking at Maria.

‘’Ow bist, Mr Woodvine?’ asked the barber.

‘Fair to middling, Mr Boden, more middling than fair,’ said the young man, still looking at Maria.

She turned away. Whose was that face? And that name – Woodvine – it was familiar to her. She scanned her memory scene by scene, trying to conjure it up, as she retrieved the papers from beneath the counter that she meant to sort that afternoon.

‘And Biscuit?’ added Boden, leaning down and ruffling the collie’s fur. ‘Fair or middling, boy?’

‘Biscuit is always well above middling,’ said Mr Woodvine.

‘And what brings’ee here this time o’day?’

‘Lunchtime, when I take Biscuit for a walk, and thought I’d just pop in on the off-chance.’

‘Shave or a cut?’ said the barber, addressing the owner, not the dog.

Maria was leafing through the paperwork at the counter, but she glanced up twice to keep an eye on Mr Woodvine to find he was watching her too. He must know her then.

‘Tobacco, actually, Mr Boden.’

‘You dunna smoke, mon.’

Maria looked up sharply then. The man coughed nervously and said, ‘I do, I do. I’ve just recently taken it up.’

Boden squinted at him, but then was distracted by another customer coming for a shave.

‘Can you serve this gent, Maria?’ said the barber and she nodded vigorously. Her first customer! She was glad of it, for she wondered when she’d be allowed to actually serve rather than clean.

‘Afternoon, sir,’ she said and smiled.

‘Good afternoon, miss,’ he said, smiling back. That was when it came to her. That smile. His hair was longer now, as he’d always had it cut close to his head as a younger man. Now his light brown hair was curled and a little unruly on top, perhaps from the winter breeze that had reddened his cheeks. Now she knew exactly who he was. As a girl at school, from time to time an older pupil helped the school children with their lessons as a kind of apprentice teacher. This man was the eldest of them, around sixteen or seventeen the last time she saw him. And oh, did she have a girlish crush on him back then? Did I ever! she thought. It was Charlie Woodvine. Charlie, that was it. How she broke her girlish heart over Charlie, the apprentice teacher (minus moustache, in those days).

He asked Maria which tobacco she would recommend. It was obvious he knew nothing about smoking. She knew even less, but she had made herself familiar with Boden’s stock that morning and so knew enough to make some suggestions.

‘I would like to try some from Tennessee. I should think it’d feel quite special to relax of an evening by the fire and puff on something that crossed the Atlantic to sit in the bowl of my Broseley pipe.’

She smiled at that. Charlie had a nice turn of phrase. She went over to Mr Boden and asked him how much to weigh and how much that would cost. That would be another job needed: writing out cards with prices on them. Boden told her and she weighed it out, then wrapped the tobacco in a fold of paper for Charlie, yet the saleswoman in her was not done with this customer so soon. ‘Would you like anything else to go with that, sir? Do you own a Broseley pipe?’

‘I do not,’ he said and cleared his throat. The ruse was up, surely. The man clearly did not smoke. So why had he hung around to buy some tobacco from her? Especially when he so obviously needed a haircut. As Charlie smiled at her again, she thought she guessed the reason why. Maria glanced at Boden, who was busy arguing with his customer about local politics. She looked back at Charlie.

‘I believe I know you, sir. Or I used to.’

His eyes widened then. ‘I believe if I’d ever known you, miss, I’d have never forgotten a moment of it,’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘You were Charlie Woodvine, the teacher’s apprentice.’

‘I was! Well, I was a pupil-teacher, so they called it. Were you one of my little charges?’

‘I was. I was seven years old the last time you might’ve seen me, ten year since.’

Biscuit the collie dog was pushing his muzzle into his owner’s hand.

‘All right, boy,’ Charlie said gently, but did not take his eyes from Maria. ‘Where . . . have you been?’ he asked her hesitantly.

‘That’s a long story,’ said Maria. ‘Too long for a shopgirl at work to tell.’

She was acutely aware of her boss eyeing them both as they chatted, as another customer was just coming in and was lining up behind Charlie, who registered the other man’s presence by fumbling in his wallet to hand over the cash for the tobacco he’d probably never smoke.

‘Thank you, miss . . . Miss . . .?’

‘Keay,’ she said. ‘Miss Maria Keay.’

‘Hurry yourself up, schoolmaster,’ said the man behind Charlie. ‘We havna got all day for you to learn the wench her times tables.’

The barber laughed at that and so did Charlie. So, he was the schoolmaster now. He’d kept to his younger purpose, then. It was impressive.

Charlie made his apologies and clapped the man on the back, telling him his son was doing well with his reading these days, which made the man puff with pride and thank him. Charlie took one last glance at Maria and gave her a small smile, which she noted but did not return. Charlie left, Biscuit close at his heel.

Maria had to be careful with the customers. Every man that had come in that day had given her a good look. She had to keep her wits about her with the male of the species. It was odd, she knew, for a young woman to be seen in this kind of shop and she was grateful to Mr Boden for taking her on, despite her not being a male. She never wanted him to feel she was enjoying the male attention too much, and get a name for herself. Instead, Maria wanted to work so hard that he would wonder how he ever got by without her.

Maria spent the next couple of hours going through the barber’s papers and recording his receipts in the ledger in the most sensible order she could find. She also turned to the back and began a trust book, where she’d record the names of those paying later on account. She wrote with a pencil, using a penknife she found in a drawer to sharpen it, as she couldn’t locate a pen nor ink. Maria could tell her new boss was pleased with her hard work and her initiative. By three o’clock, the whole place looked like a new shop. He’d be there till eight or nine that night, catching the working men after their long day of industry. But he let her go early.

‘Be off home with yer, wench. You’ve earnt it. See you back here on the morrow, lark-heeled, bright and early.’

Maria said her farewells and, bundled up in her winter boots, scarf, hat and shawl, she braved the cold afternoon outside. It was not yet fully dark, but it wouldn’t be long. She pulled the shop door to and stepped down onto the pavement of Waterloo Street. Boden’s barber and tobacconist occupied the ground floor opposite the stone arches of the Ironbridge Police Station, with the Fire Station just around the corner. She’d never be short of folk to call on if there was a dire emergency, she thought.

She walked down to the High Street, watching the iron bridge all the way. It drew you to it always, the focal point of the town. Maria wanted to hurry back to her lodgings, as it was a bit of a way and she was weary from her day’s work and yesterday’s journey, but she couldn’t resist a brisk walk over the bridge to stand in the centre and look down at the river flowing beneath it. She watched the dark waters race downstream. Then, from beneath the bridge, a singular figure emerged, seated in a tiny circular boat, armed with a paddle. Beneath his flat cap and in the dimming light, she couldn’t see his face, but she knew who he was. Everybody in Ironbridge knew Tommy Rogers, the boatman and coracle builder. She gasped at the sight of him, for it was he who’d found her parents’ drowned bodies, the evening of the accident. With his waterway skills, he was often asked to recover drowning victims and they say he never took payment, out of respect for the dead. She thought of the wreck of the miller’s cart down there, all of its pieces no doubt rotted or carried away by the current in these last ten years. The miller had been rescued, pulled from the river by strong iron workers who found him near Bedlam Furnace. Her parents had not been so lucky.

Maria watched Tommy Rogers speed along, the river bearing his coracle away swiftly. Where was he going at this time of the darkening afternoon? Poaching, perhaps? Hunting for illegal rabbits in the fields of wealthy landowners, no doubt. Those were the rumours when she was little. She watched him u. . .