The Workhouse Girl

by Jessica Stirling

Genres: Historical Romance

Synopsis

To Cassie Armitage and her well-to-do family, Robert Montague seems a perfect suitor: a distinguished preacher with a glamorous past and impressive connections. Only after marriage will trusting and idealistic Cassie discover that Montague is not all that he seems. Nancy Winfield, born to the workhouse and betrayed by her protectors, is quick to recognize the preacher?s evil intentions. Imprisoned in a dangerous marriage and deceived by her sister, Cassie finds an ally in Nancy, and a friend in widower Allan Hunter, who is a victim of Montague?s twisted schemes. Beneath the surface of Cassie?s staid existence perverse and deadly passion run deep, threatening a tragedy that only Nancy Winfield?s loyalty ? and Cassie?s courage ? can prevent

Release date: January 19, 2012

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 567

Sample

One

From the moment Cassie clapped eyes on Robert Montague she sensed that there was something different about him. It was not just that he had power and authority, though that was
certainly true, or that he had the most commanding voice she had ever heard. What she found unsettling was that at certain moments during the course of the sermon his eyes would flick towards and
hold upon her, not long enough to seem to be a stare, certainly not long enough to be considered ill-mannered, but with just that degree of concentration which an inexperienced girl of seventeen
might construe as more than casual interest.

At first Cassie responded as any well-brought-up young lady would under the circumstances. She lowered her head, picked at the stitching of her glove and showed the preacher the brim of her best
bonnet as if his exposition on the nature of original sin and the corruption of the flesh had touched a nerve in her and brought a flush of remorse to her pale cheeks – which, of course, was
quite ridiculous. Cassie Armitage had no more notion of what the Reverend Montague meant by original sin than had the pigeons in the belfry or the gulls that shrieked on the church roof.

Every minister who occupied the pulpit of Ravenshill church suffered competition from the gulls. Robert Montague was no exception. Unlike some preachers, however, he did not tut and raise
his eyes impatiently to heaven or introduce into his sermon witty references to ‘our feathered friends’. Reverend Montague seemed willing to shout the creatures down or even, so Cassie
thought, to let their demonic cries augment his remarks as if he and the herring-gulls were equally intransigent.

It was an airy day in June in the year of 1858. Sunlight outlined the pulpit, lightened the oppressive gloom of the kirk and released in Cassie a strange feeling of expectation, as if air and
sunlight were her natural habitat and flirtation not anathema to a well-bred young lady raised south of the River Clyde. For that reason she neglected to lower her eyes when next Mr Montague
glanced in her direction. She cocked her head, tilted her chin and stared straight back at him, bold – Cassie thought – as brass. She had never flirted with a grown man before, let
alone a minister, and she was intimidated by her own temerity and, to say the least of it, alarmed by its effect.

Sullen and stolid in a black Geneva gown, Reverend Montague – who had rowed for an Oxford college, fought in several wars, travelled far and wide and published four or five books on
learned subjects – was completely caught off guard. To Cassie Armitage’s astonishment, he lost the thread of his dissertation, stammered and almost stopped, while she sat rigid in the
family pew and waited for retribution to descend from on high. With an effort of will the minister finally tore his attention away from her, shuffled papers on the lectern, cleared his throat and
recommenced his harangue with no less commitment than before, except that he was smiling now, his thin upper lip curved and a tiny curlicue of flesh puckering his smooth cheek like a scar.

Cassie’s little sister Pippa whispered, ‘Well, did you ever see the like of that?’

Cassie bowed her head. Blood rushed upward from her bosom and coloured her throat, neck and ears. Tingling with embarrassment, she had the dreadful feeling that everyone in church had noticed
the exchange, that everyone was staring at her, from house-servants in the gallery down to Mr Grimmond, the elderly pew-opener. Possibly even Sir Andrew Flail himself, though how that could be when
Sir Andrew and his wife had their backs to her was beyond rational explanation.

Pippa’s sharp little elbow nudged Cassie again. The upright pew protected the sisters from observation. Only their bonnets were visible above the sides of the seats where the noble folk of
the parish displayed themselves like pheasants in a basket.

‘Did you, Cass?’ Pippa whispered. ‘Did you see how he looked at me?’

‘You?’ Cassie exploded. ‘He wasn’t looking at you.’

Papa’s hand appeared over the pew back and tapped her shoulder.

‘Sssshhh,’ Cuthbert Armitage hissed.

Cassie sank down, her summer-weight mantle slithering against the polished oak. Only the dusty cushion under her thighs kept her from sliding into an unladylike crouch. To hide her trembling,
she tucked her hands into her bell sleeves and sat very still in the hope that Reverend Montague would forget that she had dared to meet his eye. When she risked raising her eyes to the pulpit
again she was, however, disappointed to discover that her wish had been granted and that the handsome preacher had apparently lost all interest in her and had transferred his attention to the
labourers who occupied the unprotected benches. Indeed he was giving them such mighty licks that even burly ironworkers clung to their seats as if the minister’s voice had the force of a
westerly gale and they were in danger of being whirled up and blown away by it.

‘And the seas shall open and consume the lands round about,’ Robert Montague thundered. ‘And the dead and the living will be mingled one with the other. And the God of Abraham
and of Isaac will pluck you up like little fishes to see if He finds your flesh sweet or corrupt. Those who are sweet and clean in the flesh He will admit to His presence to rejoice there with the
saints and angels. But those whom He finds wanting He will cast down to rot, days without number, in the sediment and slime of the great heaving sea of sinfulness.’

Cassie watched in fascination but listened with only half an ear. The minister’s voice was so sensuous that it hardly mattered what message it delivered. She watched him weave and sway,
arm erect, fist closed, the sunlight shrinking from him. He was dark-browed, dark-eyed, hawkish and handsome and she longed for him to let his glance linger on her just once more.

Under cover of the pew lid Pippa’s hand brushed Cassie’s knee. Pippa’s forefinger pointed upward in the minister’s direction then turned and tapped her, Pippa’s,
breast.

‘Me,’ Pippa mouthed. ‘He smiled at me.’

Primly, Cassie compressed her lips and said nothing. She mustn’t rise to the bait. She must set a decorous example to her diminutive sister who had somehow – goodness knows how
– acquired a knowingness far beyond her fifteen years; yet the temptation to point out that ministers of the Gospel were far too serious and sober to make sheep’s eyes at mere children
was almost overwhelming.

‘Me, me, me,’ Pippa mouthed again, digging away with her elbow.

‘Oh, be quiet,’ Cassie snapped, rather too loudly. Not you – me.’

In the sudden silence her declaration seemed to echo round the kirk, accompanied only by the jeering of the herring-gulls and by Robert Montague quietly pronouncing, ‘Amen.’

There was, of course, an afternoon preaching and another at six o’clock. Cubby Armitage’s daughters were not expected to attend the additional services. In fact,
they were discouraged from doing so. The presentation of the living of Ravenshill parish was about to be settled that fine June day and that was hardly a matter that concerned young women.

Although Cassie knew little about the procedures of the Church of Scotland she appreciated the gravity of the affair and identified a certain smugness in Papa that the best man had won out in
the end. The fact that Reverend Montague had had no competitor in the ‘race’ for the vacancy did not detract from her father’s satisfaction. Montague had been put up by Sir Andrew
Flail and any involvement the congregation thought it had had in making a decision stemmed only from Sir Andrew’s skill in bending lesser mortals to his will.

Creed and dogma were less important to the heritor of Ravenshill than class and style which, by Sir Andrew’s lights, meant finding a clergyman who was willing to keep the lower orders
firmly in place and who was able to intimidate neighbouring gentry with a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Robert Montague filled the bill on both counts. It was virtually assured that Montague would
gain the pulpit of Ravenshill kirk and that any upstart who tried to exercise the power of veto would have to answer to a body much more fearsome than the local Presbytery, for here on the long
alluvial plains that bordered the south bank of the Clyde the Flails’ word was law.

The Flails had owned the lands of Ravenshill for going on three centuries. Sir Andrew’s grandfather had paid for the building of the church, had established the first ironworks and had
laid down the first wagon ways. Sir Andrew’s father had commissioned the building of a quay, had brought the railway to the parish and had erected the first tenements. Sir Andrew had done
better than any of his forefathers, however, for he had acquired property across the river in the city of Glasgow and cut quite a famous figure in the Merchant House for his wealth, swagger and
ambition.

Robert Montague might be Flail’s choice for Ravenshill but he was not, and never would be, Flail’s man. He had an obdurate streak which, it seemed, would not yield to flattery. Nor
had he need of the living. Apparently Reverend Montague was well enough heeled to dismiss as irrelevant the meagre stipend which the post offered and what had prompted him to apply for the
ministerial commission of the sprawling riverside parish was a mystery which even his sponsors had so far failed to unravel.

Perhaps the manse appealed to him, a huge, remote old house which stood on a hill a quarter of a mile above the rural hamlet of Bramwell. Farmlands undulated away to the south and west, ground
upon which masons and contractors had not yet laid hands. To the north was the Clyde and the funnels of steamers moving over the level of the intervening fields and, morning and evening, a distant
glimpse of the ‘black squad’ trudging to and from work at the shipbuilding yards further down river.

The manse was decently removed from the reek of the ironworks and the bustle of the quays that marred the bulk of Ravenshill and only Flail House, a massive red-stone edifice, half home farm,
half baronial manor, had a better situation. For a gentleman with an adventurous past and an urge to settle down, the gaunt three-storey building might represent a haven of peace and tranquillity
On the other hand, there was vigour in the nearby town and a rich intellectual community centred around the Glasgow colleges only four or five miles away. Sir Andrew could not be sure which aspect
of Ravenshill most appealed to Robert Montague, for, although he had been thorough in examining Montague’s credentials, he had not enquired too deeply into the minister’s motives for
returning to Scotland.

Mr Cuthbert Armitage was even more inclined to accept Robert Montague at face value. Like almost everyone in Ravenshill, Cubby was dazzled by Montague’s reputation. He welcomed him with
all the obsequiousness he could muster when he was chosen to provide Sabbath afternoon hospitality and the Reverend Montague, still sweating from his post meridian exertions, invited himself
to tea at the Armitage residence in Normandy Road between afternoon and evening services.

Cubby Armitage might believe in the sanctity of the home and the purity of women but he was pompous enough to make sure that everyone who was anyone in Ravenshill saw him walking arm-in-arm down
Main Street with the parish’s next incumbent. Cubby would have loitered to point out the sights, to sing the praises of the ironworks, extol the convenience of the railway and brag about the
depth of the new dock. But Robert Montague, hot and thirsty, was in sore need of a dish of tea and a buttered scone, and, with another session in the pulpit still to come, lacked the inclination to
play the sightseeing game. Instead, he studied Cuthbert Armitage as if the little Scottish stockbroker were wonder enough to be going on with.

‘Tell me, sir,’ Robert Montague said, ‘how long have you lived here?’

‘All of my life, sir,’ Cubby answered. ‘Forty years, and more.’

‘In which time you must have witnessed many changes?’

‘Indeed, indeed I have.’

Cubby raised his arm to point towards the gigantic crane that towered over the stacks of Flail’s ‘Blazes’. But Robert Montague gave him no opportunity to expand on the theme of
progress.

‘Have you always been employed by Sir Andrew?’

‘Indeed not,’ Cubby answered. ‘I’m not, strictly speaking, employed by him at all.’

‘I was under the impression that you brokered for the Flails.’

‘I do, of course. That’s why I have my office in Glasgow close to the Exchange,’ Cubby explained. ‘But I’m also a broker in my own right.’

‘You must then be a man of the world; by which I mean you must travel extensively in connection with your correspondents?’

‘Not at all, sir. I travel as little as possible. I have no taste for it. I leave all the foreign travel to my partner, Charles Smalls. My business is here in Glasgow which is the centre
of the iron trade, at least for those who require pig.’

‘Pig?’

‘Pig-iron, the product of the furnace.’

‘Is there money to be made from trading in pig?’

‘Indeed there is, much money. And in all iron products.’

Reverend Montague’s frown was one of concentration, not disapproval.

‘What of the rest of it?’ he said. ‘Your business, I mean. Share dealing, perhaps?’

‘Oh, share dealing, yes.’

‘On whose account, may I ask?’

‘On account of anyone who requests the service.’

‘And on your own account?’ said the minister, lightly.

‘Certainly, certainly. I’m not without – what shall we say – substance.’

‘I trust you do not think me excessively curious, Mr Armitage?’

‘Not at all, sir, not at all,’ said Cubby. ‘Perhaps you will have some wee pieces of business to put my way when the time comes.’

‘Perhaps I shall,’ the minister said. Is this your house?’

‘It is, sir, it is.’

‘A very handsome house, if I may say so.’

‘My father, rest his soul, purchased the lease from Sir Andrew’s grandfather many years ago.’ Cubby opened the iron gate and ushered the minister before him on to the garden
path. ‘You are most welcome to enter it, sir.’

‘How kind of you, Mr Armitage.’ The minister nodded in the direction of a figure that stood in the wrought-iron pergola that occupied the side lawn. ‘Is that your wife, by any
chance?’

‘No, my daughter, sir. One of them, one of a pair.’

‘Which one is she, Mr Armitage?’

‘Her name is Cassandra.’

‘After the Greek, no doubt?’

‘Oh, aye,’ Cubby Armitage agreed. ‘After the Greek.’

* * *

When Papa ushered Robert Montague into the garden Cassie’s first impulse was to gather up her skirts and run for cover. It was not that she wanted to avoid meeting the
great man – on the contrary – but she knew that she had transgressed one of the rules of conduct which her father had laid down for the household. This, after all, was the Lord’s
Day when, according to her father, respectable ladies didn’t flaunt themselves upon the lawns or luxuriate under the wisteria that draped the iron pergola.

Cassie’s mother was already ensconced in the drawing-room. A silver teapot would be warming on the candle-stand and butter cooling in the water-dish. Pippa was also hidden within the
house, most likely sulking in the back parlour.

The sisters had quarrelled throughout luncheon and had bickered away the afternoon until, with more jibes in her than Saint Sebastian had arrows, Cassie had flounced out to hide her suffering in
the forbidden sanctuary of the garden.

Why Pippa’s sarcasm had affected her so adversely, why she felt so weak and vulnerable were questions without answers, until, that is, her father appeared at the garden gate with the
Reverend Montague. The moment Cassie set eyes on the minister the source of her restlessness became plain. She could not define it precisely, could not give it a proper name. Nevertheless as soon
as she saw Robert Montague again her irritation vanished. She had no doubt at all that the minister had come to call upon her and that whatever excuse he offered for the visit he too had felt a
magnetism between them.

‘Cassandra?’

‘Yes, Papa.’

‘Do not run away, girl. Reverend Montague wishes to meet you.’

She waited, motionless, under trailing fronds of honeysuckle, her gloved hand upon the iron rail.

He approached across the grass, his eyes fastened upon her.

It was as it had been in church only now there was less need for pretence. She felt his gaze penetrate her, thin, sharp and painless, like a steel pin through the body of a butterfly.

‘Miss Armitage?’

‘Reverend Montague.’

‘How pleasant it is to see you again so soon.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Cassie said. ‘Have – have you come to take tea with us?’

‘I have.’

‘Then Papa will show you to the drawing-room.’

‘Do you not take tea in the garden?’ the minister said.

‘Not on the Sabbath, sir,’ her father chipped in.

‘Why not?’

Cassie heard herself say, ‘Because a Christian home is the tabernacle of the Lord and bread must be broken only under its roof.’

‘Ah!’ the minister said. ‘Obviously I’ve much to learn about observance.’ She had expected him to be more severe. The vitality he had displayed in the pulpit was
manifest now as a suave, almost sinister intimacy.

‘Aye, this, sir, is a very devout household, though I say so myself,’ Cassie’s father declared, and, laying a hand on the minister’s elbow, made to steer him towards the
front door of the house.

The movement was too slight to be offensive. It might even have been accidental. Robert Montague lifted his arm and adjusted the cuff of his morning coat. When he lowered his arm again, the
elbow was slanted towards Cassie.

‘With your permission, Mr Armitage,’ he said, ‘perhaps your charming daughter would be good enough to show me the way.’

Cassie did not wait for sanction. She stepped from the ledge of the pergola and took Robert Montague’s arm. To her surprise she could smell sweat from him, an odour like that of warm fur,
dry and musky, mingled with a touch of lavender and the faint, dusty undertow of oakwood from the kirk. She leaned into him, skirts brushing against his thigh, slippers sliding on the soft, warm
grass. He felt solid beside her, solid and vibrant.

Suddenly everything in and around her was vibrant, from dappled sunlight on the house walls to the scut of white cloud that floated overhead.

Best of all, though, was the satisfaction that trickled through her when she noticed Pippa outlined in the window that overlooked the garden; Pippa, who thought that Robert Montague was far too
grand to pay court to a girl from the backwaters of Ravenshill; Pippa who, without logic or reason, wanted the new minister for herself.

Two

In August the wealthy burghers of Glasgow abandoned the Merchant House and the floor of the Exchange and headed off by rail and steamer to holiday in their houses by the sea.
The exodus was particular, not general, for only a very special few could afford the upkeep of an out-of-town residence.

The Armitages did not holiday by the sea. The Armitages did not holiday at all. Cubby was old-fashioned enough to believe that if God had wanted man to vacate his native environment from time to
time then God would have designed man with iron wheels instead of feet. The extent of Cubby Armitage’s voyaging was to travel the four miles to his office in the city each and every day and
the little stockbroker was, in fact, somewhat irked that so many of his acquaintances were absent in the August month and that he was considered a stick-in-the-mud for not rushing off to join them
on holiday.

Naturally this view was shared by Cubby Armitage’s daughters. Every July the girls embarked on a wheedling campaign to persuade Papa to take them out of Ravenshill and spare them the
suffocating tedium of another summer stuck at home. However much Mr Armitage valued education, though, he was not about to yield to the female argument that travel broadened the mind or to the
suggestion that the only way his daughters were going to find husbands was to net one on a beach somewhere, as if husband-hunting were as simple a sport as shrimping.

That summer neither Cassie nor her sister set up their customary cry to be transported to a fashionable seaside resort and the silence worried Cubby a whole lot more than their whining had ever
done.

‘What’s wrong with them, Norah?’ he enquired of his wife one evening when the girls had gone early upstairs. ‘Are they sulking?’

At the best of times Norah Armitage was a woman of remarkably few words. She answered, ‘Not sulking.’

‘What is it then? An ailment?’

‘No ailment.’

Norah Armitage cupped the buns of grey hair that protruded from the sides of her lace bonnet and gave them a little shake as if they were directly connected to a source of inspiration.

At length, she said, ‘Love.’

‘Love?’ Cubby shouted.

‘Infatuation.’

‘What? With whom?’

‘Reverend Montague.’

‘What’s Montague been up to?’ said Cubby in alarm. ‘I mean, what’s the fellow done to turn their silly heads?’

‘Montague doesn’t know,’ Norah said.

Norah Armitage was angular and tall, so much taller than her rotund little mate that Cubby had developed a habit of looking up at her even when they were both sitting down. The transformation
that marriage had wrought on the lively young governess whom he had met at Bible Assembly in the late Mr Calderon’s house almost twenty years ago had taken place so gradually that Cubby was
unaware of it. He sincerely believed that Norah had always been as stiff and reticent as she was now.

‘Doesn’t know?’ said Cubby. ‘Doesn’t know what?’

‘How much he has affected them.’

‘Of course he does. He must.’

Norah said nothing. Not for the first time Cubby Armitage was tempted to grasp those solid buns of hair and shake them to expedite communication.

‘Has he not encouraged them, Norah? Is that what you’re telling me?’

‘He doesn’t have to encourage them.’

‘They’re young, so young. Pippa, at least,’ Cubby said.

‘You married me at seventeen.’

‘That was different. You had – em – no one else to look out for you.’

Norah Armitage did not contradict him.

She sat, as she always did, absolutely upright, straight and stiff as a ramrod. The old-fashioned day-dress with its draped bodice and plump sleeves hung from her shoulders like leathers on a
drying-rack. She had become so desiccated, so bony that Cubby wondered if she were harbouring a wasting disease; yet she’d never had a day’s illness in her life apart from a few
unfortunate months all too soon after their wedding.

Cubby cleared his throat. ‘Are they ready for marriage?’

‘They’re ready.’

‘But they’re so young, Norah.’ Cubby sat up and planted an elbow on the table’s edge. Montague, you say?’

‘Infatuation,’ his wife repeated, adding, ‘it may come to nothing.’

‘Well, it’s a beginning, I suppose,’ Cubby said. ‘But Montague must have some inkling how they feel about him. I assume that a man of his calibre attracts female admirers
by the score. How may we discover if he’s – what? – aware of our daughters?’

‘Ask him.’

‘What do I ask him?’

‘If he’s in search of a wife.’

‘Oh, come now, Norah, that isn’t a topic I can raise without embarrassment. After all, he’s a clergyman. And he’s – what? – twenty years older than the girls.
Then there’s the matter of a dowry. He’s bound to require portion to go with a wife. I’m not sure I can scrape up the sort of sum he’ll expect.’

‘One thousand pounds.’

‘What?’

‘The sum your father invested in trust for each of the girls.’

‘It was nothing like a thousand.’

‘Seventeen years of accrued interest, Cuthbert,’ Norah stated. ‘If it isn’t a thousand pounds by now then you haven’t been doing your job.’

‘It’s – em – all tied up in stock,’ Cubby mumbled.

‘Then untie it,’ Norah said. ‘With Scotch pig selling at seventy-two shillings per ton you would be obliged to shed a mere three hundred tons at most.’

‘That isn’t how it’s done, Norah.’

Cubby opened his mouth to embark on an explanation of the intricacies of market trading then he thought better of it. He had always made a point of keeping his professional and domestic lives
separate and distinct.

He hemmed and hawed for a moment then said, ‘Even if Cassie does come generously endowed surely Robert Montague is well out of our reach?’

‘He’ll take her if he wants her badly enough.’

‘But they hardly know each other.’

‘Throw them together.’

‘How?’

‘Invite him to dinner.’

The frown vanished from Cubby Armitage’s brow.

‘Are you – I mean, do the girls like him?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Very well. In that case I will extend an invitation to the gentleman just as soon as he’s settled,’ Cubby said, then, frowning again, asked, ‘By the way, which one do
you think is right for him?’

‘Cassie,’ Norah Armitage replied and, to her husband’s surprise, added on an emphatic little nod and the whisper of a smile.

* * *

In Cubby’s opinion the problem with the doing of good works was that it inevitably involved contact with undesirable characters.

However much he browsed through texts on the meaning of charity, however much he sympathised in principle with the poor and needy, Cuthbert Armitage could not quite shake the feeling that the
poor and needy were essentially responsible for their own condition and should be encouraged to develop fortitude and self-reliance and not be given food, coals, clothing and an allocation of that
most valuable commodity, consideration.

He was emphatically in favour of mission work in the town’s mean back streets and applauded the efforts of lay preachers, such as Albert Lassiter, to provide succour for the town’s
down-and-outs. But he was not moved to visit the Lassiters’ mission and felt no compulsion to involve himself in ‘that sort of thing’. So shy was he of association with those who
were down on their luck that he had forbidden Norah and the girls from visiting the poorhouse orphans, even on Christmas Day and would have no truck with the beggars who occasionally came knocking
at the kitchen door.

As a result of Papa’s prejudice, the Armitage girls grew up in an environment that was not only sheltered but seemed almost detached from reality After the boys and girls with whom they
had attended dame-school went off to college, their lives became increasingly narrow. This situation had been bearable when Ravenshill had been a village but as the girls grew older and the town
expanded the house in Normandy Road became less like a home than a prison and even Cubby’s friends considered his children oppressed beyond anything that social grace demanded.

Cubby had his work in Glasgow and his kirk meetings to keep him occupied. His wife and daughters had nothing with which to divert themselves except what Cubby chose to allow them.

Norah’s domestic burdens were lightened by an elderly cook, Mrs McFarlane, and a succession of young girls hired from the workhouse to act as maids until marriage broke the chains of one
sort of servitude and carried them off into servitude of another kind.

For entertainment the Armitage ladies were permitted to call upon old Mrs Pitt, an eighty-year-old widow, Mrs Calderon, widow of the previous minister, old Miss Penrose, Miss McClean and the
spinster sisters Isa and Bella Coulter; a visiting list so hoary that Norah and her daughters felt as if they had been condemned to haunt these frowzy parlours as a punishment for unspecified
sins.

Even before the advent of Robert Montague there had been a few diversions to add lustre to the girls’ conversations and lead them to speculate on just what they were missing. Most
diverting of all had been the employment of Nancy Winfield, a lively young scullery maid whom Cubby had been persuaded to bring in from the workhouse. From Nancy the girls had learned of drunken
brawls between ironworkers and navvies, of unwanted babies and clandestine marriages between unsuitable partners and Nancy, an outspoken girl, might have carried into the Armitage house even more
instructive gossip if she had not been suddenly dismissed for reasons that Cubby had refused to explain.

The Armitage girls still missed Nancy’s cheerful company. Now and then they asked Cook for news of her but Mrs McFarlane professed to know nothing of the girl’s whereabouts.

By the summer of 1858, however, Nancy Winfield’s fate was the last thing on their minds, for conversations between Cassie and Pippa were devoted exclusively to the Reverend Robert
Montague’s impending arrival at their dinner table.

Robert – yes, he was Robert to them now – was all they talked about, indulging in speculation and mad little fancies which, like infants with a box of shells, they tumbled out and
rearranged endlessly.

‘What did it feel like?’ Pippa would ask. ‘His arm, I mean.’

‘Wonderful. Like a piece of wrought iron.’

‘Do you think he’ll take your arm a