We need to talk, but not right now. I have done you a disservice and wish to make it better. I don't think I can, but I would do whatever you ask if it makes it right with you. Please take these coins, hold on to them, and wait for me to summon you. All will be explained the way you deserve it.

All night the words of Andrew’s short message like ghosts had rattled her to near insanity. Countless scenarios had materialized and dematerialized within her sleepless mind, each more dreadful than the last. She went to bed more than once that night, but each time she only found herself tossing and turning, until the mere approach of slumber unleased the worst of her imagination: ominous divinations of meaning, doomed prophecies, ghastly and terrifying like gargoyles, that preyed and feasted on her feverish mind, until she would sit up resolutely, toss the damp blanket aside and light her bedside lamp in an attempt to dispel them. They dispersed, but sat waiting for her in darkness and slumber, just outside the circle of light.

She would get out of bed to rouse herself. Start pacing. It couldn’t be quite so bad. Wasn’t quite so bad. Stopping at every real or imagined noise to listen for the turn of a key, the door opening downstairs, Andrew’s heavy footfalls, his distinct pattern of breathing. At one point, she could even make out the scent of his skin. But each time she stood at the top of the stairs and raised her lamp high to peer into the shadowy room below, she found it undisturbed but for the shadows that danced under the flicker of her lamp. It was only her mind playing tricks. Pacing again. Free hand pressing her bosom. Learning to distinguish the creaking of the floorboard under her feet from imagined returns. Running the cryptic words through her mind, over and over. Then picking up the letter again, holding it close to the lamp, prying each word apart for some inkling of Andrew’s meaning.

What disservice had he done her? Was it his persistent neglect of her that he was speaking of? Or had he been unfaithful? ‘Surely not so soon,’ her waking mind deflected, while slumber-spectres flaunted the young, pretty assistant Andrew had been teaching a little too hands-on for her liking and conjured up more explicit images still. Or had he fallen in with the wrong crowd and gotten himself into some kind of trouble? Was he being threatened or blackmailed? Had he committed some crime and was he now a fugitive? What if he had killed someone? Slumber had remembered what had never been truly laid to rest. Cold sweats had followed. Nausea and tears and helplessness. How was she to bear it a second time?

And yet there was something else too filling her eyes with tears, as she peered and pried once again into the depths behind each word. He spoke as if he still loved her. There was such respect and consideration for her in his words. All these weeks, nay, months now, she had felt so unloved, so unseen. But Andrew cared about her!

What a terrible time for him to be hanged.

Shortly before dawn, she broke, sinking onto the floor in desperate sobs. Her gasps resonated throughout the quiet house. It had been quiet for so very long. Why was Andrew doing this to her? Why had he kept secrets for so long? She had made her mistakes, but why had he punished her with silence so relentlessly? Why did he torment her with such an ominous message now? Where had he gone? What was going to happen now? What would become of her? Surely she could not live through another heartbreak? Why was she only ever allowed a few fleeting moments of happiness before disaster struck? How she wished she could rip her heart out and continue to live without it! Cold, unfeeling people surely didn’t hurt so much? Much better to have never known love, to have never seen the traces of true joy in her life, to have never felt the warmth of hope in her breast at each recognition, than to know what was lost. How could she bear it?

By the time the sun rose, she had recovered and had washed her face and dressed. She was a Ward woman, before she was Mrs. Willaby, bred and raised to endure hardship and rise above it, as so many women in her family had done before her. Her face was still pale and puffy and her heart was breaking, but she would not succumb to despair, much less to self-pity. A solution would simply need to be found to whatever the problem was. Then this too could and would be borne.

But she needed someone to talk to. She never spoke of personal matters to Maggie, and Anne was too young to understand these matters. She’d rather die than involve her father. That crossed off any other Whitby woman in her family, as she couldn’t trust them to keep it from him. What she needed was a friend - one who wouldn’t gossip or judge her.

Pearl.

Pearl had no ties to her community. Pearl didn’t judge, for she knew all too personally how it felt to be judged. Pearl was happily married; that was the one hurdle, for in the past months, Rose had discovered within her own heart short flare-ups of jealousy over her friend’s happiness. But this was a small matter now. She longed for her friend and if she stayed in her own mind now, she would surely go mad.

And so she put on her coat and hat like it was a normal day, pocketed the message, and made her way over to the Blackes’ home on Oswy street, taking the long way round to avoid the harbour. Once she reached the door, she paused for a second to take a deep breath and repress her surging emotions. Then she knocked.

With the men away at work - Bill to the railway, Joe to the fire station, John to wherever he got to these days - , the women had the house to themselves. The gentle knock at the door roused Lottie's tired bones from their domestic slumber. Lottie made her way to the door. It was not the old biddy from down the street or a member of the boy's brigade searching for a bob, but Rose Willaby

Lottie had been one of the older women to keep an eye on Rose in her girlhood, who had been too old for the constant care needed by a babe. As Rose had grown, Lottie had become distracted by her own growing family, though she remembered young Rose and her Joe looked sweet together. Pearl was grand, but Rose would have done too.

"Hello Rose. If yer lookin' fer Anne, she's not 'ere." Lottie answered aware that her house had become a haven for the youngest Ward daughter.

Pearl was in the chamber she and her husband shared. She had told Joe about their child and she had gotten overwhelmed. After resting, she decided it was probably a good idea to get a doctor to check her. The sound of voices erased those thoughts for now. She appeared behind her mother a good distance away.

In her despair, she had somehow imagined Pearl to open the door. Of course it was Mrs. Blacke. Rose remembered her well from her childhood. Mrs. Blacke had been good friends with her mother. But after her mother had died, she had seen less of Mrs. Blacke. They had all had their pain and daily cares to deal with.

"Good morning, Mrs. Blacke," she said, trying to sound cheerful, though her voice was small and hoarse. "No, actually, I was looking for Pearl. Is she in?" Her heart was beating so loud, Rose was certain it could be heard on her breath. Her sight blurred so that she did not notice Pearl in the back.