The Doorstep Girls [antikvár]

CHAPTER ONEThe two girls sat side by side on the doorstep, their knees drawn up and chins resting in their hands. They both stared vacantly into space without speaking. It was midsummer in 1848, and the dank and narrow court was humid and sticky. It stank of putrid decay, sewage, and of seed oil and blubber drifting in from the mills situated close by along the river Hull. The ground beneath their bare feet was unpaved and muddy yet they chose to sit outside on the stone slab, with their cotton skirts tucked under them, rather than be indoors; they had both been inside mill walls since six o'clock that morning and it was now seven o'clock in the evening.'I'm hungry,' Ruby muttered. 'I've had nowt to eat since this morning and that was onny a bit o' bread.' Her face was pinched and white, and made more colourless by the contrast of her dark hair, which strayed from beneath her cotton cap and across her forehead.'Did you take no dinner to work?' Grace asked, and when Ruby shook her head, said anxiously, 'Shall I ask Ma if she's got any broth to spare?'