Anne nodded while she wiped her tears. She looked at Mrs. Blacke as if the woman was a life line. "Thank ye, I hope she would..."

"I know she would." Lottie eased herself back into her own seat. The older woman paused for a moment to collect herself with a gentle sigh as Anne's pain touched her emotions deeply. Such a heavy burden for young shoulders to carry. Lottie couldn't change the world, but she might make Anne's a little better.

"Now, Anne. I want ye ta listen. Things aren't easy fer ye now, and they're not likely to be any easier soon either, but I want ye to know ye can come ta me to talk. We can 'ave tea, any time. Bout family troubles, fisher problems... boys." she smiled at that last point. "Ye're never alone dear. Do ye understand?"

Such an offer would be expected of a mother to her own daughter, but Anne didn't one and Lottie would be damned if yet another girl, this one so near to her, be forsaken and cast out into this cruel world. She owed Hannah that much at least.

Anne looked at Mrs. Blacke intently and nodded. She blushed slightly when the woman mentioned boys, but she was more embarrassed about not liking them much yet than about liking them. "Thank you, Mrs. Blacke."

She held her breath as there was something begging to be said, but she didn't know quite how to ask for help. She bit her lip, frowned, made her cup turn round slowly on the table while she mustered up the courage.

"There is one thing... a question..." She looked up at Mrs. Blacke briefly. "Don't tell anyone I asked, please, but... Do you know how people get a divorce?"

Lottie frowned deeply. What a grown up question from someone so young. She gently let air out from her cheeks. Divorce, the idea of freedom from an awful, or unwise marriage. Appealing? Yes. But at the cost of personal ruin, so maybe not.

"I really don't know, dear. Probably go an see someone who knows the law, but it's a very, very hard thing ta do. Why do ye ask?"

Anne was a little disappointed. She had somehow convinced herself that a grown up would know these things. She cast her eyes down and plucked at a small healing cut in her finger she had made while skaning mussels. "Our Alice got married, but she's miserable..." Anne confessed in a small voice.

Lottie sipped her tea before answering. Plenty of girls and women found themselves there. A lump caught in her own throat she was miserable in her own marriage, but she couldn't tell Anne that. What good would it do anyway?

"I'm sorry to hear that, dear." Lottie responded softly, placing her hand over Anne's to stop her picking her scab. "Did Alice tell you this herself?"

Anne looked up at Mrs. Blacke shortly when the woman put a hand on hers, but she looked down again and frowned. She pressed her lips together as she thought of how to answer. It was all so confusing. "She won't talk to me the way she used to. She says she's happy, and she lives in such great comfort now and she's fortunate, but she's only sayin' that to protect me. Sometimes she's honest, and she says she'll die. She's..." She began to cry again, for the image of her sister being reduced to no more that a shell came before her mind's eye once again. But it was hard to explain. "She's nowt like what she used to be. I can see she doesn't like him and 'e doesn't like 'er! I don't think 'e's treatin' 'er right. 'e took 'er shell, so she can't listen to t' sea anymore!"

"I am sorry Anne, dear." Lottie could see how the unhappiness of Alice's married life was affecting young Anne. Lottie herself had seen her one of her own sisters in a similar problem, so there was was sympathy along with the tea and the cake. She felt so helpless, so trapped. The thought made her sick to her stomach. What could she do? Wife of a railway worker who could read the bible, write her name, and add a shopping bill?

Lottie herself had walked past the odd middle class woman protesting something like being equal or votes for women in her time. Right words, but talk was cheap. And what of Alice and god knows how many others like her out there living in world that scorned them. like some endless bad dream. Lottie's shoulders slumped and shook her head.

"Anne," Lottie began "Yer growin' up. Soon enough ye'll a young lass yerself. When yer grown, you'll find there are rules that 'ave been made and I'm afraid, with Alice yer seeing things they way they are now. Doesn't make it right and it doesn't mean it won't change, it's just the way it is right now and there's nowt much ye can do."

There's nowt much ye can do.

Anne felt like her world was crumbling down and she began to sob uncontrollably. Ever since the wedding, she had held out hope that somehow she would find a way to save her sister. Sometimes her hope was but a flickering small flame, but it was always there and it made all of this somehow bearable, a little bit. Mrs. Blacke telling her so plainly that there were systems and structures above her power to change knocked the breath out of her.

"No! I have to save her!" she gasped in between her sobs. "There must be something that can be done."

Lottie didn't know what else could be done, she closed her eyes and answered mournfully.

"I'm sorry, Anne."