'She signs the paper with a reluctant, self conscious 'S', for her name is Sarah and she can neither read nor write. At fifteen, and after three years of service at Barlborough, she will be free from S for scullery maid, servant and sexual object as she enters, not from love of from choice, her marriage to Jame. The no-longer bastard child kicks inside her: a gentleman's seed or a coal miner's? It matters little, for only one roof will give it a name - a miner's cottage and sixty pounds a year. It's the best she can do.' (Introduction)