‘I’ve checked the blouses in my drawers too,’ she admitted. ‘And everything is in order. In fact, Horrocks says that your sister called earlier with this parcel for you. It’s cloth for the new one you’re to make for Mrs Pickering.’ She held out the package and Hannah made her wait a moment before stepping forward to take it. ‘As for the other matter …’ Mrs Feilden paused. ‘I was disappointed by that, Hannah. You did take a chopping board from the kitchen without Cook’s permission and you hid it in your room. And as for the writing – well, writing is a good skill to have if it’s used properly, but I can’t condone the writing of the fanciful drivel that I found in your room. It’s not the sort of thing that I would expect to find in my house and it has no place here. I don’t know whether you have been wasting your money on penny novels as well as on paper and pencils, but such reading matter is to be abhorred. A fanciful and overactive imagination is a dangerous thing, Hannah, and I must counsel you to guard against it. Turn your mind to better things as you go about your work, and if you must read and write in your spare time then stick to the scriptures and don’t allow yourself to be led astray by things that will corrupt your mind. I will overlook it this time,’ she went on as if she were doing Hannah a great favour, which Hannah supposed she was if she’d decided not to dismiss her after all. ‘You are a diligent worker and I would like to give you another chance, but you must promise me that there will be no more story-writing. Will you promise me that?’

Hannah looked up and met her eyes, but didn’t reply immediately. It was a promise that she was unwilling to make. Those stories meant so much to her that the loss of them was like losing her friends. But if she defied Mrs Feilden and continued to write and was found out then it would mean dismissal without a doubt.

Mrs Feilden pursed her lips in the way she did when she was annoyed. ‘If you cannot promise then I don’t think you will be able to continue with us,’ she warned Hannah. ‘Come now. It is something so trivial that I’m not sure why you are being stubborn about it.’

Hannah knew that Mrs Feilden would never understand. But she needed this job. How would she ever explain to Jennet and Titus if she was dismissed over this?

‘I promise,’ she whispered, although she kept her fingers crossed behind her back.

Hannah knew that there was another Reform meeting that evening. The radicals were meeting every night now, in the run-up to the election. She wanted to go to the Star to check on Mary, but Cook shook her head.

‘There’s too much to do,’ she told her.