I stand for a moment, dizzy from my travels around the room, from the twist of events that have led me to be in this stranger’s house, wearing her clothes. She begins to busy herself with food preparation, and I fetch my own clothes from the bedroom. I dawdle, unsure whether to change back into them.

Bett wipes her hands down her apron, brushes an escaped strand of hair from her face. ‘Leave them on,’ she says. ‘Show him.’

In the doorway I turn to her, this woman I don’t know, who has dressed and washed me and spoken with me as one of her own. ‘I don’t know how to—’

She cuts me off. ‘No need. You’re buying some bits of clothes from me, is all.’

I nod, as grateful for the words as the clothes.

‘Your mam helped us once,’ she says. ‘When we were first wed and Nathaniel’s nets were empty as often as not. She placed a charm on the boat and told us which parts of the sea were more generous. We’ve not gone hungry a day since.’

Walking away, shoes scuffing and scraping along the ground, I hear her call after me.

‘Walk, don’t waddle.’

Peddled a Dream

She stood at the riverbank, the woman, looking out over the water as the sun set, and he knew it was Sarah. The way her chin tilted, the straightness of her back. His mother’s neckerchief wrapped around her shoulders. He knew it but did not feel it.

He took her hand, turned her to face him. Still the same narrow fingers in his own, still the same turbulent eyes looking out from under the coif. Larger, they seemed, skin more pale and clear with her hair pulled away. The nape of her neck exposed now, a whisper of dark hair grazing the skin there. He knew the feel of it, and it was for him alone. He resented the gaze of others on this part of her.

She was still Sarah, still his, but as she would have been. The Sarah of another life. He longed, briefly, to see her in rags again, hair wild and raging in the wind. To put stop to this brave and treacherous plan.

He smiled, taking both her hands and spreading her arms wide, looked her up and down.

‘Beautiful,’ he said. ‘Yes. They will all be charmed.’

‘Will they know it’s me?’

‘No. Only I will.’

As they spoke, walked and ate bread spread thick with butter, she became more herself to him. She wearing the costume with more comfort, he seeing her through it. She looked now like any village girl. But she could never be.

‘Have you shown your family?’ he asked, reaching past the edge of the coif to stroke her cheek.

‘Not yet.’

‘They will like it,’ he said. And then, unsure, ‘Do you think they will like it?’