I felt power in the word womenfolk. In their mouths, it was used to diminish us; in mine, it was an amplification. I could push it no further in that meeting room, though, the idea of our collective strength, our potential. To win, I needed to bring them back onside, make them see the reason in my argument, make this the Brothers’ decision all along.

‘I am a good and godly woman, am I not?’ They were silent. ‘Make your nods loud for the recording, please, gentlemen.’

‘Aye,’ said Saul Cooper, the only man present to know this wasn’t true.

‘Aye,’ said Jed, an agreement delivered in a tone that suggested his vote meant nothing.

‘I am a pure-born Larkian and much-loved daughter of this Council, am I not?’

‘Aye, Miss Cedars,’ said Mr Crane, his voice low, pointing me to the paradox – my being a much-loved daughter made this crime of speaking up all the more grave.

‘And as someone who holds a distinguished post at the school, and as a woman, I am best qualified to tell these girls of womanly ways and how they might return to them. Do I hear any objections?’

There was only silence in the room.

Outside on the cobbles, Viola’s dog keened loudly for the return of her mistress and I felt a sudden, painful connection with the animal. I too wanted to howl, bring everyone running.

‘Then the motion is carried,’ I said, as calmly as I was able. ‘Is there any other business?’

Transfiguration 2018

TRANSFIGURATION 2018

The daughter said that the reward of sin is death. She said this about her own father.

His body was but six weeks in the ground and already she sought to condemn him, calling his demise a correction by the Lord. No other hand was involved in the too-early passing of Peter Cedars, according to this one-time beloved daughter of the Council, the man merely submitted to God’s mercy for his wicked acts.

‘Hearken unto thy father that begat thee!’ was the scripture wielded in response around the island’s tea urns.

‘Honour they father and thy mother, that thy days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee!’ said those who really wanted to show off.

The curate with the spiky hair, if ever she bumped up against this talk, would come back with: ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.’

She said this within the chapel walls, and she repeated it at the Anchor at the weekend, one eyebrow raised – an eyebrow that suggested, as heathens do, that the bible can be interpreted to prove just about anything.

She was challenged, of course, asked outright, ‘Are you contradicting the word of the Council?’

To which the curate responded with a question in return. ‘Is that what it sounds like to you?’