‘I don’t think he’ll leave us behind,’ I said slowly. A noise like thunder rolled in my inner ears. ‘But there is no telling what he would do,’ I said. I was afraid but I could not have named my fear. ‘There is no knowing, Dandy. Don’t upset him, will you?’

Dandy sighed. Her fear was gone as soon as she had expressed it to me. ‘I can handle him,’ she said arrogantly. ‘He’s just a man like any other.’

I heard the slats of her bunk creak as she turned over and went to sleep. I did not sleep, even though I was tired. I lay awake, my hands behind my head, looking with unseeing eyes at the ceiling which was so near my face, pattering softly with the sound of light rain. I lay and listened to the rain on the canvas and I thought it told me in a hundred tiny voices that Dandy was wrong. She could not manage Robert like any man. Indeed she could not manage men: even while she picked their pockets they were getting her cheap. She thought she was managing them; she prided herself on her skill. But they were cheating her – enjoying watching or fingering a pretty gypsy virgin, and cheap, very cheap indeed.

I shuddered and drew the covers closer up under my chin. The rain pattered softly, whispering like a priest in a Popish confession that there was only one safety for Dandy and me and that was to get away from this life altogether. To get away from the showgrounds and the fairs. To get away from the gawping villages and the street-corner mountebanks. I wanted to be safe with Dandy, safe in a Quality life with clean sheets, and good food on the table, fine dresses and days of leisure. Horses for riding, dogs for hunting, little canaries in cages and nothing to do all day but talk and sew and read and sing.

I wanted that life for Dandy and me – to save her from the world of the showgrounds and from the life of a whore. And for me: because I did not know what I would become. I could not stay in my boy’s breeches and care for horses for ever. Jack was a warning to me as much as a threat. He might desire me a little, in his vain coquettish way. But other men might desire me more. I could keep my hair cropped and green eyes down, but that would not save me. There was no one in my life who would fight to keep me safe, or who would refuse a good price for me.

There was only one place where I would be safe. There was only one place where I could take Dandy and give her the things which delighted her and yet keep her from danger – Wide.

I knew it was my home.

I knew it was my refuge.