‘We can’t just stay here for ever,’ she said miserably, after a time. ‘And don’t you want things to be better – to make it up with Father? It’s like an open wound. I can’t just . . .’ Her anger of that morning seemed to have withered away and now she could feel the tears rising in her, her self-doubt returning and the cold formality of her father’s letter wounding her all over again.

‘What I want, just at this moment,’ Annie said, pushing up on to her elbow again, ‘is to go to sleep. But yes – I do want to go back there. For a bit, anyway. It’s our home. I miss the village. I miss the people – well, some of them. We need to grant forgiveness – but only when he apologizes. And I tell you another thing I’ve decided.’

Margaret looked at her, startled.

‘I don’t want to go back and live there and be expected to be a teacher and find some pious man to marry. I don’t want to marry. So even if I do go home, I shan’t be staying. God speaks to me – and not through Father or anybody else.’

Margaret stared at her, astonished.

‘I shall be eighteen next year. I think . . .’ She said it as if she had only just thought of it. ‘I might become a nurse – like Miss Nightingale. I think . . .’ She spoke with increasing conviction. ‘I – think it might be the thing I’m best at. I’m not . . . I know now I’m no preacher. I’d rather preach by doing – by helping people.’

Margaret felt a moment of panic. Annie, going off to do something so daring, so full of risk! Annie, leaving her alone! But she was not sure whether to take this seriously. Annie was always full of madcap schemes.

‘Heavens,’ she said, not wanting to indulge this too much. She began plaiting the other side of her hair. ‘You’re certainly full of ideas.’