Sarah felt a slight twinge as she stood up again, her hand going involuntarily to the site of her scar. She recalled her introduction to Mrs Glassford, presenting at Queen Street with an apparent pregnancy that bore not new life but her own death.

Sarah’s thoughts turned to her own doomed pregnancy, lodged in the wrong place. She should have died too, she knew. All those days she had spent wondering how long Archie had left, oblivious that inside her, the clock was ticking down to her own quite unexpected end. Though she had lost Archie and lost the child, she knew that every day from this one was time she was not supposed to have. She owed it to Mrs Glassford, to Archie, and to herself, that she should make of it everything that she possibly could.

Foremost in her mind of late had been the names of two other women: Charlotte Siebold and Elizabeth Blackwell.

It was a cold morning, with a blustery wind whipping off the river, but that also meant there was no fog, meaning she could see all the way across the Forth to Fife.

Sarah’s view had never been clearer.

She had lived such a little life, its boundaries extending no further north than Perth, no further south than Musselburgh. Until speaking with Mrs Glassford, she had never even thought about those geographical boundaries, had fixed instead upon the other restraints that had been placed upon her. Sarah had been excluded from lessons on all but sewing and cooking since the age of eleven, even though she had outstripped the boys in every subject. Raven, by contrast, had been all over Europe, educating himself at the greatest institutions.

She had been like an incurious prisoner with no notion of the richness, breadth and wonder of the lands beyond the walls inside which she was confined. But now Mrs Glassford had shown her the gate, and Archie had given her the key.

EIGHTY

aven was sitting at his desk surrounded by piles of paper. He had not thought that Quinton would be missed, but since his departure the general disorganisation that plagued Dr Simpson’s affairs had returned. Raven sighed, put his pen down and rubbed his eyes. He looked at the clock on the mantelpiece and then checked the time on his pocket watch, calculating how long Sarah had been gone.

He got up from behind his desk, stretched to ease the ache in his shoulders, and walked to the window. He looked out into the street hoping for some sign of her but there was none. He felt a now familiar creeping anxiety about where she might be and what might have happened to her. He was struggling to rid himself of a constant sense of foreboding. He knew it was irrational – she had recovered from her illness – but black thoughts persisted nonetheless.