arah poured tea into two china cups of expensive porcelain decorated with briar roses. The delicately painted pink petals made her think of the rosehip tea her grandmother had made them all drink during the winter months to ward off coughs and colds. She now spent considerably more time drinking tea than merely pouring it for others, but unlike the other married ladies of the New Town, could not imagine being satisfied by a future wherein tea drinking would occupy so much of her time. She preferred to work and to study, which was just as well as such solitary pursuits did not tend to garner many friends.

Mrs Glassford sat opposite her in a high-backed chair, a mound of cushions supporting her back, her swollen feet elevated on an embroidered stool. Sarah handed a cup to her companion and noticed as she did so that Mrs Glassford’s tremulous grip caused a little spillage into the saucer. She was barely eating anything at all now, subsisting mainly on tea and thin soup. A pauper’s diet.

‘Have you thought any more about Dr Simpson’s offer?’ Sarah asked.

‘Of moving into a room at Queen Street? It is kind of him to suggest it, but I manage well enough here. I have a housemaid to assist me.’

‘Do you receive any visitors?’

‘None in addition to your good self. I know so few people here that I am left entirely unmolested. I am at liberty to spend my time as I choose, which I consider to be a great luxury.’

‘Your family are all in Glasgow?’

‘My parents reside there, but I doubt that they know where I am. Family ties have been severed for some time.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It was the price I paid for choosing my own path.’

‘Your own path?’

Sarah felt the usual tension provoked by such snippets of information – polite rectitude straining against a ravenous curiosity. When your own life had been so limited, the exploits of others became a source of fascination.

‘I refused to marry the man my father had so carefully selected for me. A man of property who saw me in much the same way: an object to be owned, an acquisition. He was considerably older than I was, self-obsessed and controlling. I despised him.’

‘Did your father know this? The reasons why you did not want to marry?’

‘My opinion was irrelevant. Or so I was told. I was accused of being difficult, obstructive. But I had no wish to become an ornamental fixture with nothing to do but supervise servants and produce male heirs – “A toy of man who must jingle in his ear whenever he chooses to be amused.” Wollstonecraft said that.’

Sarah was unfamiliar with the quote and the lack of recognition must have shown on her face.