I hesitated. ‘A gentleman’s education can’t magic up a gentleman’s life. No more than a poet’s education can magic up a poet’s talent.’

He jerked his head down again. ‘Indeed! Indeed, Frances.’ He nodded, patted himself on the chest. Some men, if you say something clever to them, always believe it is their own trick. He turned to his paper, lifted his quill again. Behind him, books hunkered shoulder to shoulder, like cannons. ‘He went out for the Royal Society, you know – young Williams – and they knocked him back because of his race. You do know what the Society is?’

‘The scientists. Nullius in verba. Take nobody’s word.’

Another trick, the Latin. He gobbled it up. ‘Bravo! Bravo! Nullius in verba.’

‘You and Langton corresponded,’ I blurted. ‘About Crania ‒’

‘Ah. Yes. I gather you’re the one who wrote me back. It was my idea for you to be educated, you know. A sort of wager.’

‘A wager?’ The word shattered in my head like glass.

‘So you could say you’ve come full circle, haven’t you, Langton leaving you with me?’ A dry laugh. ‘The Lord moves in mysterious ways.’ He turned to write something else down. ‘What do you make of young Williams’s tale?’

I quailed, thinking of Paradise. The coach-house. The things that had been done there. I had been a machine. Their machine. An automaton. Wind them up and make them move. Because I’d been up on my high horse, and had a bit of learning. Because Langton permitted me the books. Because of a scheme they’d cooked up between them. Was that any better than whoring myself for coins or scraps of bread?

I made my next words slow. Made sure nothing showed in my face. ‘What I think, sir, is that Mr Williams learned that the price of an education is different depending on who you are.’

‘Yes. Yes, yes. And you’ve been a veritable English schoolboy yourself –’

‘I have, and I have not.’

He narrowed his eyes. ‘Meaning?’

‘I learned whatever would be useful to Langton, sir, whereas I’m sure the object of educating a schoolboy is to teach him something that would be useful to him.’

‘You were an apprentice. Of sorts.’

‘More of a scribe.’

‘Caliban to his Prospero!’ He needled his eyes through me. ‘If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off?’

‘Pardon?’

‘If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out? But you and I know a thing or two about man’s imperfections, don’t we, gel? Man’s nastiest sins? We know a thing or two about atonement as well.’

With only myself for company in this cell, I’m driven always to think about what they say I’ve done. To wonder whether that strange encounter with Benham might have been the start of it, a straight path from there to that awful night. For this is where my anger started. Learning that the pair of them had toyed with me, like small boys pulling the wings off moths. Wondering if Benham was the same as Langton. Wondering what he might want from me. For so many years I had told myself that if my path ever crossed his I’d make sure he felt it. And then my courage had failed me when I’d had my chance.