“I was a boy, apprenticed in Paris, miss, when it happened in eighteen thirty—that’s the meaning of the date engraved here. A sister at the convent there, Catherine Labouré, was visited twice by Our Blessed Lady the Virgin Mary, and received a design for the medallion in a vision.” He brought the medallion to the long windows so that Charlotte could see it in the light. “You see here how Our Lady is pictured radiant as the sun, crushing a serpent beneath her feet, offering the faithful protection in all her perfect beauty? And here the grace of Our Lady comes forth in celestial beams from her hands to those who invite it into their soul. The Holy Mother’s arms are open wide to show us that she is the mother of God and of us all. The inscription is about her purity, her conception without sin. She is standing on a globe, which shows us she has ascended to heaven. And on the reverse stand twelve stars for the apostles, and also the crown of stars, as mentioned in the Book of Revelation.”

“Book of Revelation,” Charlotte repeated, under her breath. The mystery and symbolic mysticism of that book had long fascinated her; there was a rather beguiling magic to it that frightened her as much as it intrigued her, for the secrets to the end of time were held among its pages.

“The entwined cross and bar on the back show her closeness with Our Lord as his mother. The left heart is the Sacred Heart, Our Lord who died for the sins of all; on the right the Immaculate Heart, which intercedes for those who sin, and the flames—the burning love that Our Lord and Lady have for us. It is a powerful object of holy protection.”

“Is it really?” Charlotte took the pendant back and looked at it, entranced by the idea that slipping the brass chain around her neck could protect her from sin, from evil. It made the circumstances under which the medallion had come to light seem all the more confounding.

“Are they very common?” Charlotte asked.

“Very,” Eamon told her. “There was a great deal of cholera in Paris not long after, and millions of the medals were made, but those who wore them and who turned to the true faith were saved. There are those in Leeds and Bradford and closer who wear them for protection against disease, though I haven’t seen so many here as I did in France.”

“Thank you, Eamon,” Charlotte said. “You have been most helpful. Only if Mr. Heaton should ask, would you mind telling him that I asked about looms? It’s just a rather delicate matter that as the daughter of an Anglican parson I would rather keep to myself.”