When he left her, Annette lay on the bed amid the soiled sheets considering and discarding ideas of escape. Nothing in the world would make her return to St Luke’s orphanage, where she had spent her first thirteen miserable years. She had been deposited on the doorstep as a baby, left to the mercy of the nuns. Nothing would induce her to let that happen to any child of hers. She had no idea of what to do or where to go, but she was determined it would not be back through those forbidding doors. Clearly Father Thomas was taking no responsibility for his child. He had too much to lose if his behaviour became known – his reputation, his authority as a priest, even his livelihood.

She still feared his threats of hellfire, but set against that fear was her instinct to protect her unborn child. She had never in her life had anyone to love, but now, growing inside her was a baby who would rely on her for everything. Hers and hers alone.

She lay awake throughout the night, but all she had decided as a pink-and-pearl dawn began to lighten the eastern sky was that when Father Thomas crossed the square to the church for early morning Mass, she would leave the house and take her chances in the world outside. The service would not be a long one and when Father Thomas returned from the church he would expect his breakfast to be waiting for him on the table.

Well, thought Annette. Let him wait!

Quietly she got up and gathered her few possessions together before emptying the sack that served as her pillow and packing them into it. From under a loose floorboard, she retrieved the few coins she had gleaned over the years, nearly six francs, and knotting them into her kerchief, thrust them into her bosom.

She crept out onto the landing and listened for the priest’s departure. She could hear him moving about downstairs, going into his study and for some reason into the kitchen and then, finally, the sound of the front door shutting behind him.

For a long moment Annette waited, the silence of the house closing round her. Suppose he’d forgotten something and came back? She shuddered at the thought, but when the silence remained unbroken, she picked up her bag and tiptoed downstairs. She paused in the hall, wondering for one moment if she were being incredibly stupid, thrusting herself out into an unforgiving world. However, the thought of Father Thomas forcing her to go back to St Luke’s was enough to stiffen her resolve, and she reached for the door handle. Turning it, she tried to pull the door open, but it wouldn’t move. It wasn’t bolted, but she realised with a jolt that it was locked. The key was not hanging on its daytime hook beside the door; Father Thomas had locked it from the outside and taken the key.

He’s locked me in! she thought as she rattled the door handle in futile panic. He’s locked me in! She put down her bundle and ran to the kitchen door, which opened out into the narrow lane that ran alongside the house. Again, the bolts were not drawn, but the door was locked and the key was missing. She was a prisoner in the house. Tears of frustration filled her eyes as she pulled at the handle in vain.