As they all took a seat, the little maid brought in tea and biscuits, and the superintendent listened avidly as Lady Huntley told Cissie’s sad tale, as Cissie had asked her to.

‘How disgusting that the person who was there to be in charge of your welfare should abuse you,’ the kindly man said chokily to Cissie when the tale was told, before blowing his nose heartily to hide his emotion. ‘And now you are hoping to try and trace the child that you gave birth to within these walls?’

‘Yes, please, sir.’ Cissie’s eyes were overly bright, and his heart went out to her. She was a middle-aged woman now but she had been merely a child then. How she must have suffered over the nearly three years she had been incarcerated here under a cruel regime.

‘Then I suggest that as soon as we have finished our tea we go to the office and see if there is anything that might help us in the files,’ he declared, and Cissie nodded eagerly. Soon after, she and Lavinia followed him back along the corridor to his office, which was dominated by a huge desk. Behind it was a tall bank of cupboards which was where all the files were kept.

‘Now, according to what you have told me, you must have been admitted here late in 1880. That’s all of thirty-four years ago, but your details should be here.’ He placed a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose and began to check the dates on each of the cupboard doors. It seemed to take for ever but at last, when he was almost at the end of the wall, he cried triumphantly, ‘Aha! Here we are, Admissions, 1880. And your name was Cissie Burns, you say?’

‘Yes, that’s right, Mr Wilkins.’ Cissie held her breath as he began to flick through a number of dusty folders. At one point he stopped and removed one of the folders.

‘I think this is it. Burns, admitted from the Nuneaton Union Workhouse in November 1880.’ He blew on the folder, sending a cloud of dust into the air, making Cissie realise just how very long ago this had been. Her son would be almost thirty-four years old now, a grown man possibly with a family of his own. She could even be a grandma, for all she knew.

Mr Wilkins began to read the papers, his brow creased with concentration. ‘It says you were a very disruptive inmate who was a threat to yourself and others. It was recommended by the doctor at the time that you should be restrained and that you should regularly undergo water treatment to calm you down.’

He carried on reading, but Cissie no longer heard the words. For a while she was back in that unspeakable world, in which she had prayed for death to come and claim her … But I must stop thinking of that, she told herself sternly. That is not what I am here for.