He had thrown me, truth be told, with that remark. I didn’t want to tell anyone any of my plans, for it never bode well for me. I nodded, folding my arms in front of me. Absent-mindedly I must have stroked or patted my belly. Upstairs, Joan had been watching me from the window, wondering, no doubt, why I was talking to the stable boy.

When I got back to the room she stood, hands clenched at her sides. She had been through my belongings. She had pulled my creel from under my bed and had gone through it. The linen bolt, pure white and clean, now lay spread across my bed. The box of pins opened. The bonnet beside it.

She regarded me with fresh eyes, narrow and suspicious, resting on my belly.

‘You are fat,’ she said. ‘Fat with a child.’

‘That’s no one’s business but mine,’ I replied.

‘Let me see,’ she insisted, coming towards me and putting her hands on me. She felt me, her hands pressing against me. ‘You are far gone,’ she gasped, leaping back. She looked scared.

‘I am not so far gone,’ I told her. ‘I am a few months gone, that’s all.’

She shook her head and cupped her hands over my stomach again.

‘Maggie, you are well gone. That smock hides it, but your breasts are huge and your belly’s like a turnip.’

‘What do you know about these matters?’ I retorted. ‘Nothing. You are no midwife. You know nothing of birthing.’

‘I’ve seen plenty of the fishwives at the end of their pregnancies,’ she said. ‘And that is what you look like. When did you last bleed? We need to work it out.’

‘I’ve another three months to go,’ I told her. ‘But it must stay a secret. Things are strict here. The Baxters think me unwed. They are under scrutiny from the parish officers, who don’t like this inn. The officials think it immoral, with all the comings and goings of folk, and they keep a close eye on all of us. If anyone was to suspect I was with child, it would be disastrous. I can’t support the child myself, with no husband. I could be put in the House of Correction, Joan.’

‘But you are married,’ she said. ‘You have done nothing wrong. Simply tell the truth.’

‘How could I do that?’ I cried. ‘I would be whipped for such lies. I have got myself into a bit of mess, that much is true, but I will get myself out of it, just as I have always looked after myself.’

‘Well, we need to go home and that is all there is to it.’

‘No, Joan. You go home and I am going to London. That is my plan. Your coming here has not changed it one bit.’

‘I am going nowhere yet,’ she retorted.