‘It’s a girl. She looks too fragile,’ whimpered Joan. ‘She does not look right.’

‘Fetch a physician,’ I wept. I tried to stand up, but my legs trembled. Blood bloomed across the bed. ‘There’s a Dr McTavish in a cottage down the street. He will help.’

‘Put the baby to your breast,’ said Joan. ‘Swaddle her. She will be all right if you nurse her.’

I told Joan to find my little knife, the one I had bought at the Mussel Inn the day I left, and she cut the cord. I pressed the baby to my breast, and she whimpered and finally started to suckle. It was a piercing feeling of pain and relief, and all at once I wanted to pull the baby away from me, yet sit and stare at her in awe. She lay against me as Joan fetched a linen and wrapped it around me and the baby. It was the only useful thing she had done in that awful hour. Then she fetched a shawl and wrapped it around her own shoulders and sat and shivered.

Then, for many, many minutes, we sat together in shocked silence.

The baby was too early. I knew it from the weight of her and from the weakness of the suckle. She weighed less than a pair of thick stockings. The candle fizzed and melted down the hours of darkness, the hours of safety when secrets like newborn babies could be kept. She was too early but she was a wonder. Her face was like Spencer’s face, his little miniature. I couldn’t stop staring at her. She had his ears, tiny seashells, and I had an urge to go home and lie in bed with Ma. She smelled of blood and bodies; oh, she even smelled of the spice of Spencer’s locked cabinet. A wave of exhaustion came over me, but I had to fight it with every ounce of my strength.

‘What are we to do?’ I whispered. ‘Joan, what are we to do? Can you go and fetch Mrs Baxter – wake her up and tell her what has happened?’

‘We will go home on a morning coach,’ replied Joan. ‘As you said, we would be shamed if we stayed here, both of us. Those parish officers you talk of will decide what must be done with you. The decision will be taken from you. By the time we could even do something sensible, like fetch Da to come and vouch for you, you’d have been incarcerated. Me as well, most likely.’

‘You will have to tell the Baxters what’s happened,’ I said, ignoring her. ‘Get Mrs Baxter on her own and make sure she has had her morning coffee. She is a hag until she’s had her morning coffee.’