Joan put her hands to her ears. ‘Stop havering, Maggie. These people are not our people. We are not Kelso folks. We are Fisherrow girls, and we need to go back to safety. You will not be looked after here; you are useless now. You are an embarrassment. You and that baby are an expense the parish won’t want to take on. Ma will have one look at that bairn and take you back in an instant. Both of you.’

I lay back and let it all wash over me. Joan’s desperation was really about her own fear. I drifted in and out of sleep. I dreamed of workhouses. Of the story Cook had told, about the previous maid, the one who left the River Inn, in disgrace. ‘She was sent to the House of Correction . . . and now the babe is under the care of the parish, for she will never be able to take care of it. Wet-nursed at Muir Farm and apprenticed there when it turns fourteen.’

And that is when I decided it. This babe, this tiny girl, would never be ripped from me or wet-nursed, or apprenticed to a ruddy-faced Kelso farmer to churn butter and feed pigs and weed and mow and sew. I would not let anyone tear us apart. She was mine and I would care for her. She needed me.

There was barely room for me and the babe on the thin bed, but I clasped her in the crook of my arm and drifted, in and out of sleep.

By and by, the light came up. I heard Joan again and her voice had new panic in it. ‘Maggie,’ she urged. ‘The baby does not look right.’

I looked down. She lay still. Too still. There was a greyness to her lips.

‘She is gone,’ whispered Joan.

‘She can’t be gone,’ I said. I held her up and took her to my breast again, willing her to turn and suckle. I put my finger to her lips, but they did not move. ‘Joan, fetch someone,’ I panicked.

‘We cannot fetch anyone now,’ she replied.

I rubbed the babe’s lips. Rubbed her cheeks. Pressed on her chest to try to bring her back to life. But she flopped.

Then there was nothing I could do but bury my face in the swaddled, lifeless body.

‘Rest her soul, rest her soul,’ Joan kept saying.

‘She was too weak,’ I sobbed.

Then Joan was on full alert. ‘Time to bolt,’ she urged through her tears. ‘We can’t stay here now.’

‘Fetch Mrs Baxter,’ I pleaded again.

‘And then what? Physicians and constables and investigations, and all sorts, that’s what,’ said Joan. ‘You will have to explain what has happened and why you kept it all a secret.’

‘But I’ve done nothing wrong,’ I replied. ‘I loved her the minute I saw her.’