‘If I come back home, I don’t think I will ever leave,’ I replied. ‘I will get caught up in our family’s ways, and I will be so distraught at what has happened to me I will be too afraid to try again. And truth be told, Joan, I do not like how Ma and Da favour you. I will have made that even worse by running away.’

‘Then I will not ask you again,’ she said. ‘But I will go back. The world past Fisherrow is a frightening place, with its Houses of Correction and highwaymen, and all sorts. And Ma needs me, and we need to show the tea men that we are trustworthy in some ways.’

‘You must never speak of what happened with the babe to anyone,’ I warned her. I did not ask if she had her eyes on a sweetheart mill owner or somesuch, for I truly did not care.

‘I never want to think of last night again,’ she said. ‘It was worse than anything Ma spoke of when she talked of losing her children, but I know I will never get the sight of the poor babe out of my mind.’

On that, we were agreed.

I walked Joan down to the stables the next morning and made sure she got on the right coach. Then she drifted off, huddled in her best shawl, her face paler and more worried than it had even been when she arrived.

‘She was not for staying long, was she, hen?’ Mrs Baxter joined me in the yard. She smelled of pastry and apples and spice, and I had a terrible urge of longing for the baby, to smell her damp head again. ‘My dear, you are quite ashen. Did the pair of you fight?’

‘We always fight,’ I replied sadly.

‘Just as well she’s gone then,’ mused Mrs Baxter. ‘For she was no use covering your shift. Thank goodness you’re back on your feet. Now, come inside and get these pies before they burn.’

And that was the way it went, for a day or so, a sense of normality closing in on me despite the fact that my world had collapsed. For how could there be joy in the taste of an apple pie, when my baby had gone? How could the patrons hoot and screech and talk of saucy girls, when the world was so cruel? How could they drink ale? How could anyone do anything?

That was the way it went.

And then someone found the baby. I knew by the shriek in the kitchen.