But, quietly, I made some changes. It was time I started looking after my appearance a bit. It was nice when a man winked at me, a good-looking man like Spencer, and I wanted more of it. I trimmed the split ends off my hair and made sure it was brushed morning and night. I bought a cheap scented hand-cream from the general store. I made sure my gowns were always laundered and free of snags and tears. Each morning, on waking, I could not help but wonder, Will Patrick Spencer come back today?

Chapter Five

There’s another thing that I’ve not mentioned yet, on account of me being embarrassed about it, but I suppose now is as good a time as any. Joan and me were as bad as each other for it, but we both had our own little secrets, a bit like Da’s stash. Joan’s secret was a scrapbook, full of curiosities. A picture of the Palace of Versailles and a sample of smuggled white lace. Pressed flowers. Sea shells. Paper cuttings. Tucked into a pocket at the back of this scrapbook were sketches of men’s breeches with bulging crotches. She must have sketched them herself, although I never asked, for then she would have known I’d gone peeking; and it was very bold of her to have sketched such vulgar things, considering what Da might have done, had he found it. But she must have been curious about men, mighty curious.

My stash was simpler and consisted of two things. One was a tin with coins in it – coins I had saved up over the years. Tips from the fishmongers for saving them the best of the catch, or coins I had been tossed by a tea man for luck. But it was not a huge savings pot, only a few pennies. The other item in my stash was a map of the British Isles, which I folded and unfolded time and again, so much that its creases were worn thin. I’d got the map from the general-goods store at the Mussel Inn. And on that map was one place that sung to me as a mermaid might sing to a sailor: London Town.

I could trace the route of the Great North Road to London with my finger. Past York, Selby and Doncaster, then Grantham, Stamford and Stilton. Or another, longer route that meandered through the west of the country, through the towns of the Scottish Borders and Carlisle, Penrith, Leeds and Sheffield. And then I was there. For although I was a girl of creels and mussel beds, gulls and gannets and beached whales, I craved the metropolitan things I had heard about from the tea men. The Season. Musical theatres. Pleasure gardens. Events that needed admission tickets, plus a handsome chaperone and a dash of rouge.