My heart raced at that, for, apart from Da, I had never heard a man talk about his bed or washing, or strong cups of anything. I frowned, wondering if Spencer was too fast for me, and if it all got back to Da that I was seen with him, I would be whipped and sent to bed.

‘Please don’t fret,’ he went on. ‘I’m a respectable gent. We can take a table in the good front parlour and look out at the boats and be served the finest coffee in a silver pot.’

‘Just quickly then,’ I replied, and he took the Castile soap from my hand and put it down on the shelf. His fingernails were clean and shiny as pink buttons and I felt self-conscious of my own: short and weak from salt-water. But he paid no heed to them and nodded, instead, at the soap. ‘Cheap and oily,’ he declared of the pile of creamy white squares. ‘And no scent at all. Now I will tell you about the scents and fine fragrances in London, and I may even have a scent for you to try, if you like.’

Well, that got my attention. I followed him out of the store and back into the courtyard, noticing how his greatcoat hung so well from his shoulders. In his wake, I smoothed my braids and wiped my nose and mouth. Then we climbed up the stairs to the parlour at the front, which was the nicer of the two upstairs rooms and was hung with red curtains and had polished wooden floors and sturdy tables laid for dining. He sat me down in a velvet-upholstered chair by the window and went off to find a serving girl, and I took in the view. It is not often that I saw my own town from a second-storey window, for there was no reason for us ever to come and take coffee or tea, or anything, from the Mussel Inn. Except for Da, of course, but thankfully his boat was amongst those bobbing out in the bay.

Fisherrow Harbour stretched before me, its boats docked far and wide. Nets lay drying on walls, and women plodded up and down from the mussel beds with huge creels on their backs. Gulls swooped and fought over every scrap left on the ground. The sky hung low, a grey-green wash full of golden cloud. Men fished and women sold their catch. And that’s the way it would go, on and on, sure as the turn of the tide and the wax and wane of the moon.

Spencer returned after a few minutes with a silver tray, set with a coffee pot and two cups and a saucer of scones.

‘Now,’ he said, ‘do you like jam on your scones or a touch of whipped cream, or both?’