Grey mornings, though. That was the other side of living with Spencer. You wouldn’t wake him before ten of the clock. I learned that in the first week. He was not rough like Da, nothing like that, with fists flying, but he had a flash of temper to him that made me go quiet. It was on the fourth day of our marriage I found that out. I had been tidying up the bedroom and he had been lying in bed like a stone. I had never seen anyone take a lie-in before, unless they were sick. I went to wake him up, gently touching his shoulder, but he rolled over to face me and out came a hand from the blanket and he jabbed his finger to my face. I flinched.

‘Never wake me up when I’m sleeping,’ he said.

‘I was only going to offer you a bit of bacon,’ I replied.

‘Well, don’t,’ he retorted. ‘I’ll come and get my bacon when I’m ready.’

And so that was me told.

Regardless of things like that, for I had had far worse, I did think myself absolutely in love with Spencer. I was in awe of him. I was certainly in love with his plans to make a pile of money in Musselburgh first, then get to London quick as we could. He said we’d need to save and that living up here was a sight cheaper than living down there, but once we had enough money saved, we would take a coach down south and secure some smart lodgings. He would still have to do his business, of course, obtaining his products. But we would set ourselves up on a splendid row of lavish shops, with cabinets filled with dark bottles: Patrick Spencer’s Perfume Emporium.

Until then, we passed the worst of the winter in our snug home.

I would cook and clean. He would praise my stews and soups and cleanliness. Sometimes Joan would come and they would bicker a bit, and I would send her home when it all got too much. Twice a week, when Joan was at choir practice and Da was out drinking, I would go and see Ma and we would sit and blether, but not about anything important. Ma and I found it easier to talk about trivial things, like how to spice a plum cake, than the big things, like why I had married out and what would become of Joan, and if there would even be any more generations of fishing Dicksons.