I nodded, still under the blanket, but listening intently now.

‘A Fisherrow lass,’ she mused. ‘Well, I never in all my days thought I would see a Fisherrow lass in my own inn. The hardiest women in Scotland, and one of them right here in the River Inn.’

Are we? I’d had no idea. I’d thought myself ordinary. Ma and Joan too. Now I realized that word of us must travel, for we travel ourselves with our creels as far as the Edinburgh markets, where all sorts of gossip and stories must spread. I felt a flicker of pride in my home town. It surprised me.

‘Well, I would take you on myself,’ she said with a delighted chortle. ‘In the kitchen or serving. Anywhere in fact. I bet you could gut a trout in a flash. I bet you’d show us how it’s done.’

I nodded again.

‘And carry heavy loads?’

Heavier than some lads could.

‘I pay sensible wages too,’ she added. ‘You could save.’

I pulled the blanket away from my face.

‘Kelso’s a good place,’ she continued. ‘Never mind what happened with Mrs Rose. We have a decent trade, and most folks are kind. What do you say?’

What could I say? ‘I should be most grateful for that chance,’ I told her.

Mrs Baxter looked pleased as could be. Then she hesitated. ‘You are a good girl, though, aren’t you? You’re not a runaway or anything like that?’

‘Certainly not,’ I lied.

‘And I do not mean to pry, but you are a maiden, aren’t you? And free to make your own decisions. Free to work? There’s not a husband who’s going to come looking for you, causing all sorts of trouble for us all? It’s just that I see you wear a ring, but it looks like a paste one to me.’

‘That’s right, Mrs Baxter. I’m no one’s property but my own,’ I lied. ‘I wear the ring to keep men from bothering me.’ I dared not tell her about Spencer and that I didn’t even know if my husband was dead or alive, in case she changed her mind.

She nodded, folding her arms in front of her. She was a stout woman of forty years or so. Plain-faced with watery eyes and a chin that sank into her bosom. Her apron was grey, but pristine. Ma always admired a woman who kept a clean apron. ‘A clean apron is like a neat line of laundering hanging in the back close,’ she’d say. ‘The mark of a respectable housewife.’

I needed respectable. I needed pristine. I needed a decent bit of luck now, after all the calamities that had befallen me. As if she could read my thoughts, Mrs Baxter chewed her lip and fixed me with a certain stare before saying what came next.