‘I know it, and I felt awful that morning when I woke up and you were gone. I’ve been a bad sister. I did the worst thing a sister can do.’

‘So when you say I have ruined Ma and Da, what you mean is we have ruined Ma and Da,’ I retorted. ‘And I don’t even care if I have ruined Da, for he is rotten already. But you, Joan Dickson, ruined my marriage.’ I folded my arms.

‘I am a wicked girl,’ she sobbed.

‘Why Spencer? Of all the men in Musselburgh, why my very own husband?’ I started to cry myself, I couldn’t help it – all the emotions I had forced away were here now, pouring from me. It was the sight of her. The sound of her, the way she clicked her jaw and sniffed.

‘I think I was taken by great passions,’ she heaved out. ‘Of anger and lust and greed. I am weak, Maggie. I have all the wicked traits they preach against in kirk.’

I shook my head at this truly sorry sight.

Then she lifted her head. ‘But don’t blame me for everything,’ she begged. ‘I did not send you packing; you decided to go. You alone. And I had to go back home and tell Ma and Da and pretend I had no idea why.’

I took a deep breath and gathered myself together to ask the dreaded question. Deep in my belly, the babe flickered in anticipation.

‘Has there been any word from Spencer?’ I asked. ‘Anything from the sailors. Rumours even?’

‘Folks say he was taken onto a big ship that was headed south to help fight a war,’ she said. ‘Far south. Spain.’

Oh! The babe kicked at that.

‘Spencer cannot fight a war,’ I cried. ‘Spencer can’t fire guns or defend himself from navy men. He will die. He will drown.’

‘You still love him then,’ Joan said.

I had not thought so, until these last days. I had thought I hated him. But I carried his child. His kicking child. Both sailing their own waters now, miles from each other.

‘I am Spencer’s wife,’ I said.

Joan stuffed her kerchief back into her dress sleeve.

‘And you had a caper with him in my bed, didn’t you? When you were supposed to be at choir.’

She nodded.

‘And he told you all sorts of stories about the ladies in Gothenburg and how fancy and sophisticated they are.’

‘He did, and it made me feel fancy and sophisticated too, and it was exactly what I needed to hear. Oh but, Maggie, it was just what you needed to hear too. You were mibbie a bit green to believe he would stay true to you.’