‘That would have been better.’

We were silent again.

‘Did you bring your wages?’

‘Yes.’ I was nettled by her tone. ‘All of my wages for the last two quarters.’

‘It will cost you all of that to buy stockings and gowns and shifts and caps, you will be surprised at the price.’

‘It can’t be more expensive than London.’

‘Much more,’ she said flatly. ‘So much has to be shipped in from England.’

‘Why do we not buy French?’ I asked.

She made a little face. ‘Hardly,’ she said, but did not trouble to explain.

Daniel appeared and looked pleased that we were talking. ‘I think I have everything unloaded,’ he said. ‘Your father is going to stay here with the things while I fetch a wagon.’

‘I’ll wait with him,’ I said hastily.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Go home with Mother, she can show you our house and you can get warm.’

He wanted to ensure that I was comfortable. He did not know that the last thing I wanted to do was to go home with his mother and sit with his sisters and wait for the men to finish their work and come home. ‘I’ll get the wagon with you then,’ I said. ‘I’m not cold.’

At a glance from his mother he hesitated. ‘You can’t go to the carter’s yard dressed like that,’ she said firmly. ‘You will shame us all. Wrap your cloak around you and come home with me.’

* * *

Home was a pretty enough little house in London Street squashed in beside others in a row near the south gate of the town. The top floor was divided into three bedrooms; Daniel’s three sisters shared the big bed in the room which faced the back of the house, his mother had a tiny room all to herself, and my father had the third. Daniel mostly lived with his tutor, but would sleep on a truckle bed in my father’s room when he stayed overnight. The next floor served as a dining room and sitting room for the family, and the ground floor was my father’s shop facing the street, and at the back a little kitchen and scullery. In the yard behind, Daniel and my father had built and thatched a roof, and the printing press would be re-assembled and set up in there.

All three of Daniel’s sisters were waiting to greet us in the living room at the top of the stairs. I was acutely conscious of my travel-stained clothes and dirty face and hands, as I saw them look me up and down and then glance in silence at each other.

‘Here are my girls,’ their mother said. ‘Mary, Sarah, and Anne.’

The three of them rose like a row of moppets and dipped a curtsey as one, and sat down again. In my pageboy livery I could not curtsey, I made a little bow to them and saw their eyes widen.

‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Mrs Carpenter said.