Molly’s children were uniquely different, each with their own special personality and physical traits. She loved them all with fierce protectiveness. They were her life. Her reason for living. Because of these three helpless innocents, she had to stay free, and shrug off the weariness that had settled on her.

On this night, when Molly could so easily have climbed into bed and let the welcoming waves of slumber ebb over her, she found herself going back down the stairs. There was too much on her mind, and important things to be decided. Tomorrow she must answer Tilly’s suggestion that she leave the children in her care for as long as it took Molly ‘to find a place’.

In her heart, Molly had already decided. She could not leave the children behind. But wasn’t that a selfish decision, she argued with herself. Wouldn’t the children be safer and happier here, with Tilly and her brood, at least until Molly could fetch them? And, if Molly had her way, that would be sooner rather than later. So her heart led her one way, and her reason another.

There were other things to be carefully considered also: in particular, where did she intend going? London, she had said. But why not further north, instead of south? Did it matter, so long as she could isolate herself and the young ’uns? Where the Justice Crowthers and Emma Tanners of this world could not pluck her out? Ah, but remember what the chimney sweep had said: ‘The big hotels in London are crying out for chambermaids and kitchen hands.’ He’d also said that they had attic rooms and such like, where a body could make its own little nest. And a nest for four needn’t be much bigger than a nest for one, isn’t that right? Molly asked herself, as she placed a candle on the scullery window-ledge.

It was a beautiful night. The sky was a dark, velvet ocean pitted with dancing stars and lit by a crescent-shaped moon. All round were strange and familiar sounds; the scurrying of little feet in the cellar below, the whistling of a cool breeze squeezing through the many chinks in the high stone wall that skirted the yard. And the gentle rush of the nearby canal was like a soft lullaby on the night air. Molly cherished these snatched moments of an evening; it was so peaceful here, so private and sheltered. For a moment, she pushed all the worrying and urgent thought to the back of her mind, and opened her soul to let in all things lovely.

Strange, how the first emotion that filled her with joy was the memory of a tall, handsome fellow standing proud and straight aboard the barge that was his home and could have been hers also – Mick. His name murmured itself on her lips and the memory was sweet. ‘Oh, Mick, whatever will become of us?’

While at the back of the house Molly’s thoughts were engaged in memories both bad and pleasant, there was another who also indulged in deep thought.