‘No, please! Please don’t do this! I’ll be good, I promise.’

It was Jeanie’s voice. Then Baker’s in reply. ‘Can’t have you wandering about at night. You might have fallen down the stairs and killed yourself, say nothing of disturbing the rest of us. Now be a good girl and lie still.’

Peering down the room, May saw that Baker had fastened a rope round each of Jeanie’s wrists and was tying it to the metal bedstead.

‘There! That’ll stop your nonsense. Now shut that noise and go to sleep.’

Long after lights out May could hear Jeanie whimpering. She longed to go and set her free but she knew that if she drew attention to herself it would almost certainly result in Angel being sent back to the nursery.

The following day, at the beginning of the needlework class, Mrs Kelly placed a small pile of fine cambric squares in front of May.

‘Lady wants a dozen handkerchiefs as a present for her husband. These will need to be hemstitched and then his initials embroidered in the corner: D. L. You can embellish them to your own design. Here’s some paper to sketch out your ideas. See what you can make of it.’

May settled to the work with alacrity. The hemstitching was tedious but she was thrilled when Mrs Kelly placed a box containing embroidery silks in many colours in front of her and left her free to choose. For the next few days she sketched and stitched, happier than she could ever remember being since she came into the workhouse.

The month was almost over and all but one of the dozen handkerchiefs were finished when May woke in the middle of the night to some kind of uproar at the far end of the room. There were shouts of alarm and then a scream, and one of the girls came running past, heading for the stairs, followed by two others. Sitting up in bed, May saw smoke filling the end of the room and at the heart of the smoke a red glow. Someone shouted, ‘Fire! Fire! Get out! Get out!’ More figures raced towards her, screaming. They reached the door and there was a struggle as they all tried to be first out. Another girl appeared out of the smoke with her nightgown on fire, flames streaming behind her as she ran.