'I'm not a thief,' said the girl through her teeth.

Mrs. Jones ran to the door, hunched over her apron. She turned once, her voice shaking, to say: 'Say your prayers.'

The doors cracked shut behind her.

Morning came in Mary's window as on any other day.

She fitted her stays on over her bruised back, pulling them so tight she hissed with pain.

All day she worked in the shop, with her eyes low, sweating through the September heat. All the movements of her body seemed to say, Remember. Remember what a good maid I am. Remember your promise to treat me as a mother. Remember. Remember what a good maid I am. Remember your promise to treat me as a mother.

Mrs. Jones's face was waxy. There was no chit-chat over their sewing today; they didn't exchange a word except to ask for the scissors or thread. All their intimacy was turned to stone. Mary's hand shook as she worked. She felt perpetually on the verge of tears. Her thoughts went out like arrows: Trust me. I can't tell you where the money came from. But trust me anyway. Trust me. I can't tell you where the money came from. But trust me anyway.

They put the last stitches in the lowered neckline of Mrs. Morgan's white velvet slammerkin without a word.

By dinner time Mary's head was tolling like a bell. She pushed her food around her plate. Her thoughts moved sluggishly. She knew she was being a fool. She could hear Doll nagging, somewhere behind her eyes. Own up to whoring, my dear, and all you'll get is a whipping at the cart's tail or a spell in the lock-up at worst. But if this mistress of yours turns you in for thievery, it's the hempen halter for you, girl. Own up to whoring, my dear, and all you'll get is a whipping at the cart's tail or a spell in the lock-up at worst. But if this mistress of yours turns you in for thievery, it's the hempen halter for you, girl.

There was something Doll wouldn't understand, though: how much Mary wanted to stay. Here, in the stuffy clutter of a small sewing room in the Joneses' house on Inch Lane in the town of Monmouth in England or Wales or somewhere in between. Despite the iciness of her mistress's eyes; despite everything that had happened. Till this endless afternoon, Mary had never quite known the truth: this was home.

And how could she stay, if she ever said those words? Men, Men, and and Crow's Nest, Crow's Nest, and and a shilling a go. a shilling a go. There was no nice way to put it. Once those words were spoken, all was lost. Mrs. Jones would have had to be a different woman to bear the sound of those words. There was no room for a whore in this family. There was no nice way to put it. Once those words were spoken, all was lost. Mrs. Jones would have had to be a different woman to bear the sound of those words. There was no room for a whore in this family.

That Sunday Mary went to church with the Joneses, even though her skin was mottled with heat and there were spots in front of her eyes. She kneeled meekly, remembering the pose from the Magdalen. The sermon was on patience. The Reverend Cadwaladyr gripped his pulpit with sweaty hands and exhorted each of his parishioners to temper their misfortunes by meek and Christian resignation. 'If your schemes have come to nothing, if your plans have gone awry,' he urged, 'trust in the Almighty.'

For a moment Mary tried to believe the man-despite all she knew about his profound hypocrisy. Would the Almighty save her from the thief's noose? Would the Mighty Master force Mrs. Jones to give Mary her money back and care for her again, in the old way? Would the Maker let Mary tell her mistress the truth and the sky not fall in?

'Be like the reed,' said the curate, 'that bends and is not broken, in the same wind that uproots the tall cedar.'

Mary thought of a high wind, of its teeth stripping leaves from branches that crashed down all around her. Now her heart was banging round her ribs like a rat in a trap. She felt nausea rise inside her and begin to spiral. Cadwaladyr's words had retreated to a great distance.

'Mary?' A tiny whisper from Mrs. Jones.

She would have liked to answer, but she was too far away. Her head whirled. She swayed on her knees. Her throat moved; she bit her lips to seal them shut.

A soft arm around her, another on her face, the fingers cool as water. Mary was violently sick into her mistress's hand.

Mary woke in the middle of a sweat-soaked night. A hand was pressing a cool cloth to her chest; she clutched it in her own. A small squeeze of the fingers.

'I won't be sick much longer,' Mary croaked after a while. 'I swear it.'

'Hush now, cariad.' cariad.'

'Don't turn me out.' Hot water ran from Mary's eyes, into her ears, down her neck.

'Hush, child. Sure, you're one of the family, I've told you.'

'I'll be a good girl if you'll only let me stay,' she sobbed.

'I know you will.' The woman's voice was light as down.

'Let me stay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.' Mary couldn't remember what for.

'I know, I know.'

Then it came to her, the awful thing. 'I'll never do it again, Mother. It was only for the ribbon.'

'Shh.' The cool hand put the cloth to her forehead. 'There's no ribbon.'

Mary panicked, tried to sit up. 'Where's it gone?'

Her mother was pressing her down on the pillow, and kissing her on the forehead. So heavy, so soft. 'It's put away safe.'

She let herself subside. 'Doll had one first.'

'Doll?' The voice sounded bewildered. 'Who's Doll?'

Mary turned her hot face into the pillow. 'Doll's in the alley.'

She was plummeting back into the darkness.

When she woke again there was a man leaning over her with a knife. She knew his devilish eyebrows. She screamed so hard she made him jump.

'I'll hold her, Joseph, and let you try again.' That soft voice, that wasn't her mother, Mary realised. It was Mrs. Jones, of course.

She spat in the man's face. 'I know you!' she shrieked. 'With your big knife and your robes. That'll be ten guineas to you, sir!'

'Shush, now, Mary,' said Mrs. Jones. 'Cadwaladyr's kindly come to help with the bloodletting.'

Mary began to buck and kick against the sheets that bound her.

'You'll feel the better for it, my dear,' her mistress promised. 'It's the only thing to break a fever.'

'There was blood on the sheet already,' she roared at the man. 'It was only wine!'

Cadwaladyr had retreated to the corner of the room, his arms folded, the great knife sticking up. Mrs. Jones beckoned to him. 'Come back, do, Joseph. It's the fever talking.'

Mary tried to spit again but her mouth had turned to ashes.

Then the woman held Mary down while the man cut a line down the side of her neck. Mary said nothing, she only listened to the blood as it fell into the tin pail. Dimly she was aware that the woman was crying. 'We would save your life, Mary. We wouldn't do it except to save your life.'

Mrs. Jones came downstairs with blood all over her apron. Her husband stood in the parlour and watched her walk about. He wanted to open his arms to her, but they were locked by his sides. 'How is the girl?' he asked softly.

A violent shrug.

'Is the fever easing?'

His wife sat down at the table and rested her jaw on her fists. 'It comes and goes.'

He nodded, like a puppet. If the girl died, he knew his wife would never forgive him.

Then she looked up at him and said, 'I know you've no liking for Mary. You always hated her mother, didn't you?'

He blinked in astonishment. 'Hated? Su Rhys? Not at all. How could I have hated the poor woman? I will admit,' he stammered, 'I do think ... I didn't think her quite worthy of your friendship, once you were grown women.'

His wife's eyes were small bits of glass. 'You thought she made a bad choice, when she married Cob Saunders, and she deserved her punishment.'

He didn't know what to say.

'But sometimes, Thomas, sometimes punishment just happens.'

All of a sudden her face was running with tears. In two leaps he was there; he was wrapped around her like ivy. 'What is it, my love?' he kept saying, as her whole body shook with her sobs. 'What is it?'

'The baby.'

He thought he must have misheard. He put his ear closer to her mouth. 'Which baby?'

'The last one.'

He held her in his grip while she cried and cried. He waited.

Eventually Jane Jones sat up and wiped her cheeks with the heels of her hands. She made a face that was supposed to be a smile, he imagined. She held in her sobs and kept her voice low. 'I lost it in May,' she said. 'I'm sorry now I didn't tell you.'

All the air was punched out of him.

'It only lasted a few months, this time. I don't know if it would have been a boy or a girl.'

Her husband found himself kneeling on her skirt, gripping her elbows. 'We must try again,' he said very fast. 'The Maker will reward us in the end. We must trust in his justice.'

She shook her head over and over. 'Thomas,' she whispered, and then, more firmly, 'Thomas. We have a daughter.' She stopped, as if to gather her strength. 'We have each other.' Another pause for breath. 'That's our lot.'

They stayed pressed together in that awkward shape. His solitary leg went numb under him, and then his arms, until at last he couldn't tell his body from hers.

The church of St. Mary's was empty. Mrs. Jones knelt at the back and offered up a prayer of thanks for the recovery of her maid.

In her pocket, dragging her down on one side, a stockingful of coins. She'd counted it again this morning. She flushed as her fingers sorted out the gold and silver. Her heart was clanging like a horseshoe on an anvil. Where in the world? Where in the world? was all she could think. was all she could think. Where in the world did the girl get it Where in the world did the girl get it ? ?

Now Mrs. Jones pressed her head against the cool back of the pew. Her mind was moving in tight little circles; confusion was like a fog across the road. To make someone confess a crime, she'd read somewhere, you cut the tongue from a living frog and laid it on them when they were sleeping; they'd speak up in their sleep as honest as a child.

Nonsense. She should simply have demanded of Mary Saunders where she'd got the money, asked the question over and over during her fever and her convalescence, till she'd got her answer. But she hadn't dared. There was so much she didn't want to know. Whatever the truth turned out to be, at the very least she'd have to throw Mary Saunders out into the bare countryside. Mrs. Jones's heart quailed at the thought. She'd come to rely on Mary-too much, she quite saw that now. She'd been weak. She'd made an intimate of a servant, a half-grown girl. She'd confided things to her maid that should only have been said to her husband. She'd trusted herself to a deceiver.

Well, she knew what to do with the money, at least. She'd brought it here to slip it into the Poor Box. Charity was the highest virtue, wasn't that what Cadwaladyr was always saying in his sermons? Blessed are those who give. Blessed are those who give. Mrs. Jones could do with some blessing. Mrs. Jones could do with some blessing.

Cadwaladyr would never know where the eleven-odd pounds in the Poor Box came from; he'd marvel at such goodness, and wonder which of the local rich had made such a gesture. Then, afterwards, if anyone ever asked about money found in Mary Saunders's room Mrs. Jones could deny all knowledge. It was dirty money, to her, until it went into the Box. At least now it could feed some of the town's landless and jobless unfortunates for a few months, or pay for a dozen paupers' funerals.

As Mrs. Jones stood up she felt the weight of it against her leg. Temptation ran through her like a wave of desire. It occurred to her for the first time that she could very easily keep the money. It could slip into her private savings that she kept in a box in the bottom of her wardrobe. It could recompense the family for the loss of the Morgans' commission. It could form another wall to shield them from disaster, in case all their plans of advancement went awry. No one need ever know.

She felt quite faint with the idea of it. Money from nowhere: not worked for, not sweated! Mrs. Jones stood motionless, for a moment; anyone who saw her would have thought she was praying. And she was, in a way. Judgement, Judgement, was the word she was mouthing to herself. was the word she was mouthing to herself. Remember the Day of Judgement. Remember the Day of Judgement.

She glanced around: no one in sight. Then she pulled the stocking out of her pocket and rushed over to the Poor Box on the wall. Her hands came up full of coins; she stuffed them into the slot.

The air cooled a little in the second week of September. Down by the river, Jennett the Gelder was cutting the boars; their incredulous squeals rang through the town. Mary walked home with a basket of malt for the winter brewing. Her legs trembled under her; her breath was shallow. The fields were newly seeded with rye. She saw a small child racing at the birds to scare them away. How many days would it take him to earn a penny? Her eyes stung. Ever since the fever broke she'd been ready to cry over nothing.

But she hadn't been entirely idle, during her convalescence. She'd come up with a good story at last: so simple, Mary cursed herself for not having thought of it before. The money, she was ready to confide in Mrs. Jones, was a secret legacy from her mother. Tell no one you have it, Mother said to me on her deathbed. Keep it hidden away for hard times. For your old age. Tell no one you have it, Mother said to me on her deathbed. Keep it hidden away for hard times. For your old age. Mary had been rehearsing this story all week, till it sounded like Gospel truth. Mary had been rehearsing this story all week, till it sounded like Gospel truth.

There was something black hanging from a fence by the bridge into town. Mary's eyes were weak and blurry still from the fever; she went up close. A dead crow, hung by its feet, its wings sagging wide as if it were flying downwards, about to hit the ground. It swayed on the wind. Mary picked up the smell coming off the body, dark and musky.

She hurried home.

She knew if she watched and waited, the right moment would come, and it had.

'How do you feel in yourself, now, Mary?' asked her mistress.

'Quite well.' It was only a little lie. Her vision was only slightly blurred. She could stop her hands shaking if she remembered to.

Mr. Jones was out at his club, where he went more and more, these evenings. Mrs. Ash was upstairs mumbling over her Scripture. Daffy had gone walking by the river on his own. Even Abi was out for a taste of the mild evening air.

If Mary didn't speak up now, she might never get the chance. 'I was wondering,' she began, 'now that I'm in my health again...'

'Yes?' said her mistress.

'Can I have my money back?'

That bright, loving face disintegrated all at once. Mrs. Jones's breath seeped away. 'Oh, Mary.'

'I'm ready to tell you, now, where I got it,' the girl said with what she hoped looked like an innocent smile. 'I should have-'