Charolles

Her only guide, she said, was an inward voice that she took to be the Lord's.

When Margaret was around nine, her godmother arranged for her to be sent to a boarding school run by the Poor Clares at Charolles, a town some miles away.

It was a mercy, in its way, a chance for an education and for a measure of safety.

For the first time, Margaret lived inside the rhythms of a religious house: the bells, the silence, the long hours of prayer.