‘Morning, Lizzie,’ she said, her greeting startling the poor girl and causing her to spill a few lumps of coal onto the hearth rug.

Lizzie bent to pick them up and then rubbed at the area with a rag, causing the coal dust to become more deeply embedded.

‘You’ll need to lift that and beat it,’ Sarah said. Lizzie looked up at her and scowled. ‘I’m trying to help you,’ Sarah explained, surprised by her surliness.

Lizzie said nothing. She tucked the rag into the pocket of her apron, then lifted her brush and the bucket containing the rakings from the fireplace.

‘Remember to sift the cinders out of that,’ Sarah said, indicating the bucket. ‘Mrs Lyndsay hates to waste anything.’ She smiled at the girl, hoping that her advice would be accepted with good grace rather than discarded out of hand. Sarah felt that the girl was in need of an ally and would be happy to fill the role if Lizzie was willing to let her.

‘There’s no end to the things that Mrs Lyndsay hates,’ Lizzie replied, spitting the words out. ‘There’s not much that pleases her as far as I can tell.’

‘Mrs Lyndsay is a good woman, but you have to work to earn her favour.’

‘I work from morning till night as it is. What more am I supposed to do?’

‘Just give it a little time.’

Lizzie snorted. ‘Sure, what else can I do? Go back to what I was doing before? Sometimes I think it would be better than this.’

‘You don’t mean that.’

‘What would you know about it?’

Sarah did not think that her lack of first-hand experience of Edinburgh brothels made her ineligible to hold an opinion on the matter.

‘I know that this is a safe place to be,’ she said, ‘where people will take care of you if you let them.’

Lizzie gave her a penetrating look, as if assessing the truth of what she said.

‘That include the old witch in the kitchen?’

‘Mrs Lyndsay is just a bit set in her ways. She’ll come round. Just show her that you’re a good person.’

‘Perhaps I’m not,’ Lizzie said, walking towards the door, swinging her bucket. As she pulled the door closed behind her, Sarah began to wonder if Mrs Lyndsay was right to be suspicious.

Sarah heard the doorbell ring out and wondered if Lizzie would deign to answer it. She tried to imagine the girl dropping her bucket and rushing to the door, bristling with undisguised hostility. Perhaps it would be better if she didn’t. She might get herself dismissed.

Sarah looked out into the hallway and watched with some relief as Jarvis opened the door, his frame blocking her view. She thought she heard the voice of a young woman, timid and quiet. Jarvis’s greeting was, as always, polite and implacable but with a hint of weary stoicism.