It took me a long time to realise that when Mrs Dempster had queried the propriety of her friend Mrs Kirkwood’s foot upon my back, it wasn’t because she was appalled. Rather, she was excited by this demonstration of submissiveness.

The adoption rendered me no better than an indentured servant. It was through the diligent efforts of Mrs Kirkwood that many a household was able to procure a maid they might otherwise struggle to afford.

Mrs Dempster got to bask in her peers’ admiration for her charity in taking me in, but her friends also understood that she should not be expected to treat this foundling as an equal to her real daughter. In their eyes, Mrs Dempster had raised me far above my origins, and I ought to be grateful for that much.

Olivia adopted her from an orphanage in Glasgow.

I’ve heard the father was a derelict.

What of the mother?

I can but imagine the worst.

I wanted to tell them that my father had been a captain in the army, a hero of Waterloo, and that my mother was an actress said to be the equal of Madame Vestris. I wanted them to question the stories they were telling themselves by providing an alternative narrative of my own. There was no opportunity to do so. No one ever asked. No one was ever interested enough.

I always had the impression that Martha was fond of me, though it was in the same way as she was fond of the dogs. She was by turns affectionate towards them and amused by them, but there was no question that they were creatures for her to take or leave as she pleased.

Martha laughed at me when I entered the room.

‘What is amiss?’ I asked.

‘You have soot upon your forehead,’ she replied, amused.

I automatically reached towards my head with my sleeve, but Martha’s hand restrained me. She produced a handkerchief and wiped the mark away.

‘Whether on your face or on your sleeve, a sooty mark is not to be tolerated when presenting one’s girls in company.’

Martha wore a knowing smirk as she spoke. If we enjoyed a degree of sorority, it was in having a common foe.

‘You mean as though I’ve just arrived here fae a manky back court,’ I replied, reverting to my original accent.

The way I spoke now was a token of Mrs Dempster’s ‘civilising’ of me.

I remembered some of the teachers at the Institute correcting mistakes in the children’s grammar, and insisting upon what they called the proper words for things in place of the terms we had grown up using. Some of the children were merely confused by this. Others, such as myself, understood the status of the new terms, but continued to use the old ones in everyday conversation.