‘The first thing you’ll do is scrub your hands.’

I drew myself up. ‘I won’t be spoken to in that manner.’

‘I will not be spoken to in that manner,’ she said.

‘Is this how your guests are treated?’

She drew in her lips, leaned forward. This is always the way of it. First I’m not seen, then I’m stared at too closely. ‘I suppose you’ll soon learn how our guests are treated,’ she said, at last. ‘But for now you’d better learn how our hands are treated, and the first thing you’ll do is scrub yours well.’

She knew the way, but I was angry as lightning and just as quick. I got there first, pulled Langton over to the window, while she hovered at the door. ‘Langton,’ I said. ‘She treats me like a servant here.’

He busied himself with the sash. ‘Frances.’ He looked up at me and there was something in his face that I had never seen there in all the years. I swear it looked like pity. I almost slipped and fell. ‘You are a servant here.’

It was then it came clear. I was to be Langton’s gift.

For a moment, I stood there, rooted to the spot, with that knowledge hammering inside, and his words flying away so I could catch only the tail end of them: ‘. . . important . . . girl, do not embarrass me.’

I nodded. ‘But you’re coming back?’

‘That’s none of your business.’

‘Since when are your doings none of my business? Langton?’ I reached out.

‘Behave yourself.’ He pulled back, slapped me. Even Linux gasped. It was the shock of it that thundered into me, more than the strength, considering the state of his hands, how for years I’d thought he couldn’t muster anything out of them. You could have lit a spill off the force of my fury, then. But it knocked those words out of me all the same. Those two words I never used: Massa. Please.

But Linux pulled me away, by the arm, and Langton watched, and kept himself by the window, and said nothing.

Once we were in the passage, Linux called out, ‘Pru!’ and the kitchen maid appeared and I tugged and tugged, then gave in, knowing I had no choice but to follow her upstairs, feeling all the dread with which I’d have entered the house had I known what was waiting for me. Pru’s fuzzy braid batted at her hips, red as paint, and she looked behind, motioned me to shush. Only then did I hear the noise that was still pouring out of me, which had started downstairs, the terrible moaning. I put my hand over my mouth, stuttered out quaking breaths.

All around us a wavering dark. The carpets gave way to lime-washed wood and then a naked little room. Eaves hunkering over a small bed. A washstand and a pallet in the corner, right under the window.

Pru put a bowl, which smelt of sheep fat, on the bed. ‘That’s for my hands,’ she said. ‘But help yourself, if you want.’ The rushlight gobbled itself up and the room stood dark and still. I could see only snatches of her. One white arm, one foot rubbing against the other, the neck of her gown winking open as she lifted a nightgown from the nail above the bed. She gestured towards the pallet. ‘I’ve given you one of the blankets and you can take the warming pan. Only for tonight, mind.’ She pulled off her dress and stockings, leaned over and pinched her big toe. ‘I’ve never seen a blue-skin this close before.’