‘Herself, yes. The one in green. With Lady Catherine, who’s married to the master’s brother.’

‘Are ladies so familiar with their servants, here?’

She snickered. ‘You want to know what Madame will do? Think of what’s expected, then imagine the opposite.’

‘She’s been unwell?’

Pru puffed her cheeks, poked at one with her tongue. ‘It’s one of those complaints that only ladies ever suffer from. Ones like her.’ She shrugged, sweeping her brush wide. I watched her hands move. Raw and chapped, shoulders broad as ships’ masts. I could hear her clogged breaths. ‘The poor are sad every day, and no one sends out to a doctor about it. She ‒ well, she’s lonely, if you ask me. That’s the trouble with ton marriages, though. Too much space. When you’ve got only the one room to share, you either kill each other or you make peace.’

I let out a laugh, surprising myself, but she fell quiet again, as if reminding herself that she shouldn’t speak so freely.

I stared over my shoulder at the dark cobbles and the tall houses. ‘True,’ I said, turning the brush over, poking a finger between the damp bristles. ‘But we are, each of us, sad in our own peculiar ways.’

‘Don’t you sound like one of them!’ She sank into a fit of giggles. ‘Airs and graces don’t carry buckets, you know.’

‘Suits me,’ I said, ‘since I don’t want to be carrying buckets.’

More of Langton’s long-ago words came back to me: The Negro is happy to serve. Born for it. They’ve never produced a genius, and to expect genius from them would only cause distress. They’re as different from us as dogs from cows. Let the Negro therefore do what he is happy doing, for freeing him would do nothing but put the Devil in his head.

But Pru was poking me, good-naturedly this time. ‘No buckets in Jamaica, then?’

I laughed, and she laughed too. ‘I’ve been in service since I was twelve,’ she said. ‘I swear I see buckets in my sleep. And I’m nothing but thankful for it. I was a skelf of a girl. Didn’t have the pair of arms on me that I have now. We went so hungry some nights I’d have eaten my elbow. Ma despaired of me ever getting a place. Mrs Linux said she’d take me on precisely because she knew no one else would, which is how I know she’s got a soft side, though she does keep it well hid.’ She looked at me. ‘But a good servant must know her place, to be content in it.’

That’s always been my trouble. Never knowing my place or being content in it.

She turned back to the scrubbing. But my mind swung like wind, so many new things rattled through it. London’s sour, clotted streets. Levenhall’s narrow hallways, its smells of wool and cold hearths. My new master, tossing questions, eyes big and black as ackee seeds. My new mistress ‒ who had bowed to me! Strange woman. A queer feeling came over me, like a hand tightening around my chest, tiny hammers knocking at my breastbone. It felt like fright. A new mistress is a thing to be afraid of, if you’re a maid and have any wits. But now I know how small the space can be, between being afraid of a thing and wanting it.