‘Take it. Take it. By all means. And will that be all, Madam Blacky-boots?’

Chapter Eighteen

And what do two women do in a room of their own? Isn’t this the question that troubles my accusers most? Such an easy thing to hide in plain sight – a lady and her abigail ‒ all eyes looking the wrong way. There’s a turnkey at Newgate who likes to imply it. ‘They say the two of you was a nasty pair of flats, under cover of being mistress and dresser.’ He’s the one who took my letter from me, in the reception, when I first came, not the one who reads the broadsheets out loud. The only letter I ever had from her, now it’s gone. They took it to punish me. It makes them want to punish a woman even more, of course, if she stirs up any kind of lewdness in them.

I suppose I must tell you about the first day. I’d never been a lady’s maid. She said she’d never bothered with one before. Perhaps nothing we did was as it was normally done. All I can tell you is how it was. Early morning, the watchman still calling out the hour, and the sky hung at the window black as ash. I climbed the stairs carrying her ewer of hot water between two hands. Found her already up and waiting. She was sitting up in bed, legs crossed in front of her, picking at slivers of pineapple Pru had brought up in a little silver bowl. A dress was laid out already, beside her on the bed, a white day dress, with a stiff neck-gauze.

‘Oh, Frances!’ she said, and went to stand before the mirror, stared at me in the glass. I fancied I saw a slow grin, a flash of red lip, white teeth. Then she cocked her head at herself and let her kimono slip down her shoulders, which took me by surprise, let me tell you. She was nothing like Miss-bella, the only other white body I’d seen. Madame’s was naked as a savage, daring me to touch it. Her dark hair swelling full as skirts, her belly, creased like an eyelid. Her small breasts. I swallowed, took a cold, plummeting breath and set the ewer down. She lifted one arm overhead, sniffed. ‘A bath this morning, do you think?’ I realized she meant for me to smell it, too, and shook off memories of Phibbah and Miss-bella, the tin bath, Miss-bella’s high, whining complaints. I thought, How true it is that ugly people have hope while pretty people have expectation. I’d never seen the use of beauty myself. Nothing but a lucky arrangement of meat and bone. Never dug any holes, or baked any bread. She kept her arm above her head, and I crossed over to her, thinking how each step dragged me backwards, how I didn’t dare touch her, because I wanted nothing more, but had to touch her, if I wanted to stay. Touching her was my work, now. My jaw clenched. I leaned forward, fanned by her breaths, and she by mine. Tickling hairs under her arms waved, like babies’ legs. I pressed my nose to her. Roses, lemon water, sweat.