I’d noticed Bridget about the asylum. Shrewd and agile with dark, wavy hair and more practical sense than all the staff of Hurstwell combined, Bridget was hard to overlook. Her internal rhythm seemed a bit faster, a tad heartier, than the rest of them.

I handed her a pillow cover and she snatched it away. “Sheet next. Sheet. It goes sheet, pillow cover. Sheet, pillow cover.”

“Of course.” I handed her a sheet, shaking out the crumpled thing, and she took it. “So how did Clara end up here? I don’t suppose you’d know, would you?”

“Moral insanity.” More pins jutted onto the line. “Caught kissing the master’s son in the butler’s pantry late at night. Or being kissed by him, no one’s quite certain which.”

“That’s a terrible reason.” I peeked through the curtains at the rosy-faced young woman who endured what had been done to her with remarkable good humor and aplomb.

She looked me over past the clothespins jutting from the side of her mouth. “How did you end up here, then? Don’t seem the type, either. Even for staff.”

“I’m only keeping myself out of the workhouse while I wait for what comes next. My usual place won’t have me until I’m out of mourning—for my father, that is. I lost him a few weeks past.”

“That so. Well, you can have mine if you want him. He ain’t doing me a lick of good.”

She had an oddness about her, in the abruptness of speech and the things she chose to say, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

I held the end of a pillow cover as she pinned. “You’ve a father?”

She eyed me, jabbing a pin down. She was always moving, this one, always buoyant and perfectly logical. Even in the dining hall with nothing to do, I’d seen her twirling her long, dark hair around two fingers. “Came from somewheres, didn’t I?”

“I meant . . . still. Still have a father. I couldn’t imagine a father allowing his daughter to be taken here. Or is he who put you in?” Now that I’d had a taste of people’s stories, I wanted more. I wanted to understand. I’d never before thought how a soul ended up in a place like Hurstwell, but the more I spoke with each woman, the more I saw strands of normalcy mixed in with terrible fortune and tragic turns, and sensed the wrongness of it all.

She shrugged, waiting to answer until she’d once again emptied her mouth of pins and turned to sweep up more wet laundry. “I always was a lot of trouble. A real nuisance, just like me dearest Paul.” Her eyes sparkled.

“Who’s—”

“Can’t keep me mouth shut, you know, and he had the very same affliction.”