I smiled. She was different, perhaps. But good different. So was her so-called affliction of not keeping her mouth shut. “I rather like that you don’t.”

She stared at me with that keen look of hers, head cocked a bit, as if I had calculations on my face that must be reasoned out. Then she turned back to work. “You’ll play for me sometime?”

“Of course, the moment you are free of this place, I’d welcome a call from you. I could teach you too.”

She eyed me again. “Won’t be easy.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant. “I’ve never been one for ‘easy.’”

Her full lips curved in a flash of a smile, and she was, with that accessory, quite lovely. It was easy to like Bridget, kind and affable and wonderfully forthright, and I almost wished I could take her with me when I left.

I watched her work for a minute. “So what really happened? To put you here, I mean? There must be more to it.”

There was no answer at first, only swift movements and the muffled echo of clanging and yelling, the whooshing of steam. “Because I cannot ignore that things ain’t right.” She yanked another basket off the line and started pinning again. “No woman in her right mind can’t get out of bed and care for her own babby. I’m broken, always been, and this is where you go for that kind of thing.”

“I was told that once, you know. That I’m odd—broken.”

She eyed me skeptically. “That so. What for?”

My governess had been the one to say it when I’d tried to get her to catch the enchanting cadence of music in the gentle blend of outside sounds that seemed so clear to me. Music had always woven in and out of every part of my conscious mind, whether a formal instrument played or not. “Because there’s music that lives inside of me. And apparently that isn’t where it belongs.”

She didn’t laugh, this girl with the pert face. She was quiet a moment, then said, “I do envy you.”

I blinked at the unexpected response.

Nurse Duffy whipped aside the damp sheet hanging before us and scolded me with her eyes. “There’s a whole roomful to be watching out here.”

“Of course.” I sprang out from our little corner and hurried back into the chaos, slipping a few times on puddles and catching myself on the sides of giant metal tubs.

Duffy caught up with me and held out a large basket with great wads of sheets tied up in packets. “Make yourself useful. These go to the linen shelves in the men’s wards. Second floor. I’ll take over here. Come back for more when you’re through.”