Emily took a step closer to Eliza, and chose her words simply.“Listen to me: You have VD because Dr.Stone infected you on purpose.She did it to loads of us.”
“Why in the hell would she do that?”Eliza exclaimed, looking at Emily like she was crazy.
“Well, that’s the question.I think someone was paying her to do it,” Emily said, “but I need evidence.Proof.”She took a deep breath.“I need you to break into her office and steal any papers that might tell us why she did it.”
Eliza’s mouth fell open.“Break into Stone’s office?Youareloony.You know what’d happen if I got caught?”
“I didn’t think you minded getting caught?”Emily challenged.
“Well, yeah, when I know I’m headed back here for a bed and three meals a day.Not when I think Stone might chuck me down ’ere with the rats fer a month, or give me a beatin’ fer nickin’ shit from ’er office!Are you mad?Why would you want a mess with that witch?”
“Because, Eliza.”Emily took a step toward her again, feeling harried with desperation and urgency.They didn’t have much time left.They stillhad to actually finish the cleaning before the end of their shift, or risk punishment she didn’t have time for.“My job as a reporter is to expose the truth.The treatment of the women here is awful, and people need to know about it.”
“Who?”Eliza scoffed.“Who needs to know?Who’s gonna give a rat’s arse what happens to us?”
Emily swallowed, thinking of how June Jones had said nearly the same thing.These women were so used to being ignored and forgotten when they weren’t being punished and shamed.They’d internalized it to the point where the idea of anyone in power caring about their quality of life, or whether they lived or died at all, was not only foreign, but ludicrous.
“I told you before, Em—” Eliza paused.“Is that even yer real name?”Emily nodded.“I told you before, I got a better deal here than anywhere.I need to stay til I turn eighteen, then I can skip the province, or go somewhere else entirely.Maybe even back to Ireland, I dunno.Anyway, I can’t help you.I won’t spill yer secret, but I can’t help.”She looked away from Emily and made to sidestep toward the boiler room door.“Now let’s—”
“What would you do if you went somewhere else?”Emily asked, scrambling for another tack.
Eliza shrugged.“I dunno.Clean?I’m good at cleaning and it’s not something rich folks like to do.There’s always work.”
A flash of an idea occurred.“If you do this, when you get out, you can come live with me for a while,” Emily said.“I can teach you things, how to type and read, so you can get a secretary’s job.”
Eliza rolled her eyes.“Right.And your old man and lady are gonna be right pleased to have a little thief living under their roof, are they?”She smiled bitterly.“Come off it.I inn’t that stupid.”
“I wouldn’t tell them you’re—”
“Andtyping?That might beyerlife, writin’ for papers, but it’s not mine.”Eliza shook her head.“I like you, Em, but you and I inn’t the same.You can’t offer me any better’n what I got here.I got nobody lookin’ out fer me.So I hafta look after meself.And part of that,” she said forcefully, “is getting this bloody basement clean before they skin our feckin’ hides.”
Then she slipped away before Emily could say another word, leaving her standing alone and defeated beneath the bare overhead bulb as the boiler hissed once more.
“You,” June Jones barked.“I need to talk to you.”
From her usual spot at the isolated breakfast table with Annie, Emily’s brow furrowed.June loomed over her, mouth pinched so tight it looked as though she was struggling not to scream aloud.
“Uh,” Emily said, wondering what on earth she could have done to aggravate the madam this time.“Sure.All right.”She gestured for June to sit beside her, but June shook her head.
“In private,” she said, glancing at Annie, who looked exasperated.
“I’ll be right back,” Emily told her, rising.
“Emily!”Annie protested.“Whydo you keep—”
“I won’t be long,” Emily promised.She hated the way Annie looked at her as she followed June out of the dining hall, as though she were being led off to the brothel.
Emily followed June past the matrons—who didn’t stop them, Emily noticed—into the currently empty Classroom 2, and June shut the heavy metal door behind them, sealing out the ambient noise from the dining hall and corridors before looking at Emily square on.
“Do you pay off the matrons, too?”Emily asked, only barely sarcastic.
June ignored the comment and exhaled, infusing Emily’s lungs with the stale stench of cigarettes.They were contraband, but somehow it didn’t surprise her that June had managed to get herself excused from rules the rest of the inmates were bound to.
“Stone’s no use to me anymore,” June said baldly.“So I’ve decided it’s time to help you with your story.”
Emily’s heart leapt.She’d been expecting some sort of reprimand or threat, not this.“Are you serious?Why?What’s changed?”
June chewed her upper lip and was silent for a moment, regardingEmily.“I was paying her to leave my girls alone, like you said,” she admitted.“The two that came in here with me are promising, the men like ’em a lot.I got to keep ’em clean.And that racket Stone’s got going on…” She paused.“Anyway, she named a price and I paid it and now she’s gone and doubled it, the bitch.I can’t pay it, and I’m not one for a shakedown, either way.Doesn’t sit well with me, you know what I mean?”
