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She didn’t bother explaining, only huffed and gestured for him to go.

Norman hastened away, clutching the writing desk.

Grumbling to herself, Reina paced a circle around the entrance hall with her arms folded.

Where was June? What was she doing? Why had afternoon tea apparently been canceled? At this time of day, the smell of something cooking should be drifting up from the kitchen. Was June planning to serve a cold supper?

Reina went downstairs in search of her and was disgruntled to find that June wasn’t in the kitchen. Moreover, the table and counters were bare, and nothing was cooking on the stove or baking in the oven. The only activity was the rattle of pans and dishes coming from the scullery.

She fell back a step, mildly startled as a small round potato came bouncing and rolling across the floor in front of her. It was pursued by Alan, who snatched it up and trotted back toward the scullery with his ears flopping. A few moments later, the potato came rolling back out, and Alan retrieved it with panting enthusiasm.

Reina followed the dog to the scullery, where Belinda was working at the sink.

There was a contraption on the floor, made with a few scraps of wood, a metal hinge, a nail for a pivot, and a small, battered tin cup. The cup had been affixed to a wooden lath that flipped up like the arm of a catapult.

Alan went to drop the potato into the tin cup and looked up at Belinda expectantly. Without pausing in her washing, the girl reached out with her foot to step on a lever, which flung the potato out of the scullery. Alan dashed after it.

Reina couldn’t help laughing despite her irritable mood.

Belinda glanced over her shoulder and turned to face her, bobbing a curtsey. “Ma’am.”

“Did you make that toy? Belinda, how clever you are.”

The girl shrugged, looking pleased. “Just made it from a few odds and ends, ma’am. It stops Alan from tugging at me apron strings when he wants to play.”

“What is that on your hand? Let me see.” Reina came to stand beside her at the stoneware sink.

Shyly Belinda displayed an oilcloth glove with bristle-covered palms and fingers. It appeared she had been scrubbing pots and pans with it.

“Ahhh . . . you’ve been experimenting.” Reina inspected the glove closely, touched by the obvious care that had gone into making it.

“I used scraps of oilskin from the ragman,” Belinda explained, “and pieces of an ’ot water bottle, and bristle tufts from an old pot brush. Enid showed me how to make a drawstring cuff.”

“Does it work well?”

“It don’t scrub as hard as I want it to,” Belinda admitted. She paused to launch the potato for Alan again before continuing. “It needs wire bristles, but I can’t make wire stay in the glove. Keeps pullin’ out.”

“Have you tried reinforcing the glove with something to help anchor the wire?”

“Yeah, tried it with leather. That don’t work neither.”

Reina pondered the problem. “What if we had someone make thin metal plates with pre-drilled holes? We could stitch them to the glove and then insert metal tufts the way they do with chimney sweeps’ brushes.”

“That might work,” Belinda exclaimed.

“We’ll try it, then. I’ll see to it that you have the proper supplies. Ask Mr. Goodluck to order anything you need. Once you come up with a satisfactory design—a prototype, is what it’s called—I’ll help you apply for a patent in your name, and I’ll even pay the fees.”

“What’s that?”

“A patent? It’s a kind of legal protection that means you own your invention, as surely as if you owned a house or a plot of land. So anyone who wants to manufacture it will have to pay you for it.” Reina examined the palm of the glove, where Belinda had used waxed thread to stitch bristle tufts to the oilcloth. “I’ve profited quite well by investing in ventures like this—products and devices that make domestic labor easier.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Perhaps there’s a thinner, more flexible material we could use for these . . . vulcanized rubber . . . ?”

“Would they let me have one of them patents?” Belinda asked. “Even with me being just a housemaid?”

Reina glanced at her with surprise. The self-doubt in the girl’s voice reached back to her own earliest memories of people trying to define her with a single contemptuous word. It filled her with a surge of strength, reawakening a conviction stronger than any faith or philosophy.

“You’re not ‘just’ anything,” she said. “ ‘Housemaid’ is a word for what you do, not who you are. It’s good, necessary work, but it’s not all you’re capable of.” She took the girl’s ungloved hand and held it in both of her own. “People with small minds will have a small view of you. But who you are is more than anyone can see from the outside.”

Seeing Belinda’s perplexed expression, she explained, “You’re a girl no one can contain in a cell. You’re a girl who invents and builds things. You have the right to register a patent, start a business, or open your own bank account. You’re as valuable as anyone else in this whole wide world. Never forget that.”