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“Is that a club?” Reina asked. She heard June snort beside her.
“Gang,” Belinda said. “We cut people’s pockets ’n purses. I wore a glove with little blades at the tips, and—” She made a catlike swipe with curved fingers.
Perturbed, Reina tried to think of a positive reply. “You must be very agile.”
“I could cut someone to ribbons in two seconds flat,” the girl boasted. “They called me the scourge of Liverpool.”
“Have you ever cut someone to ribbons?” Reina asked gingerly.
Belinda’s face fell, and she heaved a sigh. “Nah. No one never stayed to fight. They all run off as soon as they saw me glove.”
“How did you come by it?”
“There was a troupe of traveling actors what came to Liverpool with miracle plays. The devil and demons was all wearin’ leather gloves with claws. So I waited until one of the women went to put on her angel wings, and I stole a glove. But the claws was only made of tin. Not sharp at all. So I put little blades in ’em. I like sharp things. Pointy things too.”
“Would you consider becoming a maid-of-all-work?” Reina asked.
The question earned her a sullen glance. “You want me to do all the work?”
“No, that isn’t—no. It means you would be doing different tasks every day, not just one job all the time. A bit of everything.”
“That’s all right then, yeah. I’ll do it.”
After Belinda had left the room, June said, “I like that girl.”
Reina gave her a surprised glance. “She’ll need managing.”
“I’ll keep her too busy to fall into mischief.”
The next candidate, Tuppence Higget, entered the room with a distraught face and watery eyes. She was heavily pregnant.
“Oh, dear,” Reina said, hastily reaching inside her jacket pocket for a handkerchief. She hurried to give it to the young woman, while June went around the side of the booth to help seat her. “Miss Higget, are you unwell? Do you want a glass of water?”
Tuppence shook her head and blew her nose into the handkerchief. Her cheekbones were painfully sharp, and her arms hung straight from their sockets like wind chimes. Everything about her, including her fine skin and light hair, seemed to be in the process of drying out.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” Tuppence said. “I’m no good to anyone.”
“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” Reina exclaimed.
The woman blotted her eyes. “As you can see, I’m in a situation.”
June looked down at her and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “Your kind of situation don’t last forever.”
“But I’ll still be someone’s mum forever.”
Was this how Mamaíta had felt upon discovering she was pregnant? How frightening it must be to find yourself destitute and growing more physically helpless every day.
Reina sat across the table from the young woman and glanced at her file. “You once worked as a housemaid—no, head housemaid,” she said, impressed. It meant Tuppence had a depth of knowledge about the responsibilities and practices of household servants that neither Reina nor June had.
“It was at a great house in Northampton,” Tuppence said.
“May I ask what caused your trouble with the law?”
“There was a ‘no followers’ rule for the household staff. If you were found with child, you were dismissed. The countess was always fretting that one of us might be ‘caught.’ So she put me in charge of inspecting the other girls’ sanitary rags every month, to make sure they were all bleeding regular. I said I would, but I didn’t. The girls had enough shame heaped on them already.”
“Is that why you were dismissed?”
“Yes, ma’am. A housemaid who wanted to move up to my position told the countess I wasn’t checking their monthly rags. I was dismissed within the hour.”
