Mr. Jones laid a warm hand over hers. 'You're not yourself this evening.'

She blinked at him with grateful tears. 'It's nothing.'

'Has the child been tiring you?'

How she would have liked to nod, to blame it all on the petty exhaustions of an ordinary day. It wouldn't be the first time she'd have kept something from Thomas, after all. She had had bigger secrets, lies of omission.

But she shook her head regretfully. 'It's only-Mary. She was ... pert. With Mrs. Morgan.'

His forehead drew into a knot. 'Pert?'

'She meant no real harm-she only laughed-'

'Laughed? At what?' he interrupted, his face dark.

'Nothing,' said Mrs. Jones unconvincingly. Somehow she couldn't bear to describe the incident, the breast in all its pallid limpness. She was half afraid she might laugh herself.

'And what of the commission?'

His wife squirmed. 'That's what's worrying me. That's why I've brought it up at all. When she first came in today, Mrs. Morgan asked me to undertake three sets of clothes for her daughter-'

'And now it seems Mary Saunders has caused an utter breach in our relations with our most prominent patron!' He pronounced the words as if in a court of law.

His wife flinched. 'I don't know about that, Thomas. Mrs. Morgan left in such a hurry-'

His hand thumped the table. 'We'll be lucky,' he growled, 'if any member of that family ever steps into our shop again.'

Mrs. Jones put her face in her hands.

'As for the girl, I'll give her pert, pert, he roared. 'I'll give her he roared. 'I'll give her no harm. no harm. Bring the chit down this minute and I'll whip the smile off her face.' Bring the chit down this minute and I'll whip the smile off her face.'

His wife could feel her face stiffen into a mask of horror. 'But my dear, consider-'

'Bring her down for a round dozen this minute, I say. Her kind can't be reasoned with.'

'Thomas.' Mrs. Jones tried to gather her forces. 'We've never re-sorted to such punishment in our family. I cannot agree-'

'You cannot?' The vein on his nose stood out. 'Well, what matter if you can agree or not? I hope we'll have no petticoat government in this house!'

In the whole length of their marriage, through money troubles and domestic disputes, she'd never seen her husband's face so distorted, so beyond her reach. It was as if, by some piece of girlish foolishness, Mary Saunders had ruined her master's life.

Mr. Jones pushed his chair back; it made a dreadful squeal. Every nerve in his wife's body strained away from him, but she stayed where she was. He stood, breathing heavily. Something was softening his face-not kindness, it seemed to her, but some obscure doubt. As he scrabbled for his crutches, he mumbled something, so low she barely caught it.

'I beg your pardon?' she whispered.

'You do it. More seemly.' And with that he'd lurched out of the room.

'Abi said I was wanted.'

When Mary came in, the mistress was standing in the parlour like a thief, red-eyed, her hands behind her. 'Mary,' she said very fast, 'Mr. Jones-that is, we-have decided, my husband and I, that you deserve a whipping for your conduct today.' A birch rod emerged from behind her skirts. She toyed with it, as if it was some fashionable accessory she didn't know how to use.

Mary looked at her mistress very hard. They waited in a dull silence. Mary couldn't quite believe it. She hadn't been whipped since she was thirteen years old, and lost the penny through a hole in her pocket.

Mrs. Jones's words squeezed out painfully: 'What you did was very bad.'

'What did I do, exactly?'

The older woman's lips trembled. 'You laughed at Mrs. Morgan.'

'I meant nothing by it. I said I was sorry.'

Her mistress put her hand up to cover her mouth. Realising it still held the birch, she put it down again. 'It was the way you looked at her, when you were laughing.'

'I'm not responsible for my face, madam!'

But Mary knew this was bluster. When she had accepted the advance on her wages, back in the spring, she'd as good as signed herself over. Her back, her hands, her words, every muscle in her face.

'Your behaviour deeply offended Mrs. Morgan. It has probably lost us the year's most important business.'

'Well, she shouldn't have been so touchy,' muttered the girl.

'Oh, Mary,' said Mrs. Jones helplessly, 'what lady could bear to be looked at in that way, at such a moment?'

At this Mary couldn't prevent her mouth from forming into a tiny smirk.

'If you prove yourself to be a child,' Mrs. Jones said, in a stiff and borrowed voice, 'I must treat you like one.' She shouted loud enough to startle them both: 'Come in, Abi!'

Only when the maid-of-all-work came in, expressionless, and stooped over, did Mary understand. She was to undo the laces of her stays and bare her back, then put her wrists in Abi's hands and lean her body against the curve of Abi's spine and give herself over to be whipped like a common convict. When all she'd done was laugh at the wrong moment! When the order had clearly come down from Mr. Jones, who wanted her punished not for today, but for the night when she'd lifted her skirts to him.

Mary didn't have to stand for this. All she had to do now was walk upstairs and pack her bag. She had more than enough money to take Niblett's wagon to London and make a new start.

But something held her. Maybe the habit of servitude. Maybe the stillness of the three women, like masked actors in a play. Or the look in her mistress's unfocused eyes that said, Help me, Mary? Help me, Mary?

Mr. Jones stood with his ear pressed against the door, hard enough to make it tingle. As each blow fell in the little parlour he seemed to feel the wood shake. Nobody inside the room spoke a word or let out a cry of pain. His wife was not shirking the job, he could tell, even though she couldn't know he was listening. Whatever Jane set herself to do, he thought with appalled love, she did to the best of her ability. Even if the choice was not hers to make.

The strokes came hard and regular. At the tenth, there was a hiatus, as if Mrs. Jones had lost count, or more likely, he imagined, as if she was shaken by the sight of a speck of blood leaking through the girl's shift. But then came the eleventh, and finally the twelfth. The silence was a dreadful relief.

It was he who needed a whipping. Mr. Jones did know that, now he had calmed a little. It should have been him in there, baring himself to his wife's birch rod and begging her to lift the skin off him. He should have knelt at her feet and said, I broke our marriage vows with a dirty whore, one you think of as a daughter. I broke our marriage vows with a dirty whore, one you think of as a daughter. And then he should have asked, And then he should have asked, What can I do to repay you? What bargain must we make so we can go on? What can I do to repay you? What bargain must we make so we can go on?

Gall makes a poor supper. That's how Mary's mother used to put it. And tonight Mary could taste bitterness going down like a nut, settling in her stomach. It planted itself, put down roots, and began to grow, nourished on her dark blood. That's how Mary's mother used to put it. And tonight Mary could taste bitterness going down like a nut, settling in her stomach. It planted itself, put down roots, and began to grow, nourished on her dark blood.

Alone in the attic room, she shifted position on the bed now. The pain forced a little gasp out of her. She reached behind her with shaking hands and started to undo her bodice. The stays took longer to come away. But she was damned if she'd cry.

What was it Doll had said once, waking out of a deep drunkenness on a winter's night? No use getting fond of folk. They'll always let you down in the end. No use getting fond of folk. They'll always let you down in the end. Mary reached under the bed, wincing at the bruises and weals along her back. She scrabbled for her stocking, the little worm that contained all her hopes. She spilled its riches across the rough blanket, faintly cheered by their ring and shine. This was all that stood between her and all the other girls out there. This was all she could rely on: gold and silver and brass, firmer than steak between her teeth. She arranged her hoard in piles and made letters and numbers from them. They all spelled freedom. Mary reached under the bed, wincing at the bruises and weals along her back. She scrabbled for her stocking, the little worm that contained all her hopes. She spilled its riches across the rough blanket, faintly cheered by their ring and shine. This was all that stood between her and all the other girls out there. This was all she could rely on: gold and silver and brass, firmer than steak between her teeth. She arranged her hoard in piles and made letters and numbers from them. They all spelled freedom.

The candle was down to half an inch. She was tired to the bone. Pain moved back and forth across her back, like lines scribbled through a sketch to strike it out. All at once Mary couldn't keep her eyes open. She let herself sink down on the bed, embracing her dragon's hoard. She wondered, would she wake with a heart turned to stone.

Mrs. Jones stood still. Not a sound from behind the door; barely a wink of light through the keyhole. She raised her hand to knock, but it was shaking. Her fingers still smarted from wielding the birch.

She pushed the door open, and for a split second before the draught snuffed out the candle she saw Mary Saunders, slumped across the bed in her shift, like a child who'd fallen asleep unawares. The small light glossed her dark hair before it went out.

Mrs. Jones heard a clink, and a half curse, and the scrabble of a tinderbox. 'No, please, my dear,' she began, 'I'm sorry-'

'Wait,' ordered the girl in the darkness.

When the candle had been lit again, Mrs. Jones stepped forward and sat on the very edge of the bed. There was a thin pillow between them.

'I thought it was Abi,' said the girl, very cold.

'No.' Mrs. Jones's voice was hoarse. 'Abi's to sleep with Mrs. Ash tonight. I thought you might rest easier with the bed to yourself.' She looked down at her closed fist. 'There's something I must say, my dear. Can you not guess what it is?'

Those eyes, like scorch marks on a sheet.

'It wasn't my own wish to punish you in that way. I know you meant no malice, with Mrs. Morgan...' She cleared her throat; the noise was deafening in the little attic. 'Well,' she said, very low, 'we have the same master, you and me both.'

That bold eyebrow, inching up again, putting a question mark after everything.

'Aren't we all servants, one way or another, Mary?' pleaded her mistress.

The girl put her hands down on the pillow and leaned very close to Mrs. Jones. 'Maybe so, madam. But some get whipped,' she whispered with hot breath, 'and some do the whipping.'

The older woman felt her eyes flood. She was blinded. She looked into her own heart, dusty as charcoal.

She opened her hand, after a time, and offered the girl a tiny pot with a paper cover. 'Ointment. For your back. May I put it on for you?'

She thought for a moment that Mary might throw it back in her face. But the girl turned away, and started lifting her shift. Her shoulders were creamy in the candlelight, as far down as the first red stripe. Mrs. Jones edged nearer on the bed. The pillow between them made a curious clinking sound. Mary froze, and it was that, more than the sound, that alerted her mistress. She lifted up the pillow and saw coins leaking across the narrow bed.

'What's this?' Mrs. Jones's words were simple with surprise. Then she began to count. Her hand shuddered as it turned over the bigger coins as if they were stones in a puddle. Finally, she asked: 'How much is here?'

The maid turned to look down at the money as if she had never seen it before. 'Eleven pounds, three shillings, and tuppence ha'penny,' she said.

Mrs. Jones's mouth repeated the words without a sound. Her hands laid the pillow flat in her lap, and pressed down. For a moment she was tempted to get to her feet and walk away, and forget she'd ever climbed up the stairs to the attic tonight. Then she found her voice. 'Mary Saunders!' It was an accusation, a denunciation, but also a plea.

'What?'

'Where did you get this money?'

'It's mine,' said Mary.

'But how can it be?'

Mary stared back at her, as blankly as a cat.

Mrs. Jones's voice gathered strength and momentum. 'I know you lied to me about your old debts. But how can a maid in your position possibly possibly have amassed such a fortune?' have amassed such a fortune?'

That eyebrow again.

'Would you not call it a fortune, then?' asked the mistress, weakly. 'Eleven pounds!'

The girl's wide lips were sealed.

Mrs. Jones shut her eyes for a moment. She had to take control of this conversation. 'What matters is not how much it is,' she said more quietly, 'but where you got it.'

'That's my business,' snapped Mary.

Her mistress's mouth became a horrified O as the terrible thought occurred to her. 'I'll have no thievery in this house.'

'I've thieved nothing.'

'You must have. You must have robbed things from our patrons. You couldn't have got it any other way, if you hadn't a penny when you came to us,' said Mrs. Jones, panic hitting her like a wave going over her head. 'Tell me whose it is,' she insisted. 'The Misses Roberts's?'

The girl shook her head.

'Not Mrs. Morgan's, surely?'

Another weary shake.

A dreadful thought occurred to Mrs. Jones. 'From us, was it? Would you stoop to that? Did you steal things from your own family to sell? For we are your family, you know; we're all you've got.'

The girl stared back in furious denial. Were those tears in her eyes, or just the shimmer of candlelight? 'I stole nothing. It's mine, I swear,' she said shrilly. 'Every penny of it.'

'But where did it come from?'

'What does it matter?' Mary's voice rose to a shriek. 'Money always comes from somewhere. From everywhere, more like. Think how many pockets these coins have lain in. What matters is that I earned it.'

'Honestly?'

A long pause. 'Yes.'

'You're a liar,' said Mrs. Jones. Bile in her throat; she swallowed it down. 'I don't know what else you are. I don't think I want to know.'

Mary shrugged again, mechanically.

With a few desperate sweeps, Mrs. Jones shovelled the coins into her apron. Mary's hand reached out, and Mrs. Jones slapped it out of the way, without thinking. The girl's fingers stung from the touch. 'Do you know the law of this land, Mary Saunders?' She paused to strain for a breath; her apron sagged, heavy with coin. 'You'll hang if you're proved to have stolen so much as a handkerchief.'