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which I gathered that they had and that she’d been daft enough to tell her father as much. Well my missus was back on the road north before her feet could touch the ground with her ears still ringing and her poor wee titties didn’t stop bouncing till she was right back at Castle Haivers, missus didn’t say that last bit, I did.
    “And so you see I never did get to help the little ragamuffins,” she says.
    “Och dear,” I says. “Sure that’s a terrible shame.”
    My heart went out to her. In the back of my mind I was also thinking to myself that there’s beggar children all over the place not just London and she could always have helped the ones in Glasgow or even them that passed through Snatter but I didn’t want to spoil the moment when we was so cosy and she was telling me her secrets and all. By Jove I could have sat there holding her hand all night, it was lovely, more like being mother and daughter or very best friends than mistress and maid. A thought occurred to me now that we was so friendly, about that burnt accompt book I’d seen the day I arrived.
    “Marm,” I says. “Who is Morag?”
    Well you would have thought I’d slapped her in the face. She pulled her hand away.
    “What?” she says very suspicious. “Who have you been talking to?” “No-one, marm.”
    “But where did you hear that name? Nora? Where did you hear it?” “No marm, it was Morag,” I says. “Morag. Not Nora.”
    “Oh:
    At the time, I did not pay much heed to her mistake. It was only later I realised its significance. She seemed to relax a little but then she looked at me, through narrowed eyes.
    “In that case where did you hear the name Morag?”
    “I don’t know,” I says, regretting ever having mentioned it. “I—I think I might have seen it wrote down.”
    She surged to her feet, her fists clenched. “Written down where?”
    “On a—on a piece of paper marm.”
    “Where?” she says glancing at the ceiling as if it might be pasted up there. “Where is this piece of paper?”
    “I don’t know marm—I—it was in my room—I—I threw it away.”
    “What did it say?”
    “Just—just the name, marm. Morag. Only that. I—I promise you.”
    She held the lamp aloft and started peering about the place, frowning and making exasperated noises.
    “I thought you said you cleaned this floor,” she says to me but when I jumped up to do it she says, “Oh do it in the morning will you. But look here—the fire is nearly out.”
    “I’ll see to it marm,” I says.
    “But don’t take too long.”
    By the time I had a good blaze going she was back at the table, studying my book. I went over and stood not too close and give her a little curtsey. She nodded without looking at me. Best friends no longer, we was mistress and maid once more.
    Sit down, Bessy,“ she says. ”We have work to do. I think we should devote a part of every evening after supper to the improvement of your efforts.“
    And then she took up a pen and dipped it in ink. “Clink” went the pen against the ink jar and I realised that it was the same sound that I’d heard earlier that day, and then the missus began to teach me punctuation.
    To tell the gobs honest truth I did not give a first-light fart for full stops and all the rest. I thought my page looked fine while her page looked like it was covered in goat droppings with all the wee dots and spots on it. But as my Mr. Levy used to say, choices choices, life is full of choices. I thought to myself would you rather be up in your room where there is no fire and a draft coming through the window or would you rather be down here warming your titties by the coals and watching the lovely Arabella as she gives you a lecture on commas and capital letters and maybe from time to time holds your hand and takes you into her confidence?
    I studied a lot of punctuation.
    5
    The Master Returns
    Wednesday
    Last night went to sleep with my fingers pressed into my cheeks to try and make dimples like