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done the laundry as well as humanly possible, especially considering that she had had to do it all alone, and there was nothing else she could thinkof that might warrant a punishment. She hadn’t even been late for supper.
    As Nell entered the little room, Matron Sully was already sitting at her desk with her back to the door. ‘Mr Thanet and I have decided,’ she said, flicking through a pile of papers, ‘that the time has come for you to leave.’
    Nell didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t have been more shocked if the matron had reached out and hugged her to her bosom. And although she couldn’t see the woman’s face, and it was hardly in the matron’s nature, Nell could only think that she was playing a trick on her, that she was teasing her for some reason. There was no other explanation.
    ‘The usual firms will be contacted, and enquiries made regarding opportunities for employment, although I can’t think of many positions you’d be fit for, not with your attitude.’
    ‘I’m very sorry, Matron Sully, but I don’t understand.’
    ‘Don’t play the fool with me, girl. You heard what I said – the time has come for you to leave.’
    ‘Leave? Leave where? Not here? I can’t. I’m not old enough.’
    ‘Of course you are, you ridiculous girl.’
    ‘But I’m not, I’m—’
    ‘Fifteen,’ the matron interrupted her. ‘Almost sixteen, in fact. So rather than argue with me, you should be grateful you weren’t asked to leavesome time ago. Although even that’s too much to expect from the likes of you, I suppose.’
    Nell wasn’t listening to her any longer. ‘How do you know how old I am? I don’t even know that.’
    She had never dared speak to the matron in such a way before, but fear and confusion were making her reckless.
    Matron Sully inhaled deeply and noisily through her nostrils, more a whinny than a breath. ‘Because I know everything about every child in this place.’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Oh yes.’ She stabbed a dimpled finger at the rows of leather-bound ledgers stacked neatly on the shelves above her desk. ‘And that’s how. From those books. Those books that cannot lie because I wrote every one of the words within them. Not that it’s anything to do with you, of course. And from the way you’ve begrudged doing every little task ever asked of you, I’d have thought you’d be glad to leave here. You are a stupid, ungrateful girl. You’ve been fed, sheltered, and educated – even taught how to use a typewriting machine.’
    ‘Only so that I can do your and Mr Thanet’s chores in the office.’
    That had the matron turning around all right.
    Nell took a step backwards, terrified by what she had just done, but knowing she had to carry on. ‘I want to speak to him, to Mr Thanet.’
    The matron smiled unpleasantly. ‘Think youcan get round him do you, you with your pretty face? Well, that’s where you’re wrong. You’re far too old to hold any appeal for the governor. And, while we’re on the subject, when you were younger it was only because I protected you from him that you were left alone. I thought that that in itself might warrant some gratitude.’
    Nell frowned. ‘I don’t understand what you mean by that either, but if you ever protected me from anything, then I know why. It was because of that.’
    She pointed at the gold and pearl N pinned on the bib of the woman’s apron, struggling, as she always did when she dared to snatch a look at it, to catch the memory that flitted around in the shadows of her mind. The memory was of someone so kind and beautiful she was more like an angel from the books that they let her read at Sunday school than an ordinary woman. And she was sure that the woman had cared about her, maybe had even loved her; but then there was something else, something about a fire, and a man who had hurt the lovely woman. But it was a memory she could never quite grasp.
    Nell dropped her head and stared down at the floor, feeling the familiar