Free The Mourning Emporium by Michelle Lovric Page A

inaudibly.
    “Henceforth,” continued the woman, “you will address me as ‘ma’am.’ Or suffer for it.”
    The faces of the assembled boys expressed one single thought: “Who is this unpleasant female landlubber, and what is she doing on the Scilla?”
    “Brats,” recommenced Miss Canidia Uish, “it has come to Queen Victoria’s attention that there are some poor wretched Venetian orphans who need taking in hand after the ice flood that devastated your city. So Her Majesty has decided to extend her patronage to those unfortunate orphans who exist outside the benevolent protection of her great Empire.”
    She beamed. Then her expression changed dramatically, a vicious glance clattering down like a guillotine upon the young sailors’ feelings. “Stand up straight when I address you, you insignificant pieces of offal!” she shouted. “Where’s your gratitude? Don’t you know that you are privileged to be under my protection?”
    They shook their heads humbly.
    “I have been sent here on the express instruction of the prime minister of Her Majesty’s government, Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, ninth Earl and third Marquess of Salisbury, who is my personal friend and a great favorite of the Queen herself. Which means, brats, that I represent Queen Victoria’s interests”—she looked around her disparagingly—“in this dismal corner of the globe. Do I not, Malfeasance?”
    An ill-favored man of middle years stepped out of the shadows. Dark stripes of discontent furrowed his cheeks.
    “Malfeasance Peaglum, my second-in-command, and now yours too,” announced Miss Uish. “Disobey him at your peril.”
    “Where’s Professor Marìn?” asked Teo boldly. She refused to add “ma’am.”
    “History does not relate.” Miss Uish gave another of her strangely poisonous yet radiant smiles. She bent her head to stare at Teo. “Write that boy’s name on my list, Malfeasance. What a poor specimen it is too. In England we have a name for weaklings like him—we would call him the Nestle Tripe, or runt of the litter.”
    Peaglum produced a black notebook from a crevice in his greasy waistcoat. He sidled up to Teo, nudging her with his elbow. “Well?”
    “Teodoro Ongania,” she said proudly, trying to keep her voice low. He scribbled it down with a grin. “You don’t want to get put on this list again,” he snarled, “Teodoro Ongania, Nestle Tripe.”
    “Venice,” Miss Uish continued, “is a backwater now. A Nestle Tripe among cities, as it were. Her glory lives only in the dim past. What pantaloons the Venetians are, preening and thinking that everyone admires them still! Believing that anyone cares about their flood? About their so-called history? Their gaudy art? Hardly!”
    Peaglum sniggered, a disgusting sound like someone treading fatally on a toad. Miss Uish pronounced, “Everything around here has to be tightened up, shipshape, British-style. Starting with the younger Venetians, who might have a hope of reform. The older ones,” she sneered, “are too idle and decadent to bother with. If they’re not drowned already. Queen Victoria is gracious with her charity, of course, but personally Her Majesty feels that if Venice had not deserved her present calamity, it would not have happened to her. Queen Victoria does not believe in magic, but she certainly believes in just deserts.”
    She giggled and whispered something to Peaglum that sounded strangely like “That old bezzom!”
    The young sailors were dumb with shock. Queen Victoria was known to be a bit of a dragon, but could she really be as cruel and unfeeling as that?
    Miss Uish rapped, “Now, stop pouting. Abandoned orphans cannot always have all things to please them. You think sympathy and sugared Earl Gray tea should be brought to you in china cups for free? Just because you’re orphans? Do you think life owes you a favor because you were so stupid as to have parents who floated out of your houses and drowned?”
    The