Free Mermaids Singing by Dilly Court Page A

you lot got nothing better to do than pick on them what can’t fight back?’
    Dora spun around, her mouth twisted as if she had just sucked a lemon. ‘Well, look here, Olive. Her high-and-mightiness speaks to us now.’
    ‘You may think you’re better than us now you’ve sucked up to her ladyship,’ Olive said, sneering, ‘but you’re still the same turd that floated in on the tide.’
    ‘I don’t care what you say,’ Kitty retorted, sticking her chin out. ‘You leave that poor girl alone or I’ll …’
    ‘You’ll what?’ Dora pushed Kitty with the flat of her hands. ‘You’ll sneak to Madam?’
    ‘I ain’t scared of you, Dora.’
    With a swift movement, Dora had Kitty’s arm pinned behind her back. She jerked it upwards until Kitty yelped with pain. ‘Are you scared of me now?’
    Kitty shook her head, even when another savage tug threatened to snap her bones.
    ‘Say it.’ Dora spat the words in Kitty’s ear, hissing like a snake.
    ‘N-never.’
    Olive clawed at Dora’s arm. ‘Careful, Dora, if you break her arm you’ll be in trouble.’
    With a hefty push, Dora sent Kitty sprawling onto the tiled floor. ‘Get out of my sight, you bag of piss.’
    Rubbing her grazed knees, Kitty scrambled to her feet. Holding her head high, she picked up her supper tray, ignoring the pain from her arm, leaving the kitchen to catcalls and hoots of laughter from Dora and Olive.
    Upstairs in the nursery, having settled Leonie for the night, Kitty sat down to eat her supper. Taking the cover off the dish, she stifled a scream, jumping to her feet with her hand clamped over her mouth. Lying on the plate was a large, dead rat.

Chapter Four
    ‘What’s the matter with your arm, Kitty?’ Bella said, noticing that the girl was pale, with dark shadows beneath her eyes and holding her arm limply at her side. ‘Have you hurt yourself?’
    Kitty bobbed a curtsey. ‘I slipped in the bathroom and twisted it a bit, that’s all.’
    Bella could spot a lie a mile off, she had told them often enough in the past. ‘Are they treating you well below stairs? You would tell me if they weren’t, wouldn’t you?’
    ‘It was an accident, my lady. Shall I take Miss Leonie back to the nursery for her bath?’
    Scooping Leonie up in her arms, Bella kissed her rosy cheek, inhaling the sweet scent of Pears soap and the sugary smell of the sweet that Leonie had dribbled all down her chin. ‘Night, night, baby. Mama will see you in the morning.’
    ‘Kitty.’ Jerking away from her mother, Leonie held her chubby arms out to Kitty.
    ‘She loves you.’ Suffering a pinprick of jealousy, Bella passed Leonie into Kitty’s arms and was immediately ashamed of herself as she saw Kitty flinch with pain. ‘If your arm isn’t better by tomorrow, I shall insist that you see my doctor.’
    Bobbing a curtsey, Kitty carried Leonie out of the room.
    ‘You spoil that girl.’
    Bella spun around to see Maria standing in the doorway that led off her boudoir to her bedroom. ‘I know that the poor child is being bullied by the lower servants but she won’t admit it.’
    ‘She’s a kid from the slums, she’s tough and she’ll get over it.’
    ‘Some things you never get over,’ Bella said, sinking down on the padded velvet stool in front of her dressing table.
    ‘The past is past and you’ve done all right for yourself,’ Maria said, yanking steel pins out of Bella’s elaborately coiffed hair. ‘Don’t meddle with what goes on below stairs.’
    ‘Ouch, that hurt,’ Bella said, wincing as Maria dragged the comb through a stubborn knot. ‘Be more careful.’
    ‘You’ve got a face as long as a fiddle!’ Maria eyed her reflection in the mirror with a suspicious gleam in her eyes. ‘What’s up with you tonight?’
    ‘Sometimes I wish I’d stayed single, plain Bella La Rue, singer and dancer, working the music halls. I’m only twenty-three; I’m still young and yet I feel my life is over.’
    ‘You don’t mean