“I’m fine,” said a small, cold voice. “It’s juth—just—blood.”
“That’s quite true,” I said equably, though the tone in which she’d said it rather alarmed me. I sat down beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. It was hard as wood, and her skin was cold. How long had she been lying there uncovered?
“I’m all right,” she said. “I got the rags. I’ll wath—wash—my rail in the morning.”
“Don’t trouble about it,” I said, and stroked the back of her head very lightly, as though she was a cat of uncertain temper. I wouldn’t have thought she could become any more tense, but she did. I took my hand away.
“Are you in pain?” I asked, in the business-like voice I used when taking a physical history from someone who’d come to my surgery. She’d heard it before, and the slender shoulders relaxed, just a hair.
“Not weal—I mean, not ree-lee,” she said, pronouncing it very distinctly. It had taken no little practice for her to be able to pronounce words correctly, after I had done the frenectomy that had freed her from being tongue-tied, and I could tell that it annoyed her to be slipping back into the lisp of her bondage.
“It jusst feels tight,” she said. “Like a fist squeezing me right there.” She pushed her own fists into her lower abdomen in illustration.
“That sounds quite normal,” I assured her. “It’s just your uterus waking up, so to speak. It hasn’t moved noticeably before, so you wouldn’t have been aware of it.” I’d explained the internal structure of the female reproductive system to her, with drawings, and while she’d seemed mildly repulsed at the word “uterus,” she had paid attention.
To my surprise, the back of her neck went pale at this, her shoulders hunching up again. I glanced over my shoulder, but Mandy was snoring in the quilts, dead to the world.
“Fanny?” I said, and ventured to touch her again, stroking her arm. “You’ve seen girls come into their courses before, haven’t you?” So far as we could estimate, she’d lived in a Philadelphia brothel since the age of five or so; I would have been astounded if she hadn’t seen almost everything the female reproductive system could do. And then it struck me, and I scolded myself for a fool. Of course. She had seen everything.
“Yess,” she said, in that cold, remote way. “It means two things. You can be got with child, and you can start to earn money.”
I took a deep breath.
“Fanny,” I said, “sit up and look at me.”
She stayed frozen for a moment, but she was used to obedience, and after a moment she turned over and sat up. She didn’t look at me, but kept her eyes fixed on her knees, small and sharp under the muslin.
“Sweetheart,” I said, more gently, and put a hand under her chin to lift her face. Her eyes met mine like a blow, their soft brown nearly black with fear. Her chin was rigid, her jaw set tight, and I took my hand away.
“You don’t really think that we intend you to be a whore, Fanny?” She heard the incredulousness in my voice, and blinked. Once. Then looked down again.
“I’m … not good for anything else,” she said, in a small voice. “But I’m worth a lot of money—for … that.” She waved a hand over her lap, in a quick, almost resentful gesture.
I felt as though I’d been punched in my own belly. Did she really think—but she clearly did. Must have thought so, all the time she had been living with us. She’d seemed to thrive at first, safe from danger and well fed, with the boys as companions. But the last month or so, she’d seemed withdrawn and thoughtful, eating much less. I’d seen the physical signs and reckoned them as due to her sensing the imminent change; had prepared the emmenagogue herbs, to be ready. That was apparently the case, but obviously I hadn’t guessed the half of it.
“That isn’t true, Fanny,” I said, and took her hand. She let me, but it lay in mine like a dead bird. “That’s not your only worth.” Oh, God, did it sound as though she had another, and that’s why we had—
“I mean—we didn’t take you in because we thought you … you’d be profitable to us in some way. Not at all.” She turned her face away, with an almost inaudible sniffing noise. This was getting worse by the moment. I had a sudden memory of Brianna as a young teenager, and spending hours in her bedroom, mired in futile reassurances—no, you aren’t ugly; of course you’ll have a boyfriend when it’s time; no, everybody doesn’t hate you. I hadn’t been good at it then, and clearly those particular maternal skills hadn’t improved with age.