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“But, Bert,” said Trudie. “Don’t you see? That must be the ship that Mr. Pratt has docking at Liverpool next month.” Bert inhaled sharply. “He offered you a passage on it as a clerk, didn’t he?”

“I turned him down flat,” Bert said slowly. “I thought – ” He flushed, and Lizzie guessed he had thought to pursue the fair Clara instead.

“That’s the path laid out before you by the fates,” Ma Toomes intoned solemnly. “If you deviate from it … disaster.” She spoke the last word with hollow emphasis.

Trudie gave an alarmed gasp, but Bert still looked unconvinced. “I’m not sure,” he prevaricated. “The only time I ever took a sea voyage I was sick as a dog.”

“Got to find your sea legs, haven’t yer,” Ma said with a callous shrug. “That don’t take long.”

“And if I do take this course? You can guarantee I will meet with success?”

Ma peered once more at his outstretched hand. “Yer fortune will be made,” she wheezed. “Sure as eggs is eggs.”

Bert drew his hand back, looking half-dazed.

“Come along,” Trudie urged him, casting a fearful glance at Ma Toomes. “Or we’ll never catch them up.” He allowed himself to be led away, and Lizzie watched after them in some bewilderment.

“See how it’s done, girl?” Ma Toomes asked sharply.

“But how can you guarantee he should take that position?” Lizzie asked. “Or the identity of that young woman’s true love, if it comes down to it?”

Ma Toomes snorted. “Either love or money. You has to predict one or t’other.”

Lizzie eyed her narrowly. “You mean, in fact, that you saw neither?”

Ma Toomes shrugged. “I just says what pops into me ’ead, girl,” she answered prosaically. “Who’s to say that’s not a gift?”

Lizzie regarded her speechlessly. “I’m not going to be able to do this,” she said stiffly. “I don’t have a ready tongue; I can’t read palms and I am not good with strangers.”

“You’ll learn, if you has to,” Ma Toomes predicted. “And you do have to.”

“It’s not just that, but also approaching people,” Lizzie objected in an urgent undertone. “I simply could not bring myself to do such a thing. I can hardly threaten them with curses as you do! It would never work for me!”

“Threaten ’em?” squawked Ma Toomes. “How dare you? A poor soul like me what never threatened a body in her life?”

Lizzie regarded her half indignant, half despairingly. “You’re an old woman and seem to pose no real threat to anyone,” she pointed out tautly. “I can hardly go sidling up to people, cajoling and cackling at them as you do. I’d soon be clapped in irons and thrown into bedlam!”

Ma Toomes threw up her hands angrily. “And that’s the thanks I get for trying to help you find your way, is it?” she demanded angrily. “Ingratitude! You’d best get practicing kicking them legs of yours up in the air if you think yourself too good for the likes of this.”

Lizzie flushed. “So those are my choices in life, are they? Either tricking people out of their pennies or displaying myself to all and sundry? Well, you needn’t think I’ll take your word for it, you horrible old woman!”

Ma Toomes’ eyes bugged out and her mouth worked indignantly for a moment, but she could not seem to find the right words. “You little ingrate,” she spat, looking Lizzie up and down with disgust. “You won’t last two minutes here! Ben must have rocks in his head to have taken up with the likes of you!”

Lizzie stared back at her through a miserable haze. She had a feeling that for once Ma Toomes was speaking nothing but the truth. She wasn’t cut out for this sort of life. How on earth was she going to survive? She pressed a finger and thumb to her brow a moment, warding off a headache as Ma Toomes yelled “Pah!”, clawed furiously at the air with her bony fingers, and span in a furious whirl of rags, flinging herself across the field and promptly abandoning her.

Lizzie watched her sail away in some dismay. Likely she should have chosen her words more carefully, but she had been in such a wretched panic at the idea of telling fake fortunes that she had spoken too frankly and offended the old woman.

What would she do now if old Ma went running to her husband and told him Lizzie had called her a ‘horrible old woman’? She blushed, after all, she could hardly deny the fact. There was no getting away from the fact her besetting sin was a too ready tongue.

She had learned over the years to choke her hot words back before they sprang forth, even though she felt like it half choked her some days to do so. The shocked virtue of her aunt and uncle had eventually schooled her against impetuous speech. Why then now had the flood gates opened with a vengeance? It must have just been panic that had induced her to act so badly, Lizzie reflected guiltily. She had better get a handle on it, or she would be lost to all shame.

She had started walking aimlessly along with the direction of the crowd. She was in no hurry to return to the dingy little wagon. In truth, she wished she could just keep walking and never go back, she thought, tears starting to her eyes. There was a sort of anonymity in the faceless crowd that appealed to her right now.

“Excuse me, miss,” a timid voice quavered nearby. Feeling a touch on her shoulder, Lizzie wheeled about in surprise. A middle-aged woman hastily withdrew her hand. “So sorry,” she squeaked. “My employer, Miss Halperton, bade me approach you,” she said wringing her gloved hands together. “I meant no offence.”

Belatedly, Lizzie remembered the red headscarf with the gold coins she was wearing on her head. Oh. So much for the anonymity of the crowd! “That is quite alright,” she said, drawing herself up and sticking her chin in the air. Clearly her haughty manner and excessive politeness had not been what the other woman was expecting at all. She blinked at Lizzie in confusion.

“Oh dear,” she faltered. “Miss Halperton quite thought – that is, she imagined you might be one of the entertainers,” she twittered delicately. “Do forgive me, if we are laboring under a misapprehension.”