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“He’s just doing his job,” Lizzie replied, shushing Sebastian. He made a loud rumbling in his throat as he sat back down on his haunches, letting them know he was close at hand.

“I’ll take a drop of tea if you’ve not got anything stronger,” the old woman said, dropping down onto a convenient tree branch. Lizzie eyed the old woman’s disreputable appearance with resignation. Ma Toomes stretched her legs out next to the fire, showing her hobnail boots and gray woolen stockings.

Rinsing the soap from her wrists and arms, for it was harsh stuff, Lizzie dried her hands and set about refilling the kettle and hanging it above the fire. “You’ll have to excuse me while I collect some more firewood,” she commented. Ma Toomes shrugged and, removing her pipe from her wrinkled mouth, she set about repacking it with fresh tobacco as Lizzie foraged for branches.

“I’ve still got your cloak and headscarf,” Lizzie commented as she returned with an armful of sticks. “I keep meaning to return them to you but have been getting distracted.”

Ma grunted and puffed furiously on her pipe until the bowl smoked. “A nice granddaughter you’ve turned out to be!” she muttered, sounding aggrieved. “If it wasn’t for that doxy of Frank’s, I’d starve in a hedge before you did your duty by me!”

Lizzie set out the teapot and cups. “Is Daphne Frank’s doxy?” she asked calmly, letting her skepticism show. “He doesn’t talk about her that way. When he first mentioned her to us, he called her a sort of stepsister.”

“She don’t see it that way!” Ma Toomes retorted.

“Yet she sleeps in your wagon.”

Ma’s eyes glinted. “Stop trying to change the subject, girl.”

“Maybe I have not been terribly dutiful,” Lizzie acknowledged.

“You haven’t lifted a finger! Not so much as a stocking of mine have you darned!”

“As I understand it, Frank’s wife was exceedingly dutiful, yet you did not appreciate her in the slightest.” The words flew from Lizzie’s lips before she had the chance to check them.

Ma clamped her pipe between her teeth and tilted her chin up aggressively. “I’ll own Maggie were a good girl,” she muttered, narrowing her eyes. “Not like you, my fine lady.”

“Yet you did not appreciate her efforts until she had flown.”

“There’s a pecking order to be followed. I did my fair share when I was a girl, now’s my time to be waited on a bit,” she bridled.

“That may well be,” Lizzie answered lightly. “But my husband has made it plain that I am not the one to do the waiting.”

“Pah!” Ma Toomes burst out. “Let’s see if he’s still singing that tune in a twelvemonth when the shine’s worn off you!”

“Maybe he thinks if I’m not worn to a frazzle, I’ll keep my shine longer?” Lizzie suggested mildly.

The old woman contemplated her a moment in moody silence. “Properly got him on leading strings, haven’t you? You must be feeling mighty proud of that fact, for Lord knows, you’re no beauty.”

Lizzie poured some of the hot water into the pot and swirled it about before emptying it out. “Perhaps his attraction to me runs deeper than my superficial appearance?” she suggested.

The old woman snorted. “Don’t be naïve, girl!” Lizzie shrugged and measured out three teaspoons of tea leaves from the tin and into the pot. “I know exactly how you snared him, as it happens,” the old woman said smugly. When Lizzie poured the hot water into the pot without comment, she continued malevolently. “It’s that hankering for respectability that the workhouse gave him,” she pronounced with disgust. “Those places install it in you if they catch hold of you young enough. It’s not really the lad’s fault.”

Lizzie looked up at that. “The workhouse?”

“Didn’t know about that, did you?” answered Ma with satisfaction. “Well, you don’t know everything about Benedict Francis Toomes, do you? For all, you’re his sweetheart.” She spat this last word with the utmost contempt.

“I don’t understand,” Lizzie admitted. “Benedict told me his great-grandfather ran away to join the fair, and his family had followed in that trade ever since.”

Ma Toomes blinked. “Well, that’s right enough,” she admitted grudgingly.

“Then how is it that Benedict wound up in a workhouse when he was young? Did you fall on hard times?”

The old woman looked cagey. “Don’t you get mentioning it to him!” she cautioned. “For it’s not spoken of in general, and he won’t thank you for it.” She hesitated a moment, her thin lips working as she seemed to undergo some inward struggle. “I blame that time for the rift between Ben and the rest of us,” she said at last bitterly. “The time he spent there drove a wedge between us all. He resented us and never forgave his father for it.”

“Do you mean ...?” Lizzie broke off uncomprehendingly. “Can you be saying that it was only Benedict that was admitted to the workhouse? No, that cannot be.”

The old woman looked away. “As it happens, it was.”

“How?” Lizzie demanded. Benedict was the middle son, so she could imagine no easy circumstance in which he could have been separated from his family.