Quoted By:
-Miss Beatrice has been fretting again,
Hetty says to the Cook,
-I do not think she shall want for anything this evening; she hasn't been eating well lately. (Turning to a scullery maid) Stir the cinders and fetch a scuttleful of coal. And rinse out the cullender and saucepans, supper will still have to be laid. I wonder what has made Lady Beatrice so distressed? Perhaps it is just her nerves, or the prospect of her introduction to polite society at Lady Temperance's Water Banquet. I suspect she is anxious as she barely knows anyone!
(The Scullery Maid, wringing tablecloths through a mangle)
-Cook says you were late coming back from your errands, Miss Hetty. She was so worried! You must be careful! There are women gone missing, butchered in dark alleyways and the rookeries, all along the slums by the Dockyards, the railway and Ironworks Foundry! There are illustrations and reports in all the penny dreadfuls, and the Constabulary are incorrigible, they aren't investigating or even doing anything! You shouldn't go out by yourself, Miss Hetty!
(The Cook, with conclusive assuredness as she cleaves a parsnip with relish)
-Immigrants. It's them foreigners. The foreigners did it. They brings their foreign gods, their birds and star cults and goat idols, their Blessed Lamb from across the sea. Murdering and scalping and chanting about their Fallen Freedom. That's them foreigners. The King would have put them right, in the old days. He would have sorted them all out, through and through. All gone now. Them foreigners!
Hetty (replying cheerfully to the Scullery Maid)
-I shall be perfectly safe! I am more then a match for any brigand... (Hetty snatches up and waves a nearby rolling pin) for I shall make the brigands fear me! (The Maid giggles). Besides, the constables are very watchful near the Ironworks, with the riots and labour stoppage. I believe the Syndicalists have organised themselves into an anarchic society of sorts, the Freethought Committee and Union for Collective Kindness (FC U C K). These reform societies are always such a mouthful! They call themselves the Freethought Union for short, FU. I doubt they will get any concessions from Miss Beatrice's father. Miss Beatrice did mention she was thinking of paying a visit the other day, in disguise... I am sure Master Isambard put a stop to it. (Turning to Cook) And you shouldn't be so mean to the poor unfortunates from overseas! You'll be saying we shouldn't eat potatoes next, because they are foreign too! (The Cook glares at a potato with vehement suspicion. Hetty is suddenly startled - ) Oh, that reminds me, I am always so forgetful, I have one more errand to run outdoors...
