Work Text:
"Not finished with the master's footwear yet, Reggie?" Miss's voice dripped with aloof disappointment rather than the drunken rage of the orphanage overseers.
The seven-year-old looked up at his employer – his owner. Piles of Sir's boots and shoes still surrounded him (all these, owned by one bloke) and the blacked ones lay in a wobbly line behind him. "Workin as hard as I can, miss."
A slipper across his mouth, as hard as the overseer's backhand. "Impudence. Children should be seen and not heard. Ingratitude. Did I not rescue you from your mother's sin to give you honest work in a Christian household?"
"Rescue" – yeh, more like sold as a servant, he'd seen the coins handed to the workhouse governor by the posh bloke looking for a boots boy.
"Scripture says 'he who shall not work shall not eat.' You shan't have any supper tonight. And no bed for you until these are done." Miss turned and walked away.
The boy blotted out his howling stomach and bleeding mouth by focusing on how Miss walked and moved, her plummy voice when she was being piously cruel. He'd been copying Miss and Sir, aping their gestures and voices, making Betty the scullery laugh.
He'd run away, be an actor on the stage, make a hundred pounds. And he'd never again do boot-blacking.