Miss Lucinda

Miss Lucinda, clean your face
Don't let them see you cry
Won't do you any good
They don't feel pity

It doesn't wear on them
Any better than a corset

Pity's something too complicated
For me to understand
Same as compassion
Same as kindness

Did he...

Why don't you get dry first?

Standing out there in the rain
Feeling sorry for yourself

You have to learn to stand up quicker
When a man knocks you down

Can't go on waiting for somebody to show up
And save you
You have to be able to diagnose and treat yourself

No man makes a better doctor for a woman
Than a woman makes for herself

How, uh...rough...was he?

I can see the bruises
But sometimes that's all they leave
And if it is, then you're lucky

Sometimes they leave more than that
And then you've got more to do
Then wash yourself off

Of course, if he did...

If it was worse
If worse things happened
Then there are steps to be taken

I know people who can...

I've had to take those steps myself, Miss Lucinda

I suppose that's no surprise
I know you don't think much of me
Bad teeth, bad skin, not a smile on my face

You forget you're lucky
What's worse is you forget others aren't
But what I've found is that even the richest woman
Is still the smallest thing in the world
In the eyes of a rich man

And that Mr. Porter is certainly rich, isn't he?

I saw him looking at you, Miss Lucinda
I saw him but what could I do?

Warn you?

You'd have fired me for the mere suggestion
That he'd...

...Act in any sort of way

I could have showed you
The bruises he left on me, maybe
But they've long since faded

Other things...

Other things remain

I took the same steps
I imagine you'll have to take
If he's...

If he decides that he can be as careless with rich girls
As he is with their maids

But I'd recommend that with your money
You find someone better
Than what I found

Maybe then at least
One day
When this is all a memory
You'll be able to have children
And the love you feel
Will turn the hate in you
Around down in the mud of your soul
Where you won't have to look at it anymore

Some of us can't even hope
To look forward to that

Shh, don't cry

They're all in their laughing
Smoking their cigars

Your father, your brothers

And Mr. Porter

Don't take any notions of revenge
Into your mind

It'll sit there and poison you
As sure as if you put arsenic
In your tea

The only revenge is making them see it

Making them see it in their eyes
How they've changed you
And not changed you

So clean yourself up, Miss Lucinda
Go in there
And light his cigar for him

Let him think for a second
That you were all right
With what he just did to you
Out there by the waste bins
In the rain
Like you were a...

But look him in the eye, you hear?

Look him in the eye
And let him see
That you're different

That you're tougher
Stronger
And he'll fear you

Sure as I'm standing here
He'll be afraid
Of what it is
That he's broke inside you

And he'll worry himself sick
Over what you're going to do to him
To make it right

Then don't do nothing

Let those nerves inside him
Pop and snap like twigs in a fire

It'll end his life well before he'd go naturally

With you and me
And who knows who else
Giving him those looks
I doubt he'll be alive much longer

Women can only wish you ill for so long
Before ill comes to see you
And ask after his girls

So don't fret, Miss Lucinda

Before today you were separate from us, us women

You were a bag of pennies
And a fancy hairbrush

But today, you're a woman

However it happened
It happened

And you'll be thankful for it one day
Thankful that now you've got the strength of a woman

There now, look how clean you are

Purer than you were yesterday, Miss Lucinda

Cleaner than you'll ever be
That I promise

Truly, Miss

I give you my word