Excerpt from The Ballroom by Anna Hope, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The nurse shoved her into a seat, put down the papers she was carrying, and Ella was left alone. The windows had no bars in here. Through them was a wide gravel drive. The door opened, and a man entered. Humming. Fair hair. A long mustache, pointed at the ends, ears that stuck out and were pink at the tips. He eyed Ella briefly before coming to sit, and his eyes were blue and pale. He reached out and slid the papers toward him. He wrote something down and then read some more. He carried on humming as he read.

The man looked up. "My name is Dr. Fuller." He spoke slowly, as though she might be deaf. "I am one of the assistant medical officers here. It is my job to admit you."

"Admit me?"

"Yes." He sat back in his chair, fingers touching the edges of his mustache. They were sharp, as though you might prick yourself on them. "Do you know why you are here?"

"Yes."

"Oh?" He leaned forward a little. "Go on."

The words fell from her. "I broke a window. In the mill. Yesterday. I'm sorry. I'll pay for it. But I'm not mad."

The man's eyes narrowed as he held her gaze. He gave a brief nod, then looked back at his paper and wrote something down. "Name?"

She said nothing.

His tongue clicked against the roof of his mouth. "What is your name?"

"Ella. Fay."

"Thank you. Occupation?"

"I'm not mad."

"Occupation, Miss Fay."

"Spinner."

"And for how many years have you worked as a spinner?"

"Since I was twelve."

His pen scratched out over the paper. "And before that? Did you work as a child?"

"Yes."

He wrote it down. "Since what age?"

"Since I was eight."

"And what did you do then?"

"Doffer."

"And, remind me, that is .?.?.??"

"Doffing rolls of thread when they're full. Tying up the ends and that."

He nodded and wrote some more.

"Are you married, Miss Fay?"

"No."

"According to the papers I have here, you still live with your family, is that correct?"

"My father. His family. Not mine."

"And what about your mother?"

"Dead."

More writing, more scratch scratch scratch.

"And what's your father's address?"

The room was quiet. Outside, clouds raced each other across the sky as though they had somewhere better to be. She saw the house she lived in. The house where she had grown up. That her mother had died in. A black house that was never safe. Her father, his new wife, their children. And her. Like one of those fents of cloth that were left over, that fitted nowhere, were just chucked and left to fray. "Fifty--three Victoria Street."

The doctor nodded, wrote, and then stood and crossed the room toward her. He took her wrist in his fingers and pressed lightly. With his other hand he took a pocket watch out and stared at it. "Tongue."

"What?"

"Put out your tongue." He spoke sharply.

He peered at it, then went back to the other side of the table and wrote some more. She watched the letters spooling from his pen, marching from left to right like a line of ants she saw once on a baking summer afternoon, crossing the path on Victoria Street. She had been small, sitting with her back on hot stone. Inside, she had heard the rasp of her father's voice, then the thud of fist on flesh. Her mother crying, a low, animal sound. She had stared at the ants. They looked as if they knew just where they were going. She wondered what would happen if she followed them. Where she would end up.

"It says here, Miss Fay, that yesterday morning you broke a window in the factory in which you are employed." The doctor was looking at her again, a keenness to him now.

"That doesn't make me mad."

"Do you deny you did this?"

"I .?.?."

How to explain? How to speak of what she had seen—-of the women and the machines and the windows that blocked everything out. It had been so clear then but would muddy before this man, she knew.

Excerpted from The Ballroom by Anna Hope. Copyright © 2016 by Anne Hope. Excerpted by permission of Random House, A Penguin Random House Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.