I am sorry. I have a bit of a flair for the dramatic, I think. This chapter is a little short- the next one will be longer, promise.
Mr Perryman glanced down at the dirty woman sitting back against a brick wall.
"Shoo, you! This is not your home. Go away."
She didn't open her eyes, but tears dripped out of her eyelids and mingled with the blood on her face.
"Get out of here!" he bellowed, spit flying.
She hauled herself to her feet and walked down the lane.
"Filthy beggar women," she heard him mutter to his wife. "You keep away from them, Pamela."
"She had on an expensive-looking dress," his wife put in.
Mr Perryman snorted. "Probably bought it from coins she'd wheedled out of the rich." He was clearly very angry. His plump face was turning to the colour of raw ham. "If she thinks she's going to get at my hard-earned money then she's sorely mistaken."
Anne turned and raised her muddy face. "Keep your hard-earned money by all means, sir," she called back haughtily. "I would not wish to 'wheedle' anything that had been in your possession."
His face turned the colour of beetroot.
Anne had always been slender, but now she was raw-boned and scrawny. Her skin draped over her skeletal form like clothes two sizes too big. Her grey eyes were enourmous in her gaunt face. Her mucky, torn and bloodstained dress trailed to the floor, not quite hiding her worn-thin shoes. Blood still dripped from a crimson wound on her face. One arm dangled close to uselessly by her side, battered and bruised. Two weeks wandering the streets, barely eating and drinking murky gutter-water had done this to her.
She kept an eye out for a bread roll to tumble to the ground (it had happened, once) but didn't see anything so lucky. Tired, cold and sore, she just curled up on the grass of a park and held a grungy hand to her cheek. Blood seeped out between her fingers.
It wasn't long till she was asleep, even though it was the middle of the day.