A City Tossed and Broken by Judy Blundell Read Free Book Online Page B

saw her walking quickly down the hill toward the house. I imagine she wanted some fresh air for her headache, and who could blame her? I took the tea tray and fixed up her bed again and then laid out her nightclothes.
    I will fetch and carry and sew on buttons and lay out nightgowns but I will not be a spy.
    If you ask me, that girl just needs to breathe some fresh air and get away from both her parents, Mrs. Sump’s yammering and Mr. Sump treating her like a doll.
    Now I will tell you how long it took to get Mrs. Sump into her splendid gown! Oof! Thirty buttons down her back, twenty buttons on her gloves, the diamond headpiece placed just so, the pearls clasped around her throat. Once we were done she looked rather majestic, I must admit. If there was a surface on her person that was unadorned, I did not see it. She wore face powder, too. She left with a wide smile, holding on to Mr. Sump’s arm, ready to show off.
    I hope Mr. Caruso doesn’t get blinded by all that magnificence and fall off the stage.
    I took her some soup at eight o’clock and she told me she was just going to bed and not to disturb her.
    It’s odd how families work. Mrs. Sump bullies Lily and snipes at her. Mama and I worked together. We knew what needed to be done and we did it. We all worked in the tavern, we all pitched in because that’s the way families work, isn’t it?
    But there are secrets in this house, and nobody seems to listen to anybody else.
    I miss Mama. My heart is aching. I am sorry I shouted at her before I left. I am sorry I didn’t kiss her good-bye. I will write to her tomorrow.
    April 18, 1906
    Wednesday
    6:30 A.M.
    I never thought I would survive to write this.
    My hand shakes and I don’t know if I can make the pencil move.
    Yet if I don’t set it down, if I don’t make sense of it —
    I must write it so some of the horror can leave me and rest on the page instead.
    I am sitting outside of a ruined house. I’m sorry for my handwriting, diary, but I can’t seem to stop my trembling.
    When I woke at five to my alarm (the clock given to me by Mrs. Sump to make sure I would awaken), the sky was just beginning to lighten to gray. I had gone to bed at two. I was wearing Lily’s nightgown but I knew the others would not be up at this hour so I threw a shawl around me and quickly ran down the back stairs to light the fire in the kitchen before I dressed. I had to get the things I’d need to kindle the fires in the bedrooms. While I was in the kitchen I got out the coffeepot, for that was what Mr. Sump preferred, and the tea things. All that was in my head was the list of what Mrs. Sump told me I must do: fires lit by six, tea at seven in my room, coffee for Mr. Sump in the study, newspapers laid out in dining room, full breakfast at eight thirty.
    I had already lit the coal stove when I heard a noise behind me. Suddenly Lily was in the kitchen, dressed in a plain dark dress and hat — my dress! And carrying my suitcase!
    We just stared at each other for a minute, and I saw that she recognized her nightgown on me. And so at the same time we each burst out with questions.
    What are you doing in my gown?
    What are you doing with my case?
    And being that I was the servant I had to answer first, and I told her I had taken the gown to mend — I showed her the tear — but I needed nightclothes because I thought my case had been stolen.
    And then she looked embarrassed and looked down at the suitcase in her hand. I knew she realized she had no choice but to confide in me.
    She said she was leaving, running away. She told me I had to help. She said she’d pay me back, she knew she shouldn’t have taken the case with my things, but it was easier to leave as a working girl than to leave as a swell, where they could track her. This way it was a disguise.
    “Help me,” she said. Her eyes pleaded with me. I’d never seen so much emotion in her face. I realize now that she must have learned to keep her face still and set like a