ridiculous The Hundred project back to you, and sweep it under the rug, and take you out for tea and cakes. It’s been a nightmare.” Helen slowed as she approached her sister. Was Jane listening? Helen repeated her sister’s name again, but now slower, wondering. “Jane?”
Jane blinked several times. “Helen?” she said finally.
“Yes, silly,” said Helen. “I’ve found you and will get you home. But where have you been? Did you come here on your own? And aren’t you cold?”
Jane looked down, holding the funnel with its attached hose in one hand like a bouquet. She was still wearing the dress she had worn to the meeting—it was silky and misty grey, and still she had no coat, for Helen had that. “Perhaps I am cold,” Jane said, as if testing out the idea.
“Well, I’ll get you your coat. Or—no, I’ll get you a better coat. That ridiculous old thing you had; it’s not even worth giving as a hand-me-down. I’d feel terrible if I saw Mary walking out in that coat. I have an allowance, and there are some new ones in fashion that would very much suit—wide shoulders, belted to a narrow waist; all these gorgeous slashing lines.”
“Slashing lines…,” said Jane, fingering her cheek. Up close the filtered daylight revealed raw pink lines crossing the white face. The lines where the iron had been.
Helen’s heart seized. Jane was so vulnerable. Jane had always been the strong one, when they had been together. And when Jane fled to the city she was defined by her absence. I cannot ask Jane about medicine for Mother, I cannot let Jane make the decision about the cow. Helen wanted Jane to be the strong one again. “What happened to you?” Helen said again, but gently.
“I was working with Millicent when the room went blue,” Jane said slowly. “Everything felt strummed and tense, like when your hair stands on end. Like a lightning storm. And then … I felt I saw you standing up there in the attic. And there were people around you, but you were shouting to me. I felt as if I was being pulled in two. It hurt—not physically, exactly, but if you could be pulled in two without it hurting, then that’s what it felt like. I saw you and a tangle of copper, and then I saw Millicent and the attic. Both on top of each other. It was too much. I couldn’t take being pulled apart. I felt like there was someone behind me? Someone grabbed me? I think I blacked out. And then…” Jane looked around at the warehouse as if seeing it for the first time. “I don’t know exactly. I woke up here, and my iron was gone—it feels as though I skinned my knee, but on my face.” She put a hand to the pink lines that traced around her features. “But I didn’t really wake up, not all at once. I feel as though I’ve been sleepwalking while I try to put the two halves of me back together.”
Helen did not like the sound of this. And the being pulled in two … “What are you doing with that funnel?” she said sharply. “Does it have chloroform coming out of it or something?” She took the funnel from Jane’s hand and sniffed at it from a good distance, but smelled nothing. “Not that that proves anything,” Helen muttered. She dropped the funnel on the ground and kicked it away. Took Jane’s hand and tugged her sister around the boxes to the copper box with its snaking black tubes. “Does this look familiar to you? Have you touched it?”
“Perhaps I should,” Jane said, reaching for it.
“No,” Helen said sharply, and pulled her sister’s arm away. “It might be dangerous to you.” She was so overwhelmed. Grimsby’s invention
“Millicent?” said Jane. “I met a Millicent, long ago. She was all in white with a green sash, and she was dancing.…”
Helen’s fingers clutched tightly on Jane’s arm. “Jane—,” she said, but then there was a rustle from the other end of the warehouse, a muffled thump, footsteps.…
Helen’s fingers tightened all the way and pulled Jane through the tangle of crates and cages and machinery, back to the open window. Up on the rickety table, teetering, and now the lock on the front door was rattling.
“Out you go,” Helen said, and locked her hands under Jane’s heel, lifting her up. Jane might not have gone as quickly as Helen would have liked, but she did pull herself through the window, and out, and Helen heard her jump to the piles of slag below.
The lock clicked as Helen pulled herself up after Jane. It was hard without the heel boost she had given Jane. Helen had not climbed anything since she lived in the country. She felt the seams of her skirt start to go and she hoisted the material higher, painfully aware that Frye’s slacks would be better for this sort of thing. Men had it so much easier—even unfit Alistair could have managed this window more efficiently, because he would have had better clothes for it. A most unusual idea occurred to her for the first time, which was that perhaps it was all too convenient for men like Alistair that women like Helen stayed in dresses that you couldn’t run or climb in.
The door opened with an audible creak just as she got her elbows through the window and pushed herself through the last little bit. Helen desperately wanted to know who was coming in, but she even more desperately did not want to get caught. This was all Jane’s problem. Jane could worry about who was doing what. Helen could step down and return to her original plan of merely running interference for Jane on The Hundred, sending women her way. Away from danger and decisions.
Helen slid to the trash containers and then to the ground, tumbling onto the muddy cobblestones. She kept going till she was standing again, trying not to mind her poor ruined skirt. The cut on her palm felt as though it had opened up from the strain; she peeled that lilac glove carefully free of the bandage and stuffed it in her pocket before it could be ruined. Her good hand closed on Jane’s arm, Jane who was staring up at the sky with a vaguely curious expression, completely ignoring the goose bumps raising all the hairs on her arm from the November wind.
Helen took off her coat and laid it over her sister’s shoulders. “Let’s get out of here,” Helen said. “Frye will know what to do.”
Frye’s door was opened by the gorgeous woman in orange from the party, Alberta—though tonight she was wearing bright yellow, with a drift of poppies floating down from one shoulder. Her black hair was twisted up on her head and decorated with another gauzy poppy. Perhaps she had just come from a gig with
“Wasn’t there a party last night?” said Helen. She tugged at her split skirt seam, vainly pushing the edges back together.
“Oh, that party,” said Alberta. “Sure. But a few folks dropped by tonight after early gigs finished. Some people never really go home. Frye’s too kind to boot them out.”
Alberta turned and led the way down the hall, gold T-straps clicking on the floor. Helen twisted back to point out the show posters and memorabilia to Jane, but Jane was drifting blankly along. “Do they just stay for weeks?” Helen said. The thought of jumping ship on her life came back again. She could crash on Frye’s floor like the other bohemians. Perhaps she would have to learn how to go onstage. She rather liked the idea of having a hundred people watch her sing a torch song while twenty backup men danced in top hats behind her. Except she couldn’t sing. Still, why should that matter in a daydream?
“Sometimes they’re here awhile,” agreed Alberta. “Folks between gigs, in the off-seasons. Waiting for that next big role. Course, sometimes she gets tired of us, all at once, and kicks everyone out for a week and hibernates. But right now we’re in the other part of the cycle.”
Alberta led them up the circular staircase to the second floor. It was not the wild party of the night before, but there were a handful of people crowded around a low table at the landing, playing some sort of game that involved much jumping up and reciting, or bursting into song. Rook was not among them.
Helen turned to Alberta. “Honestly I was wondering if we could stay over,” she said. “Jane needs to sleep, and she can’t go back to my house. But Frye’s not here to ask, and also I wanted her advice.…”
Alberta shrugged, the organza poppies rippling on her dress. “Frye would tell you to stay if she were here,” she said. “She always does. My sax and I have the spare room, but the attic has several cots, if you don’t mind that some actor might stumble up and crash there, too.”
“That’s fine,” said Helen, who was more concerned with getting Jane to rest than complete propriety. She looked back at Jane, who was watching the wallpaper with a good deal of interest. How could she hand her problems off, if no one was able to take them on? “Actually I will take that nightcap,” Helen said.
