The Sister's Tale by Beth Powning (e reader for manga .txt) 📕

Flora looked at the carpet.

“It’s nothing much, Flora. You have been learning very fast. I have nothing to complain about. It’s only the grate.”

The grate. Flora frowned, looked up, surprised.

“The kitchen grate,” Josephine explained. She capped the pen and leaned forward, tapping it against her mouth. “When you scrape it out, you leave ashes all over the floor. She has told you twice.”

Ada’s country kitchen. The stove wood was kept in a box, pushed up against the wall. Ada did not mind a drift of ashes. It was the maplewood table she insisted upon being scrubbed to whiteness.

“I forget,” Flora said. “I got so much to do in the mornings. I will remember.” She tightened her hands on the whisk broom behind her back. Her heart speeded, she bit her lips. “I’m sorry.”

Josephine turned to her desk, pressed blotting paper against the letter she had been writing.

“I always tell my girls,” she said. “Both my own daughters, I mean. And you, too, Flora. You and Mary and Margaret. I tell them that they…you…can always talk to me. If you have any questions. Something you don’t understand. Or…or problems of your own. I like to have a happy home. My husband and I. We like to have a happy home.”

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked more slowly than Flora’s heart. She thought of the question. She had held it so carefully, like the egg basket when she walked across ice.

Unasked, she could still hope. She had pondered this. If the answer was no, would she leave this house? Would she somehow find her way back to England?

“I do have a question.”

“Yes?”

The oak-cased telephone rang and they both jumped, but it was three rings, not one.

“I never asked,” Flora said. She tightened her hands on the whisk broom. “Whether I am to be paid.”

Josephine smiled, this time without worry.

“Of course you’ll be paid, Flora. I pay the others every two weeks. You’ll be paid along with everyone else.”

Flora could not bring herself to say that she did not have a single penny saved. In Ada’s kitchen she’d been led to think she was a member of the family. You can go to school if your work’s done. Eating at the table with them. Hearing the rumble of Henry’s stomach, seeing Ada’s hand over her mouth to cover a belch. She got the same serving of food as Ada; slept in the same cold house; shared the same kerosene-lit parlour on winter’s evenings.

“I have a sister.” She drew a breath that strained the buttons between her shoulder blades. “Her name is Enid. They told me she would be sent over to be with me. They told me I could save up my money and better myself. For when she came. I wouldn’t have left if I’d have known it wasn’t true.”

She had been waking at night from a recurrent dream. The matron, looming with a giant blacksmith’s nipper—Have you no appreciation!—Enid’s fingers, clasping Flora’s arms. The nipper, snap snap. Screams.

“I want to save my wages.”

Josephine’s eyebrows shot upwards, her mouth fell open for a moment. She pushed back her chair. “You have a…Flora?”

“And I want to find her. There was a lady came to the workhouse. She’s the one who told me about bettering myself. She’s the one who brought me over. I gave a paper to the Quigleys but I never seen it again. Think they must have lost it. So I can’t remember her name or where she is. I thought the Overseer would help me.”

“You have a sister?” Maud had stayed home from school with a sore throat. She stood in the doorway holding a cup of tea, wearing housecoat and slippers. Her hair was pillow-flattened, her eyes earnest—shocked, she looked at Flora as if seeing her for the first time. “A lost sister? Where do you think she is?”

Flora spoke to the carpet. “I don’t know. Think she’s still in England.”

“They made you come away without her? How could they?” Maud said, stepping into the room. “Mother, isn’t it terrible?”

Flora glanced up at Maud.

Who am I? Who does she see?

“I will ask Mr. Fairweather. The Overseer of the Poor,” Josephine said. Her words chased one another, a cascade of promise. Her eyes, as earnest as Maud’s. As shocked. Her hands, clasped tightly and pressed against her breast. “I will ask him to help us. We will try to find your sister, Flora.”

—

“She was violated,” Ellen said, after the staff had finished their noon meal. She sipped her tea, pointed at the newspaper. “She was a woman of fifty years of age. In poor health. And she was violated. Can you imagine, now? Bruises on the insides of her legs. Teeth marks.”

The Weekly Record was lying on the kitchen table. Its headline was larger than usual. Is Slavery Abolished?

Flora picked it up. She read the article, running her finger under the words.

“Can you read, then, Flora?”

Flora stopped. She was silent for a moment, stung.

“I can. Even though I’m only a pauper.”

“Flora. You’re not a pauper.”

They didn’t know, though, Flora thought. She set down the paper as if it were one of Josephine’s freshly ironed blouses. No tears, never tears, only hurt that occasionally shook her like a fever, so much of it that she realized how long she had been patient. Trusting. Waiting.

They could scoff at her feelings and hand her a cup of tea and a bowl of raisin pudding. They could teach her to knit, tat, play cards. They could show her how to skate, holding the back of a chair. They had never stood before a crowd of men and known that those men had the power to buy her because of how her body might serve their lust.

“You’ll be getting paid like any housemaid,” Ellen added. She was watching Flora closely, running a finger around the rim of her teacup. Margaret’s back was turned as she washed dishes in the sink. Mary, on her hands and knees, rummaged deep in a cupboard. “Mrs. Galloway