“All of them?” she whimpered.
“Angelina, Dominic, Giovanni, Ricardo, Guilia—is that all of them?”
Bella threw herself to the ground.
“La mi famiglia e morta!” she wailed. “La mi famiglia e morta!” And even Yetta, who knew no Italian, could understand this: My family is dead! My family is dead! It was an unearthly sound, seeming to soar beyond the tenth floor of the factory, higher even than the skyscrapers.
The boy dashed forward and began tugging on Bella’s arm, pleading, arguing—Yetta couldn’t tell what he wanted. But Bella flung him away, unbelievably strong in her grief. The boy’s head slammed into the wall of the Triangle building, but he sprang back up, tried again. “Stay away from me!” Bella seemed to be screaming. “I want nothing to do with you!” Yetta wondered if the boy had killed Bella’s family.
Jane peered from Bella to Yetta.
“What should we do?” she asked.
Yetta held more tightly to her picket sign. She swayed a little, hungry, tired, cold. The sound of Bella’s keening seemed to whirl around her. I can walk the picket line for hours on end, she wanted to tell Jane. I can go without food. I can defy the bosses as long as they defy us. Or I can pick this girl up, soothe her in her grief take care of her. Don’t you see? I cannot do everything.
It didn’t matter. Yetta didn’t have to say anything. Because Jane suddenly straightened up, suddenly decided.
“I’ll take her home with me,” she announced, sounding a little stunned, as if her conclusion surprised even her. “That’s what I’ll do. Mr. Corrigan, put this girl in the car. Now.”
Jane
Mr. Corrigan just stood there.
“But your father—Miss Milhouse—”
“I said, put her in the car!” Jane commanded, and for the first time in her life, she thought she sounded a little bit like her father. He was always that forceful, ordering the servants around.
Mr. Corrigan gave Jane a puzzled glance, but he obediently bent over and scooped the wailing girl into his arms.
“Bella!” screamed the boy hovering nearby.
He clutched at the girl’s hand, but she shoved him away.
“I don’t think Bella wants you to come with her,” Jane said, and she was just as glad. This boy looked like a complete ragamuffin, one of those urchins who stood on street corners hawking papers or picking pockets. His knickers were in tatters, and no one had bothered to patch any of the holes in his shirt. His thick hair straggled down into his eyes—was his family too poor even to own scissors? Or— just too lazy to use them?
Mr. Corrigan turned his back on the boy, shielding Bella from the boy’s grasp. Bella’s body must have been very light, because Mr. Corrigan only needed one arm to hold her while he tugged on the handle of the car door. Then he slid her onto the car seat.
“Miss—?” he said, offering Jane one last chance to come to her senses and cast the girl back out into the street.
“You ran into her!” Jane said fiercely. “She’s in pain and in mourning and we can help!”
Mr. Corrigan shrugged, his head bowed—a servant’s answer. It is as you command, that shrug said. I will not pretend that I am capable of thinking for myself.
“I will let you know how she is,” Jane said to Yetta, as if Yetta had asked.
Yetta’s face was unreadable, but she gave a small nod.
“Miss Wellington, shall I pull the car around for you?” Mr. Corrigan asked.
Jane saw what he meant. He’d put Bella on the side of the car closest to the curb; unless he turned the car around, Jane would have to step out into traffic to get to the door on the other side.
“No, no, I’ll be fine,” Jane said airily.
But it was frightening stepping out into the street. A car zigzagged past her, blaring its horn. She had to dodge horse droppings. And she’d moved so rapidly that Mr. Corrigan didn’t have time to step out before her, hold the door for her. For the first time in her life, Jane grasped the handle of the car door herself, opening and shutting it without her driver’s assistance.
“Home, please,” she instructed Mr. Corrigan.
He pulled away from the curb. Jane turned her attention to Bella, who was no longer thrashing about and screaming but huddled on the seat, sobbing softly. She did not seem to realize that she’d been transferred from the sidewalk to the car. On the whole, she was not much cleaner or any better kempt than the ragamuffin boy. The hair hiding her face might as well have been tied in knots, and Jane wasn’t sure if that was dirt or blood on her arm.
Jane suffered a pang of regret: What have I done? But her next thought was triumphant: I did something! Finally! For once I’m not just standing around watching. . . .
Jane couldn’t have said why she’d begun haunting the picket line the past few weeks. Whenever she could escape Miss Milhouse’s watchful eye, she’d sneaked out of Christmas brunches, Christmas luncheons, Christmas teas, just to have Mr. Corrigan drive her down to the Triangle factory to stand in the cold, her fingers getting frostbit, her elaborate hairstyles so often destroyed by the wind. She disgusted herself. It would be different if she were actually helping—bringing hampers of food, maybe, or joining her voice with the strikers’ as they called out to passersby. Or even, as Eleanor Kensington had done, throwing herself at a police officer, begging, “Arrest me! Arrest me instead of touching even one of these poor, poor girls! They’re not doing a thing wrong. So if you have to arrest someone, arrest me!” (The police officer had carefully dodged her and walked in the other direction. As did the next police officer. No one, it seemed, was willing to arrest Eleanor Kensington.) But Jane crept timidly away when the police came; she’d done nothing but watch.
Until now.
The girl on the seat beside her snuffled, one sob completely spent, the next just a whimper building in her chest. Jane pulled out her handkerchief and slid it under that veil of tangled hair, awkwardly wiping the girl’s nose. She mostly ended up wiping the handkerchief on the hair, so it wasn’t exactly a successful effort. But the girl didn’t seem to notice, as the next sob grew from one little whimper to something truly frightening, racking her whole body.
Jane stared at the girl, wondering that she was capable of crying with such abandon. The way the girl had thrown herself to the ground, wailing—it had been so sad, but also so . . . pure. Jane remembered the moment she’d learned of her own mother’s death. Miss Milhouse had told her: “She died in her sleep, completely at peace ... you know she’d been sick for such a long time.” Miss Milhouse’s method of delivering the news had made it seem as though it would be selfish to cry. So Jane hadn’t. She’d stood there, a little girl of nine, stoic and silent and pale, while Miss Milhouse began fussing about fittings for the mourning clothes and the proper dress for the funeral. Jane wished now that she’d been able to wail like this girl. She wished such mourning had been considered proper— or that she hadn’t let herself care that it wasn’t.
Mr. Corrigan pulled into their long, curving driveway.
“Shall I—?” he asked, still sounding doubtful that Jane really meant to be bringing this wailing girl home.
“Carry her up the stairs,” Jane ordered briskly.
Miss Milhouse was waiting in the foyer.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “The Aberfoyles’ party—”
“I’m not going to the Aberfoyles’ party,” Jane said. “I’m busy.”
“But all those eligible men home from college . . .” Miss Milhouse caught a glimpse of the wailing girl in Mr. Corrigan’s arms. She let out a shriek. “What is that?”
“It’s a girl. Mr. Corrigan accidentally ran into her. She just lost her entire family,” Jane said.
Miss Milhouse recoiled.
“Well, then, give her a few coins for pity and send her on her way,” Miss Milhouse said, her face a mask of revulsion. “You shouldn’t have brought her here. If she knows where we live she’ll come around begging for money all the time. She might even know a lawyer. . . . A
nd, ugh, she’s so filthy—downstairs, Mr. Corrigan. I—”
“Put her in my room,” Jane commanded. “You can lay her on my bed.”
“But, your white coverlet, Jane! That’s mud on her boots—mud or worse—”
Jane responded by tugging on the girl’s boots, even as Mr. Corrigan carried her up the stairs. The boots came off to reveal filthy, patched stockings, with equally dirty skin peeking through the holes.
“Draw a bath,” Jane said.
“Well, I never!—Jane Wellington, I am not touching this verminous creature, and I forbid you to have anything to do with her either!” Miss Milhouse said. “Now, Mr. Corrigan, I insist, take her back where she belongs.”
Mr. Corrigan kept walking up the stairs.
So, there! Jane thought. I am the mistress of the house! Miss Milhouse is just a servant!
This was a new thought, a surprise.
Mr. Corrigan gently set the girl down on Jane’s bed; he himself walked into Jane’s private bathroom and turned on the faucets. And then he retired from Jane’s room, pulling Miss Milhouse along with him and gently shutting the doors behind them.
Jane was alone with the filthy, sobbing girl.
Some of the dirt and snot from her face, Jane saw, had already been transferred to the white coverlet. The sound of the water rushing into the bathtub caught Jane’s attention. She went into the bathroom and turned the faucets off. She wet a cloth and brought it back to the bed, but the water dripped across the sheets. She tugged on the girl’s arm.
“You’ll have to come with me,” she said.
Dazed, still crying, the girl stumbled to her feet and swayed her way toward the bathroom. Jane thought about summoning her newest Irish maid, Bridie, who’d replaced Sally—Bridie was especially good at washing hair. Bridie would know how to wash away all that filth. But Bridie might complain to Miss Milhouse, might decline to help because she’d been hired only to take care of Jane. And Bridie wasn’t the gentlest of maids; Jane didn’t want Bridie pulling on Bella’s hair when Bella was already sobbing so tragically.
Jane touched Bella’s dress, ready to lift it over the girl’s shoulders. Jane had had maids dress and undress her many times, but she’d never once tried to help anyone else with her clothes. She couldn’t figure out how it would work. Bella pulled away, murmuring something that sounded vaguely like an Italian version of “I can do it myself.”
Dialect, Jane thought. She remembered a line from one of her Italian guidebooks: In the countryside, and particularly in the mezzogiorno, in the southern part of Italy, the peasants have no knowledge of their own language, and instead speak only localized dialect. A peasant from one village may be completely incapable of conversing with a peasant from another village only scant miles away. It is recommended that travelers avoid these areas entirely ...
Bella slipped into the tub as soon as she had her clothes off. Jane had never seen another girl without at least stays and petticoats on; she was stunned to see how badly Bella’s ribs stuck out, how thin and wobbly her legs appeared. It was the fashion to pull one’s corset very tight, to make a female’s waist all but disappear. But Jane had never seen someone as skeletal as Bella, so clearly on the verge of starvation—on the verge of disappearing completely.
“I—I’ll go tell the kitchen to send up a tray of food while you’re bathing,” Jane stammered. “Here’s a towel for when you’re done. And here, you can put on one of my nightgowns.”
It was bright daylight outside, midmorning, but Jane had the sense that someone as emaciated as Bella—and as grief-stricken—should definitely be convalescing in bed. She scrambled down the stairs, so rattled that she forgot she could summon any servant she wanted just by ringing a bell. In the kitchen she spat out orders at the undercooks, then carried the tray of oatmeal and eggs and bacon up the stairs herself.
Bella was out of the tub now, wearing the nightgown and curled up under the coverlet. She was also sound asleep.
Jane leaned in close to make sure that Bella was still breathing. And then she sat down beside the bed and watched, because she didn’t know what else to do. Only, it didn’t feel like just watching anymore. It felt like keeping guard.
Bella
Bella woke up warm—warm and cushioned and cozy. She was sure this was a dream because she hadn’t been warm in weeks; she’d never in her life slept in a comfortable bed. She flailed about, reaching out for the Luciano children or her own siblings. She’d never in her life slept alone, either. But she was alone now, in this great expanse of white sheets and soft blankets.
Then she remembered. She remembered that she truly was alone, as alone as a girl could possibly be, and the sobs came back, wails pushing out once more from her raw throat, tears pouring out again from her swollen eyes.
“Ssh,” someone said, hovering over her in the dim, twilit room. “Here. Have some soup. Zuppa.”
Bella swallowed hot broth, which was no consolation for the sorrow and grief, for her unbearable loss. But it slid down her throat comfortingly. She slid back into sleep, where she could dream of running through her village with her brothers and sister, all of them healthy and strong and little-child chubby, as they never had been in life. She could dream of baking with Mama, using flour from such overflowing bags that they could make loaf after loaf after loaf. She even dreamed of Papa, shouldering his hoe and singing as he went off to work, no longer bent over and work-worn and aged before his time.
When she woke again, the liquid the voice urged on her was bitter and molasses-thick, clogging her throat like tears.
“Medicine,” the voice said. “Please. Per favore. You need it.”
Bella swallowed it, just so the voice would leave her alone and she could fall back asleep.
She wasn’t sure how many days passed before she woke for good, but sunlight splashed in through high, arched windows, illuminating roses painted on the wall. No—rose wallpaper, she told herself, pleased that she could identify such a foreign, American phenomenon. She must have heard one of the girls in the factory talking about wallpaper, describing the glories that were possible with paper and paste.
The factory ... She waited for the panic to hit her—the panic, the sorrow, the fear—as she followed the trail of thoughts that began with sunshine on wallpaper roses. If the sun was up, she was supposed to be in the factory, unless it was Sunday, in which case she was supposed to be crowded around the Luciano table, twisting wire into fake roses. She hadn’t been to the factory for so long that she’d probably lost her job, which meant that she wouldn’t have any money to send home to Mama . . . though Signor Luciano hadn’t sent any of the other money she’d made before, he’d just lied and kept it for himself.
And anyhow, Mama and the little ones were dead.
The panic and sorrow and fear that she had expected came slowly and was muffled. It was like all those times she and her brothers had thrown pebbles off the cliffs—the sound of the pebbles hitting the ground was so delayed and so far away, the noise seemed unrelated. Bella had moved beyond grief. She could close her eyes and see her family, happy, healthy, well fed. It was possible to hold that vision in her head, along with the knowledge that they had been all been dead for months.
“They’re in heaven,” she whispered. “Just like Father Guidani always promised . . .”
At those words, something stirred at the other end of the vast room, on an odd sort of couch that Bella had thought was covered with frills and lace and ruffles. The frills and lace and ruffles actually seemed to be covering a girl lying on the couch.
The girl sat up, and the frills and lace and ruffles floated into place on the most elaborate dress Bella had ever seen. Bella felt great sympathy for the sewing machine operator who’d had to concoct that monstrosity. She hoped that the operator’s boss didn’t stand over her screaming like Signor Carlotti always did, because sewing a dress like that would take a lot of concentration.
“Where am I?” Bella asked. “Who are you?”
Th
e girl said something—maybe “Are you feeling better now?” or “Did you sleep well?”—some sort of soothing phrase. But Bella didn’t understand any of the words.
The girl came closer. She was beautiful, with rosy cheeks, green eyes that sparkled like jewels, shining dark hair pulled back with a ribbon. But her face seemed nightmarish to Bella. This was the girl who’d read Pietro’s letter.
“You!” Bella gasped. “What did you do with my letter? Did Rocco take it back? Please, I know it was full of bad news, it was cursed, but it was about my family. . . .”
She struggled to get out of bed, but the girl held her back. She was still talking—Bella knew these words must be “Calm down” or “Stay put,” but they only upset Bella more.
“I don’t understand!” she complained first in her own language, then in the language she’d learned in the factory.
The girl kept jabbering away. Finally she touched Bella’s shoulder, pushing her back against the pillows. Then the girl ran to the door and called out. A tall, thin, unpleasant-looking woman appeared in the doorway, her mouth twisted as though she’d been sucking on lemons.
The girl and the woman seemed to be arguing, the woman’s face contorting even more unpleasantly. Then the woman went away and the girl came back to Bella’s side.
“Yetta,” the girl said, with a bunch of other incomprehensible words. Bella knew she was saying “Yetta will come” or “Yetta will help.”
Bella decided she could wait for that.
Yetta
Yetta straightened the sign on the side of the car: THE WORKHOUSE IS NO ANSWER TO DEMANDS FOR JUSTICE.
“Stop that! You’ll scratch the paint!” the man in the chauffeur’s uniform snapped at her.
“Paint be hanged! Our message is more important!” scolded the owner of the car, a woman in a floral dress and a towering hat held in place by no fewer than six jeweled hat pins.
“She’ll be growling at me to sand it down and repaint it immediately if there’s so much as a nick in that paint after this parade,” the man muttered to Yetta, almost apologetically. “And it’ll be my fault, no doubt. It always is, according to her.”