The Escapement of Blackledge: a novella Read Online Free PDF

thin and wizened as he was. “Director Cole will see you now.”
    Helena gathered her things and bobbed a curtsy. She let her speech drift toward the East London tones of Papa Fred. “Thank ye, sir.”
    The desk in the inner office was only a little broader than the director himself. Director Cole looked up from his papers. “Ah. Miss Worthen is punctual, I will give her that.” He beckoned with his fingers, but did not offer Helena a seat. “The purse, girl.”
    “Yes, sir.” Helena bobbed a curtsy again as she pulled the purse from her reticule. With her plain dress, she had not expected to have the courtesy of a seat. He was supposed to think her nothing but a maid. “The mistress asked me to look in on the old man.”
    “Mm.” He counted the coins with his lower lip between his teeth. A bead of sweat trembled on the edge of his cheek. “Go on then. He is in the same room.”
    “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. But it’ll be worth my hide, it will, if I don’t bring her a receipt.” Helena twisted her shawl in her hands in a mimicry of distress.
    “Cornell!” The director scraped the coins into a strong box, and then slid it into his desk. It would be so easy to break in here and take the money if she wanted to. “Get a receipt for Miss Worthen’s father.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Thank ye.”
    “Tell your mistress that it would save her a good deal of trouble if she paid for the full year.”
    “I will sir.” Helena bobbed in a curtsy again. She knew that, but paying monthly meant she had an excuse to see her father.
    She went into the outer lobby and took the receipt the clerk offered her. For all the attention he paid her, Helena might as well not have worn a disguise at all. But when she wanted to appear as Miss Worthen, it was important that she seem to be a separate person. Any woman wealthy enough to pay for her father’s care, would never have paid the fees herself. Papa Fred would have made the payments for her, but his appearance was not so easy to alter. So Helena wore a maid’s cap to cover her hair, and a plain brown dress, and disguised her voice.
    Keeping her head down, as if she were meek, Helena took the stairs to the upper floor where her father stayed. The weeping man was still on the stairs, with snot streaming from his nose.
    Helena pulled her skirts to the side to make her way past them, grateful that her father had a private room. She could do that much for him at least. The hall on the second floor was lit by a promenade looking out over an interior courtyard. Patients shuffled down the length of it, wrapped in their dressing gowns.
    Sister Christina walked at the side of a veteran who was shy an arm. She looked up, and the creases in her face rearranged into a smile. “Miss Smith! Has it been a month already?”
    “It has, ma’am.” Helena looked down the hall toward her father’s door. “How is he today?”
    “Very well, miss. He likes the penny whistle his daughter sent last time.”
    “I am glad to hear it.”
    The nun squeezed her charges remaining arm and stepped closer to Helena. “See if you can get her to come visit him? He is always asking for her.”
    Swallowing the grief, Helena nodded. “I will do my best, ma’am. And thank you for keeping a good eye on him.”
    “The Lord watches over him. I just change his diapers.”
    “As you say.” Helena used the curtsy as a shield. “I should be getting on, before I’m accused of dawdling.”
    She hurried down the hall and knocked at her father’s door.
    His weak and rusty voice called, “Enter.”
    She slipped inside, shutting the door behind her and with it, she shed her affected accent. “Good afternoon, Papa.”
    “Helena! Dear girl, how I have missed you.” He sat propped in a chair by the window. The light streamed across the slick skin of his ruined features. He stretched out a hand toward her, turning his white eyes in the direction of her voice. “Come sit by me.”
    “Sister Christina tells me you