Secrets on 26th Street by Elizabeth McDavid Jones Page B

about the Girl Scout organizational meeting at the Hudson Guild that Mum had promised to take her to tonight. Helen was hinting for Bea to take her, but Bea was only half listening. Her attention seemed focused on the wall calendar next to the icebox. Susan glanced at Bea’s plate; she’d barely touched her food. Bea was preoccupied with something, that was for sure. Susan hoped the telegram would tell them with what .
    Finally Helen plunked down her empty cup on the table. “I’m still thirsty.” She licked milky foam from her upper lip.
    Susan stood up. “I’ll get the milk. I want more, too.”
    Susan filled Helen’s cup to the brim and handed it to her, but the cup slipped from Susan’s hand and clattered to the floor, splattering milk everywhere. Then Susan knocked over the milk bottle. A white river flowed out and cascaded into Bea’s lap. Smaller streams ran across the table and dripped over the side onto Lucy and Helen.
    Bea leaped up, an astonished look on her face. She was soaked. A dark stain was spreading down her blouse, her apron, her skirt. Milk dribbled off her clothes onto the floor.
    â€œSusie, you made a mess,” said Lucy, eyeing first Bea, then her own flooded plate. Bea was holding her sopping skirt out from her body.
    â€œYeah,” said Helen. “You managed to soak everything and everyone, except yourself.” If Susan didn’t know better, she would have thought Helen was really mad.
    Susan hurried to help Bea take off her apron. “You better change, Bea, before you get chilled. I’ll clean up out here.” She began fetching rags from the ragbag under the dry sink.
    â€œCome on, Lucy,” said Helen. “You and I will have to change, too.” Helen marched Lucy to the bedroom, throwing an angry glance at Susan over her shoulder. Helen would make a wonderful actress, Susan decided.
    Bea looked hesitantly at the sea of milk on the table and the floor. “I suppose I should get into something dry, but I’ll be back to help straightaway.”
    As soon as Bea started down the hall, Susan stuck her hand in the apron pocket to snatch the telegram. Suddenly she heard Bea’s voice. “Susan?”
    Susan jerked her hand from the pocket. “Yes?” Had Bea seen her?
    Bea was standing at the entrance to the kitchen. For a moment she was quiet. Then she said, “Don’t feel bad, love. It wasn’t your fault.” With that, she disappeared into her room.
    Susan felt a rush of guilt. She hated deceiving Bea. Then she hardened herself. Bea had brought it on herself, hadn’t she, by deceiving them first.
    Quickly Susan plunged her hand back in the apron pocket and fished out the telegram. She opened it with trembling hands. It was three short lines:
    SIR GEORGE UNABLE TO SEND REQUESTED FUNDS STOP REMINDS MISS RUTHERFORD OF HER DEFIANCE AT THEIR LAST MEETING.
    It was signed by some official in the British Parliament, a secretary of some kind.
    Susan must have read the lines three or four times before the realization sank in.
    The telegram had nothing to do with Mum .
    It made no sense to Susan at all.
    Susan refolded the telegram and stuffed it back into Bea’s apron pocket. She hung the apron over the towel rack on the dry sink, and with her rags, she sopped up the spilled milk from the table. Then she grabbed the mop to tackle the floor. All the while her mind whirled.
    Why on earth was Bea getting a telegram from the British Parliament?
    Then, from some corner of Susan’s memory, the words came floating back: He was so stern, my grandfather was … He was a member of Parliament … We haven’t spoken in years …
    The telegram was from Bea’s grandfather.
    After dinner, Susan huddled with Helen in their bedroom, and Susan told her everything about the telegram and about Bea’s feud with her grandfather.
    â€œI’m stumped,” Susan said. “If Bea asked her