The Glassblower(126)

“The best thing you could do is come and sit by me,” Johanna said, beckoning Ruth over. “And keep quiet. Our little artist is disturbed by all this chatter.”

Marie shot them a venomous glance. It was just like Johanna to take Ruth’s side!

“I would be very grateful if I could work in peace for just a little while. It’s quite enough that Eva spends all day every day chattering in my ear.”

“I hope you’re not seriously comparing me to that silly cow,” Ruth snapped back.

“Old goat, silly cow—I don’t know whether you’ve noticed, but we are in fact in a workshop here, not a farmyard!” Marie was trembling with rage. It wasn’t like her to get so angry. She had always been the quiet one among the three sisters, the one who always gave way first whenever there was a disagreement. Perhaps it was lack of sleep that made her pick the fight this time.

Ruth seemed dumbstruck. And then Marie threw in one more jab.

“Or maybe it’s these ‘mysterious’ letters you’re getting that suggest this sort of comparison? Maybe some silly ass wrote them?” She smirked as she put her hands up to her head and waggled them about like donkey’s ears.

Ruth was round the table so fast that it wobbled as she ran past.

“You . . .”

The sound of glass chiming should have warned them both. But Marie was worked up, and Ruth was in a blind rage. She grabbed her sister’s arm.

“You take that back. Right now!” she spat at Marie.

“I will not,” Marie shouted, snatching her arm away. Habit made her careful not to knock into the gas pipe, but she never thought of the pail of gum-and-salts solution that Ruth had picked up and put behind her earlier.

“Careful!” shouted Johanna.

The pail tipped over.

Speechless with horror, the three women watched the liquid spill out over a pile of boxes.

Johanna was the first to collect her wits. She ran into the kitchen and came back with two dishcloths. She tried in vain to stem the tide of liquid, but it had already soaked through the thin cardboard of the boxes, leaving a layer of ice crystals behind as it dribbled over three hundred Christmas baubles packed and waiting for transport.



“I’m cold.” Ruth rubbed her hands together and then wrapped them in the folds of her skirt. Her eyes were red with weeping, and there was reproach written all across her face.

Johanna’s eyes were also red. She slowly got to her feet.

“So am I. I’ll shut that window now. There’s no point in trying to air out the room. Nobody’s ever died from a bad smell, but we may very well freeze to death!”

After the accident, they had flung open all the windows, but instead of the stinking cloud of fumes leaving the house, the cold autumn mist had crept in. Johanna rubbed her brow and groaned.

“I feel as though my skull might burst from the stink! And my bones hurt as well.”

“What next?” Ruth’s question was hardly more than a whisper.

“I don’t know,” Johanna confessed. “That’s two hundred and fifty globes completely unusable, at least another hundred splashed, a whole pail of salts solution tipped over—and that costs money as well—and the floorboards are soaked. Then there’s the smell . . .” She shook her head. “If it weren’t all so terrible, I might even find it funny.” She swallowed hard. She wanted to run upstairs the way Marie had done and hide away in a corner. But how would that have helped?

“More than three hundred globes, ruined! And so close to the end of the commission. I don’t know whether to cry or grind my teeth. How on earth are we going to make up for the lost work? We were already falling behind,” Johanna said.

There was desperation in Ruth’s eyes as well. “If we can’t fill the order . . . then we’re sunk. We’ll never get another.”

“It hasn’t come to that yet,” Johanna said with more conviction than she felt. “In the worst case, we’ll only be short by five hundred. Ruth!” she said, grabbing hold of her sister’s arm. “Please don’t cry!” But her own eyes were prickling as well.

“Steven Miles will think I’m nothing but an unreliable flibbertigibbet. And Mr. Woolworth will regret ever having signed a contract with us. I can still hear what Steven said: ‘If there is one thing that Mr. Woolworth really can’t abide, it’s breach of contract.’” Ruth covered her face with her hands and let out a loud sob.

“Please calm down. All is not lost.”

Ruth shot a hate-filled glance at the stairs.

“And it’s all her fault! She’s to blame for the whole miserable business. If she hadn’t knocked over that pail . . .”