The Wonder Page 6

  “You like flowers, Anna?”

  “Oh, ever so much. Especially the lilies, of course.”

  “Why of course?”

  “Because they’re Our Lady’s favourite.”

  Anna spoke about the Holy Family as if they were her relations. “Where would you have seen a lily?” asked Lib.

  “In pictures, lots of times. Or water lilies on the lough, though they’re not the same.” Anna crouched and stroked a minute white flower.

  “What’s this one?”

  “Sundew,” Anna told her. “Look.”

  Lib peered at the round leaves on stalks. They were covered with what looked like sticky fuzz, with the odd black speck.

  “It catches insects and sucks them in,” said Anna under her breath, as if she feared to disturb the plant.

  Could she be right? How interesting, in a gruesome way. It seemed the child had some capacity for science.

  When Anna stood up, she wobbled and drew in a deep breath.

  Light-headed? Unused to exercise, Lib wondered, or weak from underfeeding? Just because the fast was a hoax of some sort didn’t mean that Anna had been getting all the nourishment a growing girl needed; those bony shoulder blades suggested otherwise. “Perhaps we should turn back.”

  Anna didn’t object. Was she tired or just obedient?

  When they got to the cabin, Kitty was in the bedroom. Lib was about to challenge her, but the slavey stooped for the chamber pot—perhaps to give herself an excuse for being there. “You’ll have a bowl of stirabout now, missus?”

  “Very well,” said Lib.

  When Kitty brought it in, Lib saw that stirabout meant porridge. She realized that this was probably her dinner. A quarter past four—country hours.

  “Take some salt,” said Kitty.

  Lib shook her head at the pot with its little spoon.

  “Go on,” said Kitty, “it keeps the little ones off.”

  Lib looked askance at the maid. Was she referring to flies?

  As soon as Kitty had left the room, Anna spoke up in a whisper. “She means the little people.”

  Lib didn’t understand.

  Anna formed dancers out of her plump hands.

  “Fairies?” Incredulous.

  The child made a face. “They don’t like to be called that.” But then she smiled again, as if she and Lib both knew there were no tiny beings floundering around in the porridge.

  The oatmeal wasn’t half bad; it had been boiled in milk rather than water. Lib had trouble swallowing it in front of the child; she felt like some uncouth peasant stuffing herself in the presence of a fine lady. This is only a smallholder’s daughter, Lib reminded herself, and a cheat to boot.

  Anna busied herself darning a torn petticoat. She didn’t ogle Lib’s dinner, nor did she avert her gaze as if struggling with temptation. She just kept on forming her neat little stitches. Even if the girl had eaten something last night, Lib thought, she had to be hungry now, after at least seven hours under the nurse’s scrutiny, during which Anna had taken in nothing but three teaspoons of water. How could she bear to sit in a room fragrant with warm porridge?

  Lib scraped the bowl clean, partly so that the remains wouldn’t be sitting there between the two of them. She was missing baker’s bread already.

  Rosaleen O’Donnell came in a while later to show off the new photograph. “Mr. Reilly’s kindly made us a present of this copy.”

  The image was astonishingly sharp, though the tints were all wrong; the grey dress had bleached to the white of a nightdress, while the plaid shawl was pitch-black. The girl in the picture was looking sideways, towards the unseen nurse, with a ghost of a smile.

  Anna glanced at the photograph as if only for politeness’s sake.

  “Such a smart case too,” said Mrs. O’Donnell, stroking the moulded tin.

  This was not an educated woman, Lib thought. Could someone who took such naïve pleasure in a cheap case really be responsible for an elaborate conspiracy? Perhaps—Lib glimpsed Anna out of the corner of her eye—the studious little pet was the only guilty party. After all, until the watch had begun this morning, it would have been easy for the child to snatch all the food she wanted without her family’s knowledge.

  “It’ll go on the mantel beside poor Pat,” added Rosaleen O’Donnell, admiring the picture at arm’s length.

  Was the O’Donnell boy in distressed circumstances now, overseas? Or perhaps his parents had no idea how he was; sometimes emigrants were never heard from again.

  When the mother had gone back into the kitchen, Lib stared out at the grass left flattened by Reilly’s wagon wheels. Then she turned, and her eye fell on Anna’s awful boots. It occurred to Lib that Rosaleen O’Donnell might have said poor Pat because he was a natural; simpleminded. That would explain the boy’s curious lolling posture in the photograph. But in that case, how could the O’Donnells have brought themselves to ship the unfortunate abroad? Either way, a subject better not raised with his little sister.

  For hours on end, Anna sorted her holy cards. Played with them, really; the tender movements, dreamy air, and occasional murmurings reminded Lib of other girls with their dolls.

  She read up on the effects of damp in the small volume she always carried in her bag. (Notes on Nursing, a gift from its author.) At half past eight she suggested it might be time for Anna to get ready for bed.

  The girl crossed herself and changed into her nightdress, eyes down as she did the buttons at the front and wrists. She folded her clothes and laid them on the dresser. She didn’t use the pot, so there was still nothing for Lib to measure. A girl of wax instead of flesh.

  When Anna undid her bun and combed her hair, masses of dark strands came out on the teeth. That troubled Lib. For a child to be losing her hair like a woman past the prime… She’s doing this to herself, Lib reminded herself. It’s all part of an elaborate trick she’s playing on the world.

  Anna made the sign of the cross again as she got into bed. She sat up against the bolster, reading her Psalms.

  Lib stayed by the window, watching orange streaks scrape the western sky. Was there any tiny cache of crumbs she could have missed? Tonight was when the girl would seize her chance; tonight, when the nun would be here in place of Lib. Were Sister Michael’s ageing eyes sharp enough? Her wits?

  Kitty carried in a taper in a stubby brass candlestick.

  “Sister Michael will need more than that,” said Lib.

  “I’ll bring another, so.”

  “Half a dozen candles won’t be enough.”

  The maid’s mouth hung a little open.

  Lib tried for a conciliatory tone. “I know it’s a lot of trouble, but I wonder whether you could get hold of some lamps?”

  “Whale oil do be a shocking price these days.”

  “Then some other kind of oil.”

  “I’ll have to see what I can find tomorrow,” said Kitty with a yawn.

  She came back in a few minutes with some milk and oatcakes for Lib’s supper.

  As Lib buttered the oatcakes, her eyes slid to Anna, still lost in her book. Quite a feat, to go all day on an empty stomach and give the impression of not noticing food, let alone caring about it. Such control in one so young; dedication, ambition, even. If these powers could be turned to some good purpose, how far might they take Anna O’Donnell? From having nursed alongside a variety of women, Lib knew that self-mastery counted for more than almost any other talent.

  She kept one ear open to the clinks and murmurings around the table on the other side of the half-open door. Even if the mother proved to be blameless as far as the hoax went, she was relishing the fuss, at the very least. And there was the money box by the front door. How did the old proverb go? Children are the riches of the poor. Metaphorical riches—but sometimes the literal kind too.

  Anna turned the pages, her mouth forming silent words.

  A stir in the kitchen. Lib put her head out and saw Sister Michael taking off her black cloak. She gave the nun a courte
ous nod.

  “You’ll kneel down with us, won’t you, Sister?” asked Mrs. O’Donnell.

  The nun murmured something about not liking to keep Mrs. Wright waiting.

  “That’s quite all right,” Lib felt obliged to say.

  She turned back to Anna. Who was standing so close behind—spectral in her nightdress—that Lib flinched. That string of brown seeds ready in the child’s hand.

  Anna slipped past Lib to kneel between her parents on the earth floor. The nun and the maid were down already, each fingering the little cross at the end of her rosary beads. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth.” The five voices rattled out the words.

  Lib could hardly leave now, because Sister Michael’s eyes were shut and her face in its obstructive headdress was bent over her joined hands; nobody was keeping a sharp eye on Anna. So Lib went and sat by the wall, with a clear view of the girl.

  The gabbling changed to the Lord’s Prayer, which Lib remembered from her own youth. How little she retained of all that. Perhaps faith had never had much of a hold on her; over the years it had fallen away, with other childish things.

  “And forgive us our trespasses”—here they all thumped their chests in unison, startling Lib—“as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

  She thought perhaps they’d stand up and say their good nights now. But no, the group plunged into a Hail Mary, and then another, and another. This was ridiculous; was Lib to be stuck here all evening? She blinked to moisten her tired eyes but kept them focused on Anna and on the parents, their solid bodies bracketing their daughter’s. It would take only the briefest meeting of hands for a scrap to be passed over. Lib squinted, making sure nothing touched Anna’s red lips.

  A full quarter of an hour had gone by when she checked the watch hanging at her waist. The child never swayed, never sank down, during all this wearisome clamour. Lib let her eyes flick around the room for a moment, just to relieve them. A fat muslin bag was tied between two chairs, dripping into a basin. What could it be?

  The words of the prayer had changed. “To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve…”

  At last the whole palaver seemed to be over. The Catholics were standing up, rubbing life back into their legs, and Lib was free to go.

  “Good night, Mammy,” said Anna.

  “I’ll be in to say good night in a minute,” Rosaleen told her.

  Lib picked up her cloak and bag. She’d missed her chance for a private conference with the nun; somehow she couldn’t bear to say out loud in front of the child, Don’t take your eyes off her for a second. “I’ll see you in the morning, Anna.”

  “Good night, Mrs. Wright.” Anna led Sister Michael into the bedroom.

  Strange creature; she showed no sign of resenting the watch that had been set over her. Behind that calm confidence, surely her mind had to be scurrying like a mouse?

  Lib turned left where the O’Donnells’ track met the lane, heading back to the village. It wasn’t quite dark yet, and red still stained the horizon behind her. The mild air was scented with livestock and the smoke from peat fires. Her limbs ached from sitting for so long. She really needed to talk to Dr. McBrearty about the unsatisfactory conditions at the cabin, but it was too late to go seeking him out tonight.

  What had she learned so far? Little or nothing.

  A silhouette on the road ahead, a long gun over one shoulder. Lib stiffened. She wasn’t used to being out in the countryside at nightfall.

  The dog came up first, sniffing at Lib’s skirts. Then his owner passed, with barely a nod.

  A cock called urgently. Cows filed out of a byre, the farmer behind them. Lib would have thought they’d put their animals outdoors by day and indoors (to keep them safe) by night, rather than the other way around. She understood nothing about this place.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Watch

  watch

  to observe

  to guard someone, as a keeper

  to be awake, as a sentinel

  a division of the night

  In her dream the men were calling for tobacco, as always. Underfed, unwashed, hair crawling, ruined limbs seeping through slings into stump pillows, but all their pleas were for something to fill their pipes. The men reached out to Lib as she swept down the ward. Through the cracked windows drifted the Crimean snow, and a door kept banging, banging—

  “Mrs. Wright!”

  “Here,” Lib croaked.

  “A quarter past four, you asked to be waked.”

  This was the room above the spirit grocery, in the dead centre of Ireland. So the voice in the crack of the door was Maggie Ryan’s. Lib cleared her throat. “Yes.”

  Once dressed, she took out Notes on Nursing and let it fall open, then put her finger on a random passage. (Like that fortune-telling game Lib and her sister used to play with the Bible on dull Sundays.) Women, she read, were often more exact and careful than the stronger sex, which enabled them to avoid mistakes of inadvertence.

  But for all the care Lib had taken yesterday, she hadn’t managed to uncover the mechanism of the fraud yet, had she? Sister Michael had been there all night; would she have solved the puzzle? Lib doubted it somehow. The nun had probably sat there with eyes half closed, clacking her beads.

  Well, Lib refused to be gulled by a child of eleven. Today she’d have to be even more exact and careful, proving herself worthy of the inscription on this book. She reread it now, Miss N.’s beautiful script: To Mrs. Wright, who has the true nurse-calling.

  How the lady had frightened Lib, and not only at first meeting. Every word Miss N. pronounced rang as if from a mighty pulpit. No excuses, she’d told her raw recruits. Work hard and refuse God nothing. Do your duty while the world whirls. Don’t complain, don’t despair. Better to drown in the surf than stand idly on the shore.

  In a private interview, she’d made a peculiar remark. You have one great advantage over most of your fellow nurses, Mrs. Wright: You’re bereft. Free of ties.

  Lib had looked down at her hands. Untied. Empty.

  So tell me, are you ready for this good fight? Can you throw your whole self into the breach?

  Yes, she’d said, I can.

  Dark, still. Only a three-quarter moon to light Lib along the village’s single street, then a right turn down the lane, past the tilting, greenish headstones. Just as well she hadn’t a superstitious bone in her body. Without moonlight she’d never have picked the correct faint path leading off to the O’Donnells’ farm, because all these cabins looked like much of a muchness. A quarter to five when she tapped at the door.

  No answer.

  Lib didn’t like to bang harder in case of disturbing the family. Brightness leaked from the door of the byre, off to her right. Ah, the women had to be milking. A trail of melody; was one of them singing to the cows? Not a hymn this time but the kind of plaintive ballad that Lib had never liked.

  But Heaven’s own light shone in her eyes,

  She was too good for me,

  And an angel claimed her for his own,

  And took her from Lough Ree.

  Lib pushed the front door of the cabin and the upper half gave way.

  Firelight blazed in the empty kitchen. Something stirring in the corner—a rat? Her year in the foul wards of Scutari had hardened Lib to vermin. She fumbled for the latch to open the lower half of the door. She crossed and bent to look through the barred base of the dresser.

  The beady eye of a chicken met hers. A dozen or so birds, in behind the first, started up their soft complaint. Shut in to save them from the foxes, Lib supposed.

  She spotted a new-laid egg. Something occurred to her: Perhaps Anna O’Donnell sucked them in the night and ate the shells, leaving no trace?

  Stepping back, Lib almost tripped on something white. A saucer, rim poking out from beneath the dresser. How could the slavey have been so careless? When Lib picked it up, liquid sloshed in her hand, soaking her cuff. She hissed and carried the saucer over
to the table.

  Only then did it register. She put her tongue to her wet hand: the tang of milk. So the grand fraud was that simple? No need for the child to hunt for eggs, even, when there was a dish of milk left out for her to lap at like a dog in the dark.

  Lib felt more disappointment than triumph. Exposing this hardly required a trained nurse. It seemed this job was done already, and she’d be in the jaunting car on her way back to the railway station by the time the sun came up.

  The door scraped open, and Lib jerked around as if it were she who had something to hide. “Mrs. O’Donnell.”

  The Irishwoman mistook accusation for greeting. “Good morning to you, Mrs. Wright, and I hope you got a wink of sleep?”

  Kitty behind her, narrow shoulders dragged down by two buckets.

  Lib held up the saucer—chipped in two places, she noticed now. “Someone in this household has been secreting milk under the dresser.”

  Rosaleen O’Donnell’s chapped lips parted in the beginnings of a silent laugh.

  “I can only presume that your daughter’s been sneaking out to drink it.”

  “You presume too much, then. Sure in what farmhouse in the land does there not be a saucer of milk left out at night?”

  “For the little ones,” said Kitty, half smiling as if marvelling at the Englishwoman’s ignorance. “Otherwise wouldn’t they take offence and cause a ruction?”

  “You expect me to believe that this milk is for the fairies?”

  Rosaleen O’Donnell folded her big-boned arms. “Believe what you like or believe nothing, ma’am. Putting out the drop of milk does no harm, at least.”

  Lib’s mind raced. Both maid and mistress just might be credulous enough for this to be the reason why the milk was under the dresser, but that didn’t mean Anna O’Donnell hadn’t been sipping from the fairies’ dish every night for four months.

  Kitty bent to open the dresser. “Get out with ye, now. Isn’t the grass full of slugs?” She hustled the chickens towards the door with her skirts.