The Wonder(11)

Miss N. thought some nurses relied on note-taking too much, laming their powers of recall. However, she never went so far as to forbid an aide-mémoire. Lib didn’t mistrust her own memory, but on this occasion, she’d been hired more as a witness, which called for impeccable case notes.

Something else: Anna’s earlobes and lips had a bluish tint to them, and so did the beds of the fingernails. She was chilly to the touch, as if she’d just come in from walking in a snowstorm. “Do you feel cold?” Lib asked.

“Not especially.”

Breadth of chest across level of mammae: 10 inches.

Girth of ribs: 24 inches.

The girl’s eyes followed her. “What’s your name?”

“As I mentioned, it’s Mrs. Wright, but you may address me as Nurse.”

“Your Christian name, I mean.”

Lib ignored that bit of cheek and continued writing.

Girth of hips: 25 inches.

Girth of waist: 21 inches.

Girth of middle of arm: 5 inches.

“What are the numbers for?”

“They’re… so we can be sure you’re in good health,” said Lib. An absurd answer, but the question had flustered her. Surely it was a breach of protocol to discuss the nature of her surveillance with its object?

So far, as Lib had expected, the data in her notebook indicated that Anna O’Donnell was a false little baggage. Yes, she was thin in places, shoulder blades like the stubs of missing wings. But not the way a child would be after a month without food, let alone four. Lib knew what starvation looked like; at Scutari, skeletal refugees had been toted in, bones stretching the skin like tent poles under canvas. No, this girl’s belly was rounded, if anything. Fashionable belles tight-laced these days in hopes of a sixteen-inch waist, and Anna’s was five more than that.

What Lib really would have liked to know was the child’s weight, because if it went up even an ounce over the course of the fortnight, that would constitute proof of covert feeding. She took two steps towards the kitchen to fetch a weighing scales before she remembered that she was obliged to keep this child in sight at all times until nine o’clock tonight.

A strange sensation of imprisonment. Lib thought of calling to Mrs. O’Donnell from inside the bedroom, but she didn’t want to come off as high-handed, especially so early in her first shift.

“Beware of spurious imitations,” murmured Anna.

“I beg your pardon?” Lib said.

One round fingertip traced the words stamped into the ribbed leather cover of the memorandum book.

Lib gave the girl a hard look. Spurious imitations, indeed. “The manufacturers are claiming that their velvet paper is unlike any other.”

“What’s velvet paper?”

“It’s been coated to take the mark of a metallic pencil.”

The girl stroked the tiny page.

“Anything written on that will be indelible, like ink,” said Lib. “Do you know what indelible means?”

“A stain that won’t come off.”

“Correct.” Lib took back the memorandum book and tried to think of what other information she needed to extract from the girl. “Are you troubled by any pain, Anna?”

“No.”

“Dizziness?”

“Maybe the odd time,” Anna admitted.

“Does your pulse pause or skip?”

“Some days it might flutter a bit.”

“Are you nervous?”

“Nervous of what?”

Being found out, you swindler. But what Lib said was “Sister Michael and myself, perhaps. Strangers in your home.”

Anna shook her head. “You seem kind. I don’t think you’d do me any harm.”

“Quite right.” But Lib felt uncomfortable, as if she’d promised more than she ought. She wasn’t here to be kind.

The child had her eyes shut now and was whispering. After a moment Lib realized it had to be a prayer. A show of piety, to make this fast of Anna’s more plausible?

The girl finished and looked up, her expression as placid as ever.

“Open your mouth, please,” said Lib.

Mostly milk teeth; one or two large adult ones, and several gaps where a replacement had not yet come through. Like the mouth of a much younger child.

Several carious? Breath a little sour.

Clean tongue, rather red and smooth.

Tonsils slightly enlarged.

No cap covered Anna’s dark auburn hair, parted in the centre and pulled back in a small bun. Lib undid it now and worked her fingers through the strands, dry and frizzy to the touch. She felt the scalp for anything hidden but found nothing except a scaly patch behind one ear. “You may put it up again.”

Anna’s fingers fumbled with the hairpins.

Lib went to help—then held back. She wasn’t here to tend the girl or be her maid. She was being paid just to stare.

Somewhat clumsy.

Reflexes normal, if a little slow.

Fingernails rather ridged, spotted with white.

Palms and fingers distinctly swollen.

“Step out of your boots for me, please.”

“They were my brother’s,” said Anna as she obeyed.

Feet, ankles, and lower legs very swollen, Lib recorded; no wonder Anna had resorted to the emigrant’s discarded boots. Possibly dropsy, water collecting in the tissues? “How long have your legs been so?”