The Wonder(24)

“The bird’s in the cage now,” marvelled Anna.

“Aha,” he cried, “mere illusion.”

The disc slowed and stopped, so the empty cage was left on the back, and the bird on the front flew free.

After Kitty brought the tea in, the wife produced something even more curious: a walnut that popped open in Anna’s hand to let out a crumpled ball that relaxed into a pair of exquisitely thin yellow gloves. “Chicken skin,” said the lady, fondling them. “All the rage when I was a child. Never made anywhere in the world but Limerick. I’ve kept this pair half a century without tearing them.”

Anna drew the gloves on, finger by fat finger; they were too long, but not by much.

“Bless you, my child, bless you.”

Once the tea was drunk, Lib made a pointed remark about Anna needing to rest.

“Would you say a little prayer with us first?” asked the lady who’d given her the gloves.

Anna looked to Lib, who felt she had to nod.

“Infant Jesus, meek and mild,” the girl began.

Look on me, a little child.

Pity mine and pity me,

Suffer me to come to thee.

“Beautiful!”

The elderly lady wanted to leave some homeopathic tonic pills.

Anna shook her head.

“Ah, keep them, do.”

“She can’t take them, Mother,” the woman’s daughter reminded her in a hiss.

“I don’t believe absorption under the tongue would count as eating, exactly.”

“No, thank you,” said Anna.

As they left, Lib listened to the coins clink into the money box.

Rosaleen O’Donnell was hooking a pot out of the dull heart of the fire and knocking ashen sods off its lid. Hands padded with rags, she lifted the lid and took out a round loaf with a cross marked on top.

Everything was religion here, thought Lib. Also, she was beginning to see why all her meals tasted of peat. If she did stay the full fortnight, she’d have consumed a good handful of boggy soil; the thought soured her mouth. “Those will be the last visitors admitted,” she told the mother in her firmest voice.

Anna was leaning on the half-door, watching the party climb into their carriage.

Rosaleen O’Donnell straightened up, shaking out her skirts. “Hospitality’s a sacred law with the Irish, Mrs. Wright. If anyone knocks, we must open up and feed and shelter them, even if the kitchen floor do be thick with sleeping people already.” The sweep of her arm encompassed a horde of invisible guests.

Hospitality, my foot. “This is hardly a matter of taking in paupers,” Lib told her.

“Rich, poor, we’re all alike in the eyes of God.”

It was the pious tone that pushed Lib over the edge. “These people are gawkers. So keen to see your daughter apparently subsist without food, they’re willing to pay for the privilege!”

Anna was twirling her thaumatrope now; it caught the light.

Mrs. O’Donnell chewed her lip. “If the sight moves them to almsgiving, what’s wrong with that?”

The child went up to her mother just then and handed over her gifts. To distract the two women from their quarrel? Lib wondered.

“Ah sure these are yours, pet,” said Rosaleen.

Anna shook her head. “The gold cross that lady left the other day, didn’t Mr. Thaddeus say it’d raise a good sum for the needy?”

“But these are only toys,” said her mother. “Well, the gloves in the shell, maybe, I suppose those could be sold…” She turned the walnut over in her palm. “Keep the spinny thing, though. Sure what harm. Unless Mrs. Wright sees any?”

Lib held her tongue.

She marched into the bedroom behind the girl and examined all the surfaces again, just as she had yesterday—the floor, the treasure box, the dresser, the bedding.

“Are you cross?” asked Anna, twirling her thaumatrope between her fingers.

“About your toy? No, no.” What a child Anna was still, for all the dark complications of her situation.

“About the visitors, then?”

“Well. They don’t have your welfare at heart.”

The bell chimed in the kitchen and Anna dropped to the floor. (No wonder the child’s shins were bruised.) The minutes ticked by while the prayers of the Angelus filled the air. Like being locked up in a monastery, Lib thought.

“Through the same Christ Our Lord, amen.” Anna got up and gripped the back of the chair.

“Dizzy?” asked Lib.

Anna shook her head and readjusted her shawl.

“How often must you all do this?”

“At noon only,” said the child. “’Twould be better to say it at six in the morning and in the evening as well, but Mammy and Dadda and Kitty are too busy.”

Yesterday Lib had made the mistake of telling the maid she could wait for her dinner. This time she went to the door and called out that she’d like something to eat.

Kitty brought in some fresh cream cheese; that must have been the white stuff dripping in the bag slung between the chairs last night. The bread, still warm, was too dense with bran for Lib’s liking. Waiting for the new potatoes of autumn, the family had to be getting down near the dust at the bottom of the meal bin.

Although she was used to eating in front of Anna by now, she still felt like a sow, nose in the trough.