The Wonder(61)

Lib stared at the woman’s pleasant face under her starched cap. Anna hasn’t had a proper meal since April, she wanted to scream, how can she be well? “I must speak to him on a matter of urgency.”

“He’s been called to the bedside of Sir Otway Blackett.”

“Who’s that?”

“A baronet,” said the woman, clearly shocked that Lib didn’t know, “and a resident magistrate.”

“Where’s his seat?”

The housekeeper stiffened at the notion of the nurse pursuing the doctor there. It was miles out; Mrs. Wright had much better come back later.

Lib let herself sway just enough to hint that she might collapse on the doorstep.

“Or you could wait in my parlour below, I suppose,” said the woman.

Doubtful as to the status of a Nightingale, Lib could tell, unsure whether it might be more suitable to put her in the kitchen.

Lib sat over a cup of cold tea for an hour and a half. If only she had the backing of that wretched nun.

“The doctor’s returned, and he’ll see you now.” That was the housekeeper.

Lib leapt to her feet so fast, she saw black.

Dr. McBrearty was in his study, moving papers about in a desultory way. “Mrs. Wright, how good of you to come.”

Calm was crucial; a strident female voice caused men’s ears to close. She remembered to begin by asking after the baronet.

“An aching head; nothing serious, thank goodness.”

“Doctor, I’m here out of grave concern for Anna’s welfare.”

“Oh, dear.”

“She fainted yesterday. Her pulse is speeding up, yet her circulation’s getting so sluggish she can hardly feel her feet,” said Lib. “Her breath—”

McBrearty held up one hand to stop her. “Mm, I’ve been giving little Anna a great deal of thought and applying myself most diligently to the historical record in search of illumination.”

“The historical record?” repeated Lib, dazed.

“Did you know—well, why would you?—in the Dark Ages, many saints were visited with a complete loss of appetite for years, for decades, even. Inedia prodigiosa, it was called, the prodigious fast.”

So they had a special name for it, this freakish spectacle, as if it were as real a thing as a stone or a shoe. Dark Ages, indeed; they weren’t over. Lib thought of the Fakir of Lahore. Did every country have such tall tales of preternatural survival?

The old man went on with animation. “They aspired to be like Our Lady, you see. In her infancy she was said to have suckled only once a day. Saint Catherine, now—after she forced herself to swallow a bit of food, she’d poke a twig down her throat and sick it back up.”

With a shiver, Lib thought of hair shirts and spiked belts and monks whipping themselves raw in the streets.

“They meant to put down the flesh and raise up the spirit,” he explained.

But why does it have to be one or the other? Lib wondered. Aren’t we both? “Doctor, these are modern times, and Anna O’Donnell is only a child.”

“Granted, granted,” he said. “But might some physiological mystery lie behind those old tales? The persistent chilliness you’ve mentioned, say—I’ve formed a tentative hypothesis about that. Might her metabolism not be altering to one less combustive, more of a reptilian than mammalian nature?”

Reptilian? she wanted to scream.

“Every year, don’t men of science discover apparently inexplicable phenomena in far-flung corners of the globe? Perhaps our young friend represents a rare type that may become common in future times.” McBrearty’s voice shook with excitement. “One that may offer hope for the whole human race.”

Was the man mad? “What hope?”

“Freedom from need, Mrs. Wright! If it were within the bounds of possibility for life to endure without food… why, what cause would there be to fight over bread or land? That could put an end to Chartism, socialism, war.”

How convenient for all the tyrants of the world, Lib thought; whole populations meekly subsisting on nothing.

The doctor’s expression was beatific. “Perhaps nothing is impossible to the Great Physician.”

It took Lib a moment to understand whom he meant. Always God—the real tyrant in this part of the world. She made an effort to answer in the same terms. “Without the food he’s provided for us,” she said, “we die.”

“Until now, we’ve died. Until now.”

And Lib saw it clearly at last, the pitiful nature of an old man’s dream.

“But about Anna.” She had to bring McBrearty back to the point. “She’s failing fast, which means she must have been getting food until we thwarted it. We’re to blame.”

He frowned, fumbling with the arms of his glasses. “I don’t see how that follows.”

“The child I met last Monday was vigorous,” said Lib, “and now she’s barely able to stand. What can I deduce but that you must call off the watch and bend all your efforts to persuading her to eat?”

His papery hands shot up. “My good woman, you overstep your mark. You’ve not been called upon to deduce anything. Though your protectiveness is only natural,” he added more gently. “I suppose the duties of a nurse, especially with a patient so young, must stimulate the dormant maternal capacity. Your own infant didn’t live, I understand?”