The Wonder(75)

She turned on him. “Have you told the committee that Anna’s so swollen up with dropsy, she can no longer walk? She’s faint and freezing, and her teeth are falling out.” Lib flipped through her notes, not because she needed them but to show that all this was a matter of record. “Her pulse is higher every hour, and her lungs crackle because she’s beginning to drown from within. Her skin’s covered in crusts and bruises, and her hair comes out in handfuls like an old—”

Belatedly she noticed that Sir Otway was holding up one palm to stop her. “We take your point, ma’am.”

“I’ve always said the whole thing’s a nonsense.” It was Ryan the publican who broke the silence. “Come on, now—who can live without food?”

If the man really had been so sceptical from the start, Lib would have liked to ask, why had he agreed to help sponsor this watch?

John Flynn turned to him. “Hold your tongue.”

“I’m a member of this committee, as good as you.”

“Surely we need not stoop to squabbling,” said the priest.

“Mr. Thaddeus,” said Lib, taking a step towards him, “why haven’t you told Anna to end her fast?”

“I believe you’ve heard me do so,” said the priest.

“The gentlest of suggestions! I’ve discovered that she’s starving herself in the demented hope of saving her brother’s soul.” She looked from one man to another to make sure they registered this. “Apparently with the blessing of her parents.” Lib flung an arm towards the O’Donnells.

Rosaleen burst out: “You ignorant heretic!”

Oh, the pleasure of finally speaking her mind. Lib turned on Mr. Thaddeus. “You represent Rome in this village, so why don’t you command Anna to eat?”

The man bristled. “The relationship between priest and parishioner is a holy one, ma’am, that you’re in no way qualified to understand.”

“If Anna won’t listen to you, can’t you call in a bishop?”

His eyes bulged. “I won’t—mustn’t—entangle my superiors or the Church as a whole in this case.”

“What do you mean, entangle?” demanded Flynn. “Won’t it be to the Church’s glory when Anna’s proved to be living by spiritual means only? Couldn’t this little girl be Ireland’s first saint canonized since the thirteenth century?”

Mr. Thaddeus’s hands sprang up in front of him like a fence. “That process has not even begun. Only after extensive testimony has been gathered and all other possible explanations have been ruled out may she send a delegation of commissioners to investigate whether an individual’s holiness has worked a miracle. Until then, in the absence of any proof, she must be scrupulous to keep her distance.”

She; that meant the Church, Lib realized. She’d never heard the genial priest speak so coldly, as if reading from a manual. Absence of any proof. Was he hinting to the whole group that the O’Donnells’ claims were spurious? Perhaps Lib had at least one backer among these men. For all that he was a family friend, she remembered, it was Mr. Thaddeus who’d pressed the committee to fund a thorough investigation. The priest’s plump features twitched, as if he knew he’d said too much.

John Flynn was leaning forward, red-faced, pointing at him. “You’re not fit to do up her little shoe!”

Big boot, Lib corrected him; Anna’s feet had long ago swelled too much for anything but her dead brother’s boots. To these men the girl was a symbol; she had no body anymore.

Lib had to take advantage of this moment of crisis. “I have something else to report, gentlemen, something of a grave and urgent nature, which I hope excuses my coming here uninvited.” She didn’t look in Rosaleen O’Donnell’s direction, in case the woman’s hawkish stare made Lib lose her nerve. “I have discovered by what means the child has been—”

A creak; the door of the room flapped open, then almost shut again, as if admitting a ghost. Then a black shape appeared in the gap, and Sister Michael backed in, pulling the wheeled chair with her.

Lib was speechless. She’d urged the nun to come. But with Anna?

The tiny girl lay askew in the baronet’s chair, bundled up in blankets. Her head lay at an odd angle but her eyes were open. “Daddy,” she murmured. “Mammy. Mrs. Lib. Mr. Thaddeus.”

Malachy O’Donnell’s cheeks were wet.

“Child,” said Mr. Thaddeus, “we hear you’re under the weather.”

This was Irish euphemism at its worst.

“I’m very well,” said Anna in the smallest of voices.

Lib knew all at once that she couldn’t tell them about the manna. Not here, not now. Because it was only hearsay, after all, secondhand reporting of the word of a child. Rosaleen O’Donnell would shriek that the Englishwoman had made up the whole blasphemous story out of spite. The members of the committee would turn to Anna and demand to know whether it was true. And what then? For Lib to force the girl to choose between her nurse and Rosaleen was too risky; what child wouldn’t side with her own mother? Besides, it would be unconscionably cruel.

Changing tack, she nodded at the nun and walked to the wheeled chair. “Good evening, Anna.”

A slow smile from the girl.

“May I take off your blankets so these gentlemen can see you better?”