The Wonder(84)

“Just the blankets, please, Dadda,” she told him through chattering teeth.

He drew them up and covered her to the chin.

Mr. Thaddeus stowed all his equipment in his bag, and Rosaleen showed him to the door.

“Wait, please,” Lib called to him, crossing the room. “I need to speak to you.”

Rosaleen O’Donnell gripped Lib’s sleeve so hard that a stitch popped. “We don’t detain a priest in idle conversation when he’s carrying the Blessed Eucharist.”

Lib pulled away from her and rushed after him.

Out in the farmyard, she called, “Mr. Thaddeus!”

“What is it?” The man stopped and kicked away a pecking hen.

She had to find out whether Anna had told him just now of her scheme to ransom Pat with her own death. “Did Anna talk to you about her brother?”

His smooth face tautened. “Mrs. Wright, only your ignorance of our faith excuses your attempt to induce me to breach the seal of the confessional.”

“So you do know.”

“Such calamities should be kept in the family,” he said, “not bruited abroad. Anna should never have entered on such a subject with you.”

“But if you reason with her, if you explain that God would never—”

The priest spoke over her. “I’ve been telling the poor girl for months that her sins are forgiven, and besides, we should speak nothing but good of the dead.”

Lib stared at him. The dead. He wasn’t talking about Anna’s plan to trade her life for her brother’s redemption. Her sins; Mr. Thaddeus meant what Pat had done to her. I’ve been telling the poor girl for months. That had to mean that after the mission, back in the spring, Anna had opened her heart to her parish priest, told him of all her confusion about the secret marriage, all her mortification. And unlike Rosaleen O’Donnell, he’d been clear-sighted enough to believe the girl. But the only comfort he’d offered was to tell her that her sins were forgiven and she should never mention it again!

The priest was halfway to the lane by the time Lib recovered herself. She watched him disappear around the hedge. How many such calamities were there in how many other families over which Mr. Thaddeus had drawn a veil? Was that all he knew how to do with a child’s pain?

Inside the smoky cabin, Kitty was throwing the contents of the little dishes on the fire: the salt, the bread, even the water, which spat fiercely.

“What are you doing?” asked Lib.

“They’ve the traces of the holy oil on them still,” the slavey told her, “so they have to be buried or burnt.”

Only in this country would anyone burn water.

Rosaleen O’Donnell was putting canisters of tea and sugar in a paper-lined cupboard in the wall.

“What about Dr. McBrearty,” asked Lib, “did you think to send for him before the priest?”

“Wasn’t he in this morning?” Rosaleen answered without turning around.

Kitty busied herself scraping burnt porridge into a basin.

Lib pressed on. “And what did he say about Anna?”

“That she’s in God’s hands now.”

A tiny sound from Kitty; was that a sob?

“As are we all,” muttered Rosaleen.

Rage went through Lib like an electric shock, rage at the doctor, the mother, the maid, and the committee men.

But she had a mission, she reminded herself, and she couldn’t allow anything to distract her from it. “This special mass tonight, at half past eight,” she said to Kitty in as calm a voice as she could muster, “how long do these ceremonies last?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Longer than on an ordinary occasion?”

“Oh, much longer,” said Kitty. “Two hours, maybe, or three.”

Lib nodded as if impressed. “I was thinking that I should stay late tonight so that Sister can accompany you all to the mass.”

“No need,” said the nun, appearing in the doorway of the bedroom.

“But Sister—” Panic in Lib’s throat. Improvising, she turned to Malachy O’Donnell, who was brooding over a newspaper by the hearth. “Shouldn’t Sister Michael go too, as the child is so fond of her?”

“Indeed she should.”

The nun hesitated, frowning.

“Yes, you must be there with us, Sister,” said Rosaleen O’Donnell, “bearing us up.”

“Gladly,” said the nun. Her eyes were still puzzled.

Lib hurried into the bedroom before they could change their minds. “Good day, Anna.” Her voice oddly bright with relief that she’d manage to arrange to stay late, at least.

The child’s face gaunt, sallow. “Good day, Mrs. Lib.” Inert, as if her thick ankles fettered her to the bed, except for a shudder every now and then. Her breaths were noisy.

“A little water?”

She shook her head.

Lib called to Kitty to bring in another blanket. The slavey’s face was rigid as she handed it over.

Hold on, Lib wanted to whisper in Anna’s ear. Wait just a little longer, just until tonight. But she couldn’t risk saying a word, not yet.

It was the slowest day Lib had ever known. Yet the house was in a sort of low fever. The O’Donnells and their maid hung about in the kitchen speaking in doleful murmurs, looking in on Anna every now and then. Lib went about her business, propping Anna up on pillows, wetting her lips with a cloth. Her own breaths were coming quick and shallow.