On Sparrow Hill Read Online Free PDF

Cotgrave. “I haven’t the faintest idea what to do. Have you?”
    “I’ll see if Daisy glimpsed the carriage,” she whispered, “or if she has any other information about the girl. If we don’t know where to return her to, I don’t see any option but to keep her, at least until we find out where she belongs.”
    “Without paperwork?”
    Mrs. Cotgrave grinned, apparently pleased that Berrie had been indoctrinated to the importance of various documents. “We can only do our best for the girl. I’m not sure she’ll be able to tell us much to be of any help.”
    Even with the pronouncement, Berrie could see Mrs. Cotgrave had her reservations about letting her stay. Nonetheless, the older woman left the room to start her search.
    Berrie offered Katie a chair opposite.
    “How far have you come, Miss MacFarland?”
    Katie glanced at Berrie while coming to rest rigidly on the edge of the chair. Eye contact lasted no longer than a moment as the young woman stared somewhere over Berrie’s shoulder. “I am to be called Katie. Even Sophy, my maid, calls me Katie. My sister says servants should call me ‘Miss MacFarland,’ but since that is what they call her, how shall I know whom they are addressing if we are called by the same name?”
    “What about Miss Katie?”
    “The name in our Bible on the family record says ‘Katie,’ not ‘Miss Katie.’ I don’t know why anyone should call me by anything else. I don’t call servants ‘miss’ or ‘mister.’ I don’t see why they should call me anything other than my name.”
    “So you have a sister. What is her name?” Berrie shifted closer to place herself in Katie’s line of vision. Katie’s gaze floated higher.
    “Her name is Miss MacFarland. That’s what everyone calls her except my brother and I. My brother calls her by her Christian name. I don’t call her anything. I haven’t used her name in six years, five months, and eight days. I’ll not say the name of someone who doesn’t like me.”
    “Your sister—Miss MacFarland—doesn’t like you?”
    There, a brief moment of eye contact. “She does not. She says I am quite annoying. When you say quite , that means something more than simply annoying. She means that I am more than annoying. I have always annoyed her, although I don’t know how or why. And so I promised myself to never say her name, not ever. If you meet her, you may call her Miss MacFarland and that will be enough.”
    “But I thought it was your sister who brought you here.”
    “Yes, she did.”
    “Yet you didn’t speak to her?”
    “I did talk to her, although she doesn’t like it when I talk. I can see she thinks what I say is quite annoying.”
    “How long was the carriage ride, Miss MacFarland?”
    “That is my sister’s name. My name is Katie.”
    Berrie silently chided herself. She really must learn to communicate better; obviously the person she spoke to was more important than rules of etiquette.
    “Was it a long carriage ride to get here, Katie?”
    “Yes, I do say so. It was even farther than Dublin. My brother took me to Dublin once. He goes there often, and one day he asked if I would like to see it and I said yes. So we went.”
    Berrie assumed, then, the MacFarland family lived to the north or perhaps the northwest. That might narrow it down, though not by much.
    “Was your brother with you today?”
    “No indeed, only my sister.” Now Katie’s gaze flitted around the room, taking in the surroundings. The room was nearly empty except for curtains, four chairs, the desk, and all the paperwork on top of it. The settee, extra lamps, and most of the books were gone, leaving behind only a few volumes pertaining to botany that might prove helpful to the staff. Shelves that had once housed a variety of published sermons, novels, and first editions of philosophy and history now waited for the storage of files on various students yet to come.
    “My sister told me you needed me,” Katie continued, “and I