The Wonder Read Online Free PDF Page B

was that one farmer who’d said something malign about the
other crowd,
how they were
waiting on her hand and foot.
He must have meant the visitors who were so eager to caress the child. What did they think they were doing, setting a little girl up for a saint because they imagined her to have risen above ordinary human needs? It reminded Lib of parades on the Continent, statues in fancy dress promenaded through the reeking alleys.
    Though in fact the visitors’ voices all sounded Irish to Lib; Mrs. O’Donnell had to be exaggerating about the
four corners of the earth.
The door swung wide now, so Lib stepped back.
    The visitors shuffled out. “Missus, for your trouble.” A man in a round hat was offering a coin to Rosaleen O’Donnell.
    Aha. The root of all evil. Like those well-heeled tourists who paid a peasant to pose with a half-strung fiddle by the door of his mud cabin. The O’Donnells had to be party to this fraud, Lib decided, and for the most predictable of motives: cash.
    But the mother flung her hands behind her back. “Sure hospitality’s no trouble.”
    â€œFor the sweet girleen,” said the visitor.
    Rosaleen O’Donnell kept shaking her head.
    â€œI insist,” he said.
    â€œPut it in the box for the poor, sir, if you must leave it.” She nodded at an iron safe set on a stool by the door.
    Lib rebuked herself for not having spotted that earlier.
    The visitors all slipped their tips into its slot on their way out. Some of those coins sounded heavy to Lib. Clearly the minx was as much of a paying attraction as any carved cross or standing stone. Lib very much doubted that the O’Donnells would pass a penny on to those even less fortunate than themselves.
    Waiting for the crowd to clear, Lib found herself close enough to the mantelpiece to study the daguerreotype. Murky-toned and taken before the son had emigrated. Rosaleen O’Donnell, like some imposing totem. The skinny adolescent boy rather incongruously leaning back in her lap. A small girl sitting upright on the father’s. Lib squinted through the glare of the glass. Anna O’Donnell had hair about as dark as Lib’s own, down to the shoulders. Nothing to distinguish her from any other child.
    â€œGo on into her room now till I fetch her,” Rosaleen O’Donnell was telling Sister Michael.
    Lib stiffened. How was the woman planning to prepare her daughter for their scrutiny?
    All at once she couldn’t bear the smoulder of turf. She muttered something about needing a breath of air and stepped out into the farmyard.
    Putting her shoulders back, Lib breathed in and smelled dung. If she did stay, it would be to accept the challenge: to expose this pitiful swindle. The cabin couldn’t have more than four rooms; she doubted it would take her more than one night here to catch the girl sneaking food, whether Anna was doing it alone or with help. (Mrs. O’Donnell? Her husband? The slavey, who seemed to be their only servant? Or all of them, of course.) That meant the whole trip would earn Lib just one day’s wage. Of course, a less honest nurse wouldn’t speak up till the fortnight was gone, to be sure of being paid for all fourteen. Whereas Lib’s reward would be seeing it through, making sure sense prevailed over nonsense.
    â€œI’d better be looking in on some others of my flock,” said the pink-cheeked priest behind her. “Sister Michael’s offered to take the first watch, as you must be feeling the effects of your journey.”
    â€œNo,” said Lib, “I’m quite ready to begin.” Itching to meet the girl, in fact.
    â€œAs you prefer, Mrs. Wright,” said the nun in her whispery voice behind him.
    â€œYou’ll come back in eight hours, then, Sister?” asked Mr. Thaddeus.
    â€œTwelve,” Lib corrected him.
    â€œI believe McBrearty proposed shifts of eight hours, as less tiring,” he said.
    â€œThen