the kitchen next door in the night or for one of the adults to bring it in without the others hearing a thing. âYour maidââ
âKitty? Sheâs our cousin.â Anna took a plaid shawl out of the dresser; its rich reds and browns lent a little colour to her face.
A slavey who was also a poor relation, then; hard for such a subordinate to refuse to take part in a plot. âWhere does she sleep?â
âOn the settle.â Anna nodded towards the kitchen.
Of course; the lower classes often had more family members than they had beds, so they were obliged to improvise. âAnd your parents?â
âThey sleep in the outshot.â
Lib didnât know that word.
âThe bed built off the cabin, behind the curtain,â explained the child.
Lib had noticed the flour-sack drape in the kitchen but assumed it covered a pantry of some kind. How ridiculous for the OâDonnells to leave their good room standing empty and lie down in a makeshift chamber. But Lib supposed they had just enough respectability to aspire to a little more.
The first thing was to make this narrow bedroom proof against subterfuge. Lib touched her hand to the wall, and whitewash flaked off on her fingers. Plaster of some kind, dampish; not wood, brick, or stone, like an English cottage. Well, at least that meant any recess where food might be cached would be easy to discover.
Also, she had to make sure there was nowhere the child could hide from Libâs gaze. That rickety old wooden screen would have to go, for starters; Lib folded its three sections together and carried it to the door.
She looked through without leaving the bedroom. Mrs. OâDonnell was stirring a three-legged pot over the fire, and the maid was mashing something at the long table. Lib set down the screen just inside the kitchen and said, âWe wonât be needing this. Also, Iâd like a basin of hot water and a cloth, please.â
âKitty,â said Mrs. OâDonnell to the maid, jerking her head.
Libâs eyes flicked to the child, who was whispering her prayers again.
She moved back to the narrow bed that stood against the wall and began stripping it. The bedstead was wood, and the tick was a straw one, covered in stained canvas. Well, at least it wasnât a feather bed; Miss N. anathemized feathers. A new horsehair mattress would have been more hygienic, but Lib could hardly demand the OâDonnells drum up the money to buy one. (She thought of that strongbox full of coins, nominally destined for the poor.) Besides, she reminded herself, she wasnât here to improve the girlâs health, only to study it. She felt the tick all over for any lumps or gaps in the stitching that might reveal hidey-holes.
A strange tinkling in the kitchen. A bell? It sounded once, twice, three times. Calling the family to the table for the noon meal, perhaps. But of course Lib would have to wait to be served in this narrow bedroom.
Anna OâDonnell was on her feet, hovering. âMay I go say the Angelus?â
âYou need to stay where I can see you,â Lib reminded her, testing the flock-stuffed bolster with her fingers.
A voice raised in the kitchen. The motherâs?
The child dropped down on her knees, listening hard.
âAnd she conceived of the Holy Spirit,â
she answered.
âHail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with theeâ¦â
Lib thought she recognized that one. This clearly wasnât a
private
prayer; Anna sang out the words so they carried into the next room.
Behind the wall, the womenâs muffled voices matched the childâs. Then a lull. Rosaleen OâDonnellâs single voice again.
âBehold the handmaid of the Lord.â
âBe it done to me according to thy word,â
chanted Anna.
Lib tugged the bedstead well away from the wall so that from now on sheâd be able to approach it from three sides. She laid the tick over the footboard to air it out and did
Louis - Sackett's 08 L'amour