“Well, it won’t do,” said Mrs. Bedlow. “She won’t talk to either Tim or me. Not a word. Just sits trembling in the corner like a frozen mouse.”
“Did she manage to eat anything?”
“Did she manage to eat? She eats like she hasn’t had food in a month of Sundays. I fed her with Tim. She out ate him! And he a growing boy. But never a word through it all—just shovels it in like there’ll never be another plateful this side of the grave.”
Lyddie looked at the housekeeper’s face, pinched with anger, and then down at the top of Rachel’s head. The child was trembling—like Oliver, she thought. Like Oliver.
For more? That boy will be hung. I know that boy will be hung.
Oh Rachie, Rachie. I don’t want to think of you hungry. “I’ll pay you more,” she promised Mrs. Bedlow.
“It isn’t the money …” But it was quite clear to Lyddie that it was indeed the money in addition to the risk, so Lyddie vowed to fetch payment from the bank the very next day. She had to buy time—at least until she heard from Charlie.
When she had finished her own supper, she fetched Rachel from the kitchen, took her out to the privy, and then led her by hand up the staircase to the bedroom. All of this was accomplished with neither of them saying a word aloud, although inside Lyddie’s head lengthy conversations were bouncing about. As she tucked the quilt about the child, she tried some of her practiced lines aloud. “What did you do today, Rachie?” “Did Tim make you do some schoolwork?” “Ain’t Mrs. Bedlow funny?” “She’s all right, ey, just scared to break a rule … We got to do what the corporation says, you know, ’cause if we don’t we’re out of a job, and then what would we do, ey?” There was no answer. She hadn’t expected any, still … “You musn’t be worried, Rachie, Judah can’t sell the farm. Charlie and me, we won’t let him. We’re keeping it for Papa”—was there a flicker of life in the eyes?—“and Mama—and Charlie and Rachie and Lyddie too.” Did she just imagine the child had relaxed a little against the pillow, or was it a trick of the candlelight?
Maybe if she read aloud, as Betsy had to her. She opened Oliver Twist and com
menced. When Rachel fell asleep she didn’t know. Lyddie was lost in the comfort of the familiar words. When the bell rang, she blew out the candle and lay in the darkness, feeling the presence of the small body nearby. What could she do? Where could she turn for help? She couldn’t keep Rachel here, and yet she, Lyddie, must live in a corporation house to keep her job. And without her job, what good could she do for any of them? But how could she put this little lost child out with strangers? She cursed her aunt and uncle—what could they have been thinking of to bring the child here? And yet, wasn’t she better off here with Lyddie, who loved her, than with those two, who must not have given her enough to eat? Poor little Rachel. Poor old Lyddie. She heaved herself over in bed. She had to sleep. There was nothing she could do until she heard from Charlie. Surely Charlie could stop Judah from selling the farm, and then, debt or no debt, she’d take Rachel home. Let them try to get her off that land again. Just let them try.
In her uneasy sleep she saw the bear again, but, suddenly, in the midst of his clumsy thrashing about, he threw off the pot and was transformed, leaping like a spring buck up into the loft where they were huddled. And she could not stare him down.
16
Fever
Taking the money from the bank was like having a rooted tooth yanked from her jaw. Then, the most painful part past, she pressed two whole dollars into Mrs. Bedlow’s hand before going out on the town to buy Rachel shoes and shawl and to order a dress made for her. Having spent that much, Lyddie squandered fifty pence more to get the child a beginning reader and a small paper volume of verses that the bookseller recommended. All told, Lyddie had spent more than two weeks’ wages. There was less than a dollar in her pocket now left from the princely sum she had withdrawn. She tried not to think on it. It was for Rachel, wasn’t it? How could she begrudge the child?
The very next day Brigid was slower than ever, and it was all that Lyddie could do to keep from screaming. Time after time she took the shuttle from the girl’s clumsy hands, sucked the thread through from the bobbin, and threw it into the race, raging that a machine should stand idle for even a few seconds. Brigid was on the brink of tears all day.
At last Lyddie exploded when once again the girl’s inattention caused a snarl and a ruined piece. “You must mind, girl!” she shouted. “Forget everything else but the loom.”
“But I canna forget,” Brigid cried out. “Me mother sick unto death and no money for a doctor.”
“Here!” She snatched all the change from her apron pocket and stuffed it into Brigid’s. “Here. That’s for the doctor. Now—mind the machine, ey?”
The next few days went better than those before. She coaxed a few words from Rachel, and the suggestion of a smile, when she read aloud from the book of verses.
“Doctor Foster went to Gloucester
In a shower of rain;
He stepped in a puddle
Right up to his middle,
And never went there again.”
“Well,” said Lyddie, “that’s mud season in Vermont, ey?” And Rachel smiled. Encouraged, Lyddie tried to make a rhyme for Rachel herself.
“Uncle Judah went to Bermuda
In the April rain
He sunk in the ooze
Right up to his snooze
And never was heard of again.”