“We covered the machines as best we could while you were gone, me and Diana. Though
”—she smiled apologetically—“you’ll see from your wage, the work was not near what it would be, had you been here.”
It was all they had time to say before Mr. Marsden stepped on his stool and pulled the cord that set the room to roaring and shaking. Lyddie jumped, then laughed. How quickly she’d forgotten the noise! Within minutes she had settled in and forgotten everything else—Mr. Marsden, her weakness, the farm, Charlie, even Rachel. It was good to be back with her beasts again. She belonged among them somehow.
By the breakfast bell she was almost too tired to eat. She would, if she could have chosen, sat out the break in the window alcove, but that would leave her alone on the floor. She glanced at Mr. Marsden and hurried toward the stairs. He didn’t speak to her. It was as if nothing had occurred between them, except that he never came over to her loom to pat and encourage her. Not once.
She managed to eat breakfast, or some of it. Rachel was stuffing herself like a regular factory girl, talking excitedly at the same time. She stopped only to look at Lyddie and say through her full mouth, “Eat, Lyddie. You got to eat and grow strong.”
So it was she got through breakfast and dinner, but by supper she could only manage a few bites of stew before she dragged herself up to bed. Fatigue was like a toothache in her bones. She would have cursed her weakness, had she the strength.
Each day, though, she was a little stronger. At first she could not feel it, no more than a body can feel itself grow taller. But by the end of the week, she found that she had eaten a full plate at supper and was lingering in the parlor with Rachel, who was watching, fascinated, as a phrenologist sought to sell his services to the girls.
“Please, Lyddie,” Rachel begged. “Let’s have our heads done.”
“I know about my head, Rachel. Why should I pay good money to find out it’s plain as sod and stubborn as a mule?”
“And such a skinflint a penny would freeze to your fist before you’d spend it,” the phrenologist snapped. “I give you that reading for free. Not that there’s hope you’d pay.”
The other girls in the parlor tittered. Even Lyddie tried to smile, but Rachel was indignant. “She’s not mean. She’s going to buy me ribbons,” she declared. “Come on, Lyddie,” she added, taking her hand. “Let’s go read the book you bought me.”
The girls laughed again, but more gently. They had never cared much for Lyddie, whom they knew to be close with her money and her friendships, but Rachel was rapidly becoming their pet.
How dry her life had been before Rachel came. It was like springs of water in the desert to have her here. She kissed her head that night before she tucked her in. “You don’t think your Lyddie is a cheap old spinster, ey?”
Rachel was furious all over again. “You’re the best sister in the world!”
Lyddie blew out the candle. She lay listening to Rachel’s even breathing and heard in her memory the sounds of birds in the spring woods. If only she could hear from Charlie, Lyddie’s happiness would be complete. The money was growing again. She had nearly caught up with the wages lost by her illness, and even though Rachel made only a pittance, it paid her room and board. She had seldom been happier.
She woke in the night, puzzled. She thought she had heard Betsy again—that wretched hacking sound that sawed through her rib cage straight into her heart. And then she was wide awake and knew it to be Rachel.
* * *
* * *
It was only a cold. Surely it was nothing. She would be over it in a week. See, the child seemed bright-eyed and lively as ever. If she were sick, really sick … Lyddie kept the knowledge of the night cough tight inside herself, but the fear grew like a tumor. She began to lie awake listening for the awful sound, until finally, she knew she must send the child away—anywhere, just so she was not breathing this poison air.
It will break my heart to send the child away. Lyddie could not bear the thought. It might break Rachel’s heart as well. She has been sent away too often in her short life. Look, she dotes on me. Me, tough and mean as I be. She clings to me more than she ever did our mother. She needs me.
Lyddie did not know what to do, and she was too terrified to ask. No one must know. She fed Rachel the pills Brigid had brought her. She had no faith in them, but she must try. She fixed plasters for the child’s chest, trying to turn it into a game, desperate to hide her own terror. And she was succeeding, wasn’t she? Rachel seemed happy as ever and carefree as a kitten. Caught in a spasm of coughing, she made light of it. “Silly cough,” she said. “All the girls have them.”
Lyddie mustn’t worry. Summer was here. The weather was warm. Rachel would be over it soon. They’d take July off. Go back to the farm, the two of them. But it was a vain dream, Lyddie knew. There would be nothing to eat there. The cow was gone and no crops planted.
Triphena. She would send Rachel to Triphena. But Triphena meant Mistress Cutler as well as that lonely, airless attic. How could she do to Rachel at eight what her mother had done to her at thirteen? It had been hard even then. And so very lonely. She hadn’t realized how lonely until now—now that she was no longer alone.
Then one evening in late June—she had just read Rachel to sleep—Tim knocked on the door. “A visitor for you, Lyddie,” he said. “In the parlor.”
18
Charlie at Last
She hardly knew him. He was not so much taller, but bigger somehow, foreign. He wore homespun, but it was well tailored to his body. His brown hair was combed neatly against his head, and a carpetbag hung from his right hand.
“Sister,” he said quietly, and the voice was one she had never heard before and would not have known for his.
“Sister,” he repeated, his voice cracking on the words, “it’s me, Charles.”
“Yes,” she said. “Charles. So—you come.”