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She climbed up on the wagon step and lifted the child down. Rachel was too light. Boneless as a rag doll. As Lyddie went up the steps of the boardinghouse, she could feel her tiny burden trembling through the shawl. “It’s all right, Rachie. It’s me, Lyddie,” she said, hoping the child could remember her.
She carried Rachel inside to where Judah still stood, nervously pinching the rim of his sweat-stained hat. “It’s your sister, Rachie,” Judah boomed out, his voice fake with hearty cheer. A gasp went up from the girls in the parlor. “Like Aunt Clarissie told you, ey? We brung you to Lyddie.”
“Have you got her things?”
In answer he went out to the wagon and brought back a sack with a small lump at the bottom.
“What about my mother’s things?” she asked coldly, no longer caring about the audience and what they heard.
“There waren’t hardly nothing,” he said. She let it go. He was nearly right. “Well,” he said, looking from one sister to the other, “I’ll be off, then, ey?”
“I’m coming to fetch our mother, soon as I can. As soon as I pay off the debt. I’ll take her back home and care for her myself.”
He turned at the door, the hat brim rolled tight and squeezed in his big hands. “Back where?”
“Home,” she repeated. “To the farm.”
“We be selling it,” he said, “We got to have the money—for—for Brattleboro.”
“No!” Her voice was so sharp that the roomful of girls stopped everything they were doing to stare. Even little Rachel twisted in her arms to look at her with alarm. She went close to Judah and lowered her voice again to a fierce whisper. “No one can sell that land except my father.”
“He give permission.”
“How?” She was seized with a wild hope. Her father! They had heard from him. “When?”
“Before he left. He had it wrote out and put his mark to it. In case—ey?”
She wanted to scream at him, but how could she? She had already frightened Rachel. “You got no right,” she said between her teeth.
“We got no choice,” the man said stubbornly. “We be responsible.” And he was gone.
Once more Lyddie was aware of the other girls in the room, who were watching her openmouthed and gaping at the dirty little bundle in her arms. She buried her face in the shawl. “Come on, Rachie,” she said as much to them as to the child, “we got to go meet Mrs. Bedlow.” She straightened up tall and made her way through the chairs and knees to the kitchen.
“Mrs. Bedlow?” The housekeeper was sitting in the kitchen rocker, peeling potatoes for tomorrow’s hash.
“What in heaven’s name?”
At the housekeeper’s sharp question, Rachel’s little head came up from the depths of the shawl like a turtle from a shell.
“It’s Rachel, Mrs. Bedlow.” Lyddie made her voice as gentle as she could. “My sister, Rachel.”
She could read the warning in Mrs. Bedlow’s eyes. No men, no children (except for the keeper’s own) in a corporation house. But surely the woman would not have the heart …
“I’m begging a bath for her. She’s had a long, rough journey in an ox cart, and she’s chilled right through, ey Rachie?”
Rachel stiffened in her arms, but Mrs. Bedlow dropped her paring knife into the bowl of peeled potatoes, wiped her hands on her apron, and put a kettle on to boil.
It was only after they had both seen Rachel safely asleep in Lyddie’s bed that Mrs. Bedlow said the words that Lyddie knew were on her mind. “It won’t do, you know. She can’t stay here.”
“I’ll get her a job. She can doff.”
“You know she’s not
old enough or strong enough to be a doffer.”
“Just till I can straighten things out,” Lyddie pleaded. “Please let her stay. I’ll get it all set in just a few days, ey?”
Mrs. Bedlow sighed and made to shake her head.
