The Wonder Read Free Page A

scorn in her eyes.
    McBrearty found his thread again. “But the vast majority of the replies have consisted of personal abuse.”
    â€œOf the child?”
    â€œThe child, the family, and myself. Comments not just in the
Irish Times
but in various British publications that seem to have taken up the case for the sole purpose of satire.”
    Lib saw it now. She’d travelled a long way to hire herself out as a nursemaid-cum-gaoler, all because of a provincial doctor’s injured pride. Why hadn’t she pressed Matron for more details before she accepted the job?
    â€œMost correspondents presume that the O’Donnells are cheats, conspiring to feed their daughter secretly and make fools of the world.” McBrearty’s voice was shrill. “The name of our village has become a byword for credulous backwardness. Several of the important men hereabouts feel that the honour of the county—possibly of the whole Irish nation—is at stake.”
    Had the doctor’s gullibility spread like a fever among these
important men
?
    â€œSo a committee’s been formed and a decision taken to mount a watch.”
    Ah, then it wasn’t the O’Donnells who’d sent for Lib at all. “With a view to proving that the child subsists by some extraordinary means?” She tried to keep even a hint of the sardonic out of her voice.
    â€œNo, no,” McBrearty assured her, “simply to bring the truth to light, whatever the truth may be. Two scrupulous attendants will stay by Anna turn and turnabout, night and day, for a fortnight.”
    So it wasn’t Lib’s experience of surgical or infectious cases that was called for here, only the rigour of her training. Clearly the committee hoped, by importing one of the scrupulous new breed of nurses, to give some credence to the O’Donnells’ mad story. To make this primitive backwater a wonder to the world. Anger throbbed in Lib’s jaw.
    Fellow feeling, too, for the other woman lured into this morass. “The second nurse, I don’t suppose I know her?”
    The doctor frowned. “Didn’t you make Sister Michael’s acquaintance at supper?”
    The almost speechless nun; Lib should have guessed. Strange how they took the names of male saints, as if giving up womanhood itself. But why hadn’t the nun introduced herself properly? Was that what that deep bow had been supposed to signify—that she and the Englishwoman were in this mess together? “Was she trained in the Crimea too?”
    â€œNo, no, I’ve just had her sent up from the House of Mercy in Tullamore,” said McBrearty.
    One of the
walking nuns
. Lib had served alongside others of that order in Scutari. They were reliable workers, at least, she told herself.
    â€œThe parents requested that at least one of you be of their own, ah…”
    So the O’Donnells had asked for a Roman Catholic. “Denomination.”
    â€œAnd nationality,” he added, as if to soften it.
    â€œI’m quite aware that there’s no love for the English in this country,” said Lib, summoning a tight smile.
    McBrearty demurred: “You put it too strongly.”
    What about the faces that had turned towards the jaunting car as Lib was driven down the village street? But those men had spoken about her because she was expected, she realized now. She wasn’t just any Englishwoman; she was the one being shipped in to watch over their squire’s pet.
    â€œSister Michael will provide a certain sense of familiarity for the child, that’s all,” said McBrearty.
    The very idea that
familiarity
was a necessary or even helpful qualification for a watcher! But for the other nurse, he’d picked one of Miss N.’s own famous brigade, she thought, to make this watch look sufficiently
scrupulous,
especially in the eyes of the British press.
    Lib thought of saying, in a very cool voice,
Doctor, I see that I’ve been