On Sparrow Hill

by Maureen Lang

  3

  * * *

  Rebecca leaned forward, taking the letter from Quentin’s outstretched hand.

  “You might be able to use some of the information in there for your tour scripts,” he said, taking a bite of what was surely by now cold chicken. “We have my American relatives to thank for that.”

  “Should I contact them, then?”

  “Of course. My family could use a bit of expansion, I think.”

  Rebecca nodded, though she doubted his mother would think so.

  “Invite them here, if they intend coming over some time.”

  Rebecca eyed him. Strangers? Not that she was in accord with his mother’s line of thinking, that anyone worth knowing was already in their circle. But Americans, if she were to generalize, were among the boldest visitors to the Hall. In speech, clothing, and behavior.

  “For a tour, at least,” he said softly.

  “Of course,” she said. That much she could handle.

  She soon took the letters back to her office, where she sent an e-mail to the genealogy service inviting direct contact with the American cousins.

  Perhaps she should have said something to Quentin, asked him about his mother’s public comment to privatize the Hall. Perhaps, if Rebecca had an inkling of suspicion that was his intention, she might have.

  Instead she kept silent, preferring to put off the battle if one was to be had. The Featherby would cement the value of the work she did here, if Quentin did lean toward his mother’s way of thinking. This particular award’s emphasis was exactly where Rebecca’s efforts glowed: reaching the youth to show them firsthand how this country—their country—had lived in its glory days.

  Surely even Quentin’s mother could be convinced of the importance of that.

  Rebecca picked up another letter. If this correspondence added to the Hollinworth family’s noble history, Rebecca was just the one to make sure everyone knew about it.

  4

  * * *

  Have you any guess, Cosima, how much paperwork accompanies opening this school? Mr. Truebody, the justice of the peace whom I mentioned in my last letter, is excruciatingly exacting. Not only must our documents be submitted in a timely manner, but if any flaw is found—and by that I mean anything from a misspelled word to the smallest smudge—it is sent back to be completely redone. Not fixed, mind you. Begun again and submitted without evidence of any error.

  Your father’s library has become my office, though what books were left behind have been sold for quite a nice profit. I am assured by Mrs. Cotgrave that the volumes are better off in the hands of those who will read them instead of worrying over pages being torn, bindings being ripped.

  Your father’s large desk is littered with no less than fifty sheets of paper, various forms of one sort or another. How can such a simple idea as to help those born less fortunate create such a mass of documentation?

  I have no idea what I would do without Mrs. Cotgrave. I beg you to keep her in your prayers, because I am quite certain without her our school would be a miserable failure already!

  “Legal sanction, lunacy commission, certificates of insanity, reception orders, election applicants . . . Oh! I think we shall be blockaded by ordinance and procedure before we accept our first student.”

  Mrs. Cotgrave smiled serenely from behind her own pile of paperwork. “Never fret, Miss Berrie. Soon we’ll have a staff in place, but if you’re to run things, you need to know what’s what. Don’t you?”

  Berrie nodded, albeit with uncertainty. “I do have a brain; I’ve just never pressed it very hard. Not with anything like this, at any rate.”

  Mrs. Cotgrave patted Berrie’s hand. “You’ve a good brain, and before long you’ll know more about this than I do, I daresay.”

  Mrs. Cotgrave explained the uses of the forms in front of them. The clerk they would soon hire would record each student’s personal information and distribute it to various places, among them Mr. Truebody, the officers of health and board of guardians in Cork, and finally the Lunacy Commission in London, to which they all answered. Berrie’s mind spun before long, even as some of Mrs. Cotgrave’s knowledge surely sank in. There might be duplication in answering to various inspectors, surveyors, commissioners, board members, doctors, and right up to members of Parliament itself, but the way Mrs. Cotgrave explained things, the pieces seemed to fit. While certain powers must be respected, the underlying goal was the same: to help and protect the children who needed so much.

  Daisy, one of the housemaids they’d hired, entered the room after a brief tap.

  “A lady arrived just now. She says her name is Miss Katie MacFarland and that she has business with you, Miss Hamilton.”

  Berrie exchanged a glance with Mrs. Cotgrave, who appeared every bit as surprised by the announcement as Berrie herself. The governing and medical boards were comprised of men, so it couldn’t be one of them. And though they did plan to have female teachers, attendants, and one nurse, those slots had been filled; they weren’t searching for any more.

  “Perhaps she’s here to name a candidate for residency,” Mrs. Cotgrave suggested.

  Berrie nodded, although Mrs. Cotgrave had said this sort of thing was to be handled through the mounds of paperwork they were sending out, not in person.

  “Show her in, Daisy,” Berrie instructed.

  A moment later a woman entered the room, dressed meticulously in white lace and green broadcloth with a small felt hat sitting smartly atop perfectly coiffed hair, a yellow scarf tied at the back. Her features were more plain than pretty, though no single aspect could be called offensive. Rather, her eyes and mouth were on the small side, her forehead on the large. Only the scarf altered her perfect attire, for although every other detail of the lady appeared well attended, the scarf was off-center and askew.

  She said nothing upon her entrance. Instead, she stepped close to the desk behind which both Berrie and Mrs. Cotgrave sat. Without making eye contact with either of them, she held out an envelope somewhere in between.

  “This is my introduction,” the woman said. “It will tell you all about me, it will. Once you’ve read it, you’ll see I may be of great help to you and your students alike.”

  “I’m afraid we’ve hired all the help we need, Miss . . . ,” Berrie said.

  “Read the letter, if you please.”

  The young woman spoke with the familiar cadence so common in Ireland, though not like a servant. No, her enunciation certainly matched the finery she wore. Berrie opened the envelope, unfolding the single sheet she found inside. She held it at an angle so Mrs. Cotgrave might see it as well.

  I am Katie MacFarland, twenty years, two months, three days of age. I am strong and hardworking, and will never tell a lie. I have come to help you with your school, since I am strong and hardworking and will never tell a lie. You will have children in your school for me to take care of and teach. I can teach them for most of the day and also after dark since I require little sleep. I also do not eat much, so I will create little expense. I have brought my own clothes. I will be of great value because I am strong and hardworking and will never tell a lie.

  The letter, though neat and without error, appeared to have been written by a child.

  Berrie placed the letter on the desk in front of her, standing and going to the library window. From there she saw the lane leading up to the manor house, but it was empty all the way to the road down below.

  Surely the young lady hadn’t come alone. Any girl her age and from the kind of house that matched her clothing and ability to write would have a carriage and chaperone. More than that, even if this girl had broken all rules of etiquette and set out alone, how could she have found her way to them unattended? From her stiff demeanor and lack of eye contact, and from the words on the page, Berrie guessed the girl would be better off a student than a member of the staff.

  “How did you arrive, Miss MacFarland?” Berrie asked.

  The young woman stared straight ahead like a soldier a
t attention rather than one of three women chatting in a room. “My name is Katie, and I walked.”

  “From your home?”

  “No, from my carriage.”

  “And where is your carriage now?” Berrie looked out the window again, unable to see directly in front of the portico. Perhaps the vehicle was out of her line of vision. “Still waiting outside?”

  “I was let out at the bottom of the lane, and I walked up the hill. I like to walk; it’s good for breathing.” She took a deep, clear breath as if to demonstrate.

  Berrie returned to her seat and spoke quietly to Mrs. Cotgrave. “I haven’t the faintest idea what to do. Have you?”

  “I’ll see if Daisy glimpsed the carriage,” she whispered, “or if she has any other information about the girl. If we don’t know where to return her to, I don’t see any option but to keep her, at least until we find out where she belongs.”

  “Without paperwork?”

  Mrs. Cotgrave grinned, apparently pleased that Berrie had been indoctrinated to the importance of various documents. “We can only do our best for the girl. I’m not sure she’ll be able to tell us much to be of any help.”

  Even with the pronouncement, Berrie could see Mrs. Cotgrave had her reservations about letting her stay. Nonetheless, the older woman left the room to start her search.

  Berrie offered Katie a chair opposite.

  “How far have you come, Miss MacFarland?”

  Katie glanced at Berrie while coming to rest rigidly on the edge of the chair. Eye contact lasted no longer than a moment as the young woman stared somewhere over Berrie’s shoulder. “I am to be called Katie. Even Sophy, my maid, calls me Katie. My sister says servants should call me ‘Miss MacFarland,’ but since that is what they call her, how shall I know whom they are addressing if we are called by the same name?”

  “What about Miss Katie?”

  “The name in our Bible on the family record says ‘Katie,’ not ‘Miss Katie.’ I don’t know why anyone should call me by anything else. I don’t call servants ‘miss’ or ‘mister.’ I don’t see why they should call me anything other than my name.”

  “So you have a sister. What is her name?” Berrie shifted closer to place herself in Katie’s line of vision. Katie’s gaze floated higher.

  “Her name is Miss MacFarland. That’s what everyone calls her except my brother and I. My brother calls her by her Christian name. I don’t call her anything. I haven’t used her name in six years, five months, and eight days. I’ll not say the name of someone who doesn’t like me.”

  “Your sister—Miss MacFarland—doesn’t like you?”

  There, a brief moment of eye contact. “She does not. She says I am quite annoying. When you say quite, that means something more than simply annoying. She means that I am more than annoying. I have always annoyed her, although I don’t know how or why. And so I promised myself to never say her name, not ever. If you meet her, you may call her Miss MacFarland and that will be enough.”

  “But I thought it was your sister who brought you here.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Yet you didn’t speak to her?”

  “I did talk to her, although she doesn’t like it when I talk. I can see she thinks what I say is quite annoying.”

  “How long was the carriage ride, Miss MacFarland?”

  “That is my sister’s name. My name is Katie.”

  Berrie silently chided herself. She really must learn to communicate better; obviously the person she spoke to was more important than rules of etiquette.

  “Was it a long carriage ride to get here, Katie?”

  “Yes, I do say so. It was even farther than Dublin. My brother took me to Dublin once. He goes there often, and one day he asked if I would like to see it and I said yes. So we went.”

  Berrie assumed, then, the MacFarland family lived to the north or perhaps the northwest. That might narrow it down, though not by much.

  “Was your brother with you today?”

  “No indeed, only my sister.” Now Katie’s gaze flitted around the room, taking in the surroundings. The room was nearly empty except for curtains, four chairs, the desk, and all the paperwork on top of it. The settee, extra lamps, and most of the books were gone, leaving behind only a few volumes pertaining to botany that might prove helpful to the staff. Shelves that had once housed a variety of published sermons, novels, and first editions of philosophy and history now waited for the storage of files on various students yet to come.

  “My sister told me you needed me,” Katie continued, “and I agree it would be very nice to work instead of staying at home. My sister does not work, although she has many friends who keep her busy. My brother works. Since my father died, my brother has to do all of his own work as well as Papa’s. It was sad when my father died because I cannot talk to him anymore, but I know he is in heaven even though my brother says he is no longer sure there is a heaven. I reminded him Papa and Mama both told us there is a heaven, so I know that’s where they are. You cannot see heaven or God or Jesus, so this is harder to believe than some things. There are many things we cannot see that are real. Like wind. It can nearly make me tumble over if I stand on the cliffs behind my home, but I cannot see the wind—only the things it moves.”

  Berrie listened to Katie, trying her best to keep up with all of the shifts in topic, knowing she needed to find out more about the young woman to be of any help at all.

  “There are cliffs near your home, Katie? What town do you live in?”

  “There are cliffs by the water. I mustn’t go into the water because my clothes would become too heavy to get out of the water. Then I would drown. Wind is made of air, which you also cannot see. We all need air in order to breathe. I would not be able to breathe if I were under the water.”

  Cliffs and water. That could be almost any Irish coast from what little she knew of the island. “And what is the name of the town in which you live?”

  “I live in a big house . . . by the cliffs.”

  Berrie sighed, wishing she’d been the one to search for information with Daisy. Perhaps Mrs. Cotgrave would be more successful with Katie. “What is your brother’s name, Katie?”

  “Simon.”

  “And what kind of work does he do?”

  “He tells people how to make boats. And he fights the English.”

  “Fights the English?” Berrie frowned, imagining all sorts of ways an Irishman might fight her English countrymen. “Is he a soldier?”

  “No.”

  Just then the door opened again. Berrie gratefully acknowledged Mrs. Cotgrave with a nod, but the older woman shrugged and lifted her hands.

  Katie watched Mrs. Cotgrave walk around the table and retake her seat beside Berrie. Then Katie returned her gaze toward Berrie’s general direction. “When shall I begin teaching the wee ones?”

  “We haven’t actually accepted any students yet, Katie, so there are no teachers here just now except Mrs. Cotgrave and myself.” Berrie motioned to the paperwork in front of her. “All of these papers must be read and completed before we can begin accepting students for our residential program.”

  “So will I begin work tomorrow, then, instead of today?”

  “I’m afraid it will be a bit longer than that. Perhaps we should get in touch with your sister or your brother and have them take you home for the time being.”

  Katie’s eyes widened to small blue circles, and she looked at Berrie for the longest moment yet before staring once again beyond Berrie’s shoulder. “But I came to work here. I cannot go home. My sister has a new beau, and she doesn’t want me to annoy him the way I annoy her. She said if I live here everyone will be happier, until she gets her beau to kiss her, and then they’ll be married like Mama and Papa. Besides that, if I go home, I’ll not be able to leave again if my brother returns first.”

  “Where is your brother?”

  “In Dublin. My sister brought me here while he is away so Simon could not say no. He thinks only boys and men
prefer working, and if a woman must work, she should do so at home with the wee ones at her feet.”

  Berrie frowned. If Katie’s brother truly was a man who fought the English and believed women only good for working at home and having babies, then he most assuredly would not approve of his sister being at a school run by an Englishwoman who intended to make this school her life’s mission.

  “Tell me, Katie,” Mrs. Cotgrave said slowly, “I wonder if you have anything that might tell us where you live? Perhaps in a pocket of your cloak?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Your pockets are empty, then?” Berrie asked. It would have been a fine idea for Katie’s family to tuck in identification—if they wanted to make sure she’d find her way home.

  Katie put her hands in her pockets, pulling them inside out. They were indeed empty.

  “I fear we have a dilemma,” Mrs. Cotgrave said. “If you are to live here and work with the other students, we will need to fill out paperwork such as this.” She motioned to one of the stacks in front of her. “We need signatures of two people giving permission for you to live here.”

  Katie looked between the two women, as if a third face between them could receive her gaze. “What does that mean?”

  “That we must speak to your sister and your brother,” Berrie said. “Can you tell us how we may contact them?”

  Katie’s wide forehead crinkled in a frown. “I came to work. Here.”

  “And perhaps that shall still work out,” Mrs. Cotgrave said gently. “But until the students arrive, there isn’t much to be done, is there? We can summon you back, when the time is right.”

  Katie still looked at the absent third face. “Do you have paperwork too? For both of you to work here?”

  Berrie glanced at Mrs. Cotgrave, who seemed amused and perhaps a bit impressed by the question.

  Mrs. Cotgrave nodded. “We do have paperwork, Katie. Miss Hamilton has papers stating she may manage things here, and I have papers stating my prior experience.”