had murmured, “Well, good morning! And how are you this fine day?” to Spirit over and over, rolling her mouth around the vowels, trying to stop herself sounding so clipped and English.
A young woman, probably not much older than Alice, emerged from a cabin and peered at her, shading her eyes. In the sunlit, grassy patch in front of the house, two children looked up at her. They resumed their desultory fight over a stick while a dog watched intently. A bowl of unshucked sweetcorn had been left, as if awaiting transport, and a pile of laundry lay on a sheet on the ground. Some pulled weeds were thrown in a pile by the vegetable patch, the earth still on their roots. The house appeared surrounded by such half-finished tasks. From inside Alice could hear a baby crying, a furious, disconsolate wail.
“Mrs. Bligh?”
“Can I help you?”
Alice took a breath. “Good maoahning! Ah’m from the traveling laahbrurry,” she said carefully. “Ah wuz wondering if yew would lahk some bewks, fer you and the young’uns. Fer to do some book learnin’.”
The woman’s smile faded.
“It’s okay. They don’t cawst nuffink,” Alice added, smiling. She pulled a book from her saddlebag. “Yew kin borreh four and ah’ll jest come pick ’em up next week.”
The woman was silent. She narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips and looked down at her shoes. Then she brushed her hands on her apron and looked up again.
“Miss, are you mocking me?”
Alice’s eyes widened.
“You’re the English one, right? Married to Van Cleve’s boy? Because if you’re after mocking me you can head straight off back down that mountain.”
“I’m not mocking you,” Alice said quickly.
“Then you got somethin’ wrong with your jaw?”
Alice swallowed. The woman was frowning at her. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I was told people wouldn’t trust me enough to take books from me if I sounded too English. I was just . . .” Her voice trailed away.
“You was trying to sound like you was from round here?” The woman’s chin pulled into her neck.
“I know. Said like that it sounds rather—I—” Alice closed her eyes and groaned inwardly.
The woman snorted with laughter. Alice’s eyes snapped open. The woman started to laugh again, bent over her apron. “You tried to sound like you was from round here. Garrett? You hear that?”
“I heard,” came a man’s voice, followed by a burst of coughing.
Mrs. Bligh clutched her sides and laughed until she had to wipe the corners of her eyes. The children, watching her, began to chuckle too, with the hopeful, bemused faces of those who weren’t quite sure what they were laughing at.
“Oh, my. Oh, Miss, I ain’t laughed like that since as long as I can remember. You come on in now. I’d take books off you if you was from the other side of the world. I’m Kathleen. C’mon in. You need some water? It’s hot enough to fry a snake out here.”
Alice tied Spirit to the nearest tree and pulled a selection of books out of her pack. She followed the young woman up to the cabin, noting that there was no glass in the windows, just wooden shutters, and wondered absently what it must be like in the winter. She waited in the doorway, as her eyes acclimatized to the darkness, and gradually the interior revealed itself. The cabin appeared to be divided into two rooms. The walls of the front one were lined with newspaper, and on the far side stood a large wood-burning stove, beside which stood a stack of logs. Above the fireplace hung a string of tied candles, and a large hunting rifle on the wall. A table and four chairs stood in the corner, and a baby lay in a large crate beside it, its little fists pummeled the air as it cried. The woman stooped and picked it up with a vague air of exhaustion and the crying stopped.
It was then that Alice noticed the man in the bed across the room. The quilted covers pulled up to his chest, he was young and handsome, but his skin had the waxy pallor of the chronically ill. The air was still and stale around him, despite the open windows, and every thirty seconds or so he coughed.
“Good morning,” she said, when she saw he was looking at her.
“Morning,” he said, his voice weak and raspy. “Garrett Bligh. Sorry I can’t stand just now to—”