“No. Belay that!” Mrs. Perry exclaimed with her usual spirit. “He told me he was quiet because you were exhausted, and your body must heal, and there you were, feeding a little’un. ‘How does she do it?’ he asked me once.”
“What did you tell my curly haired genius?” Meridee asked, her own cares fleeing, as she considered his much bigger burden.
“I told him you wouldn’t want it any other way.” Mrs. Perry laughed, but quietly, because Pegeen, the new scullery maid, slept in her own room close by. “He gave me such a fishy look, and then do you know what he said?”
“I…no, not a clue.”
“’I am the luckiest man who ever walked the earth,’ he told me, and so seriously.”
Meridee felt her heart ease and her whole body relax. “Mrs. Perry, after all we have been through, you could have told me sooner. What a dear thing to say.”
Mrs. Perry kissed her forehead, the first time she had ever done anything so personal. “I thought I would save it for a time like now, when you truly need it.”
Meridee rested her head against Mrs. Perry’s shoulder, closing her eyes with relief and joy when the big African woman, who terrified the entire staff across the street at St. Brendan’s, put her arms around her. She hummed a wonderful tune that had all the sound of the Caribbean, or maybe more distant African shores.
“Mam?”
Meridee turned to see Pegeen standing in the door of her room. “Were we too loud, my dear?” she asked. “Join us.”
Pegeen was the newest addition to the Six household. Spurred on by Betsy’s yearning to take more children from the workhouse, Meridee and Ben, protected by Mrs. Perry, had marched to Portsmouth’s workhouse mere days ago. The beadle had been eager to parade several bewildered young girls past them, extolling their abilities until Meridee felt nothing but suspicion. She had a better idea.
She took a handful of jackstraws from her reticule and handed them to Ben. “Find a nice corner and play,” she told her son. “We won’t be too long.” She turned back to the beadle. “Now, sir, you were saying?”
“These girls cook and clean and can lay a fire to perfection,” he said. “Can’t you?” he barked out suddenly, causing several to jump in fright.
“That’s fine, sir,” Meridee said hastily, when one of the girls started to weep. “I’ll chat with them. You may leave us.”
“I can’t never do that,” he protested. “No telling what they would do.” He clapped his hands like an explosion and the terrified girls drew together.
All except one child. Out of the corner of her eye, Meridee had watched her separate from the others and sidle along the wall. She sat cross legged by Ben now, helping him with the jackstraws, unmindful of the fear around her. Her red hair was drawn up in two uneven pigtails held together by bits of colorful cloth and she was painfully thin.
More irritated than fearful, the scrap of a girl turned when the beadle shouted, “Pegeen! Get in line!” and stood up reluctantly.
“She’s more trouble than she’s worth,” the housemaster grumbled.
“She is the girl I want,” Meridee said decisively, positive as almost never before. Hadn’t the Gunwharf Rats been chosen because they stood out from other beaten-down children? “Pegeen, did you say?”
He stared at her. “But she won’t do nuffink she doesn’t want to,” he declared. “I’d get rid of her, if I could.”
Meridee shuddered inside at that.
He leaned closer, giving Meridee the benefit of rotting teeth. “To compound it, she’s Irish.”
“She’s coming home with me,” Meridee said firmly. “Does she have a last name?”
“O’Malley,” the beadle said, resigned now. “Her father died of the drink and her mother dumped her off in a rainstorm. Her? Why, in the good Lord’s name do you want her?”
“She is too thin,” Meridee said. “Shame on you.” She lowered her voice, remembering that she was a lady. “More to the point, she likes my son.”
Pegeen O’Malley did. A bath, a clean shift and dress, shoes, a brush and better pieces of yarn later, the ten-year-old Irish girl could already scrape carrots and peel potatoes for Mrs. Perry, then play with Ben. She ate more than Meridee and Mrs. Perry put together, and here she was now, rubbing her eyes and wondering what had happened.
And probably blaming herself. Long experience with workhouse lads had taught Meridee Six a great deal. She held out her hand. “We didn’t mean to