Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [56]
Weary, Dot considered the two faces. "Get away out of that, miss," she remarked at last, and walked from the room, trailing her broom behind her.
It was in the corner of the bedchamber that the governess found the girl a little later, her fingers dividing and dividing the doll's hair. She lifted Margaret's hands away gently. "Girl, you harass my spirits. You are too old for your sisters' dolls, and what need has a healthy girl of wax toys when there is the wide world to play in?" If she noticed the stiffness in Margaret's legs, as they strolled in the orchard, she said nothing. They spoke of birds' nests, and poetry, and unrest among the French.
Mistress Mary had taken to writing a story in the bright July evenings. What was it about? "Disappointment," she murmured, and would tell no more. Feeling neglected, Margaret became clumsier, tripping over shoes and toppling an inkstand. The governess forgave her everything. One morning Margaret found a double cherry hung over the handle of her wardrobe. She knew she had the power now. It brought her no joy.
"I govern her completely," Mistress Mary wrote to her sister. "She is a fine girl, and it only takes a cherry to win a smile from her. Her violence of temper remains deplorable, but I myself never feel the effects of it. She is wax in my hands. The truth is, this girl is the only consolation of my life in this backwater. How I look forward to my brief i" escape!
Nobody remembered to tell the children that their governess was spending two days with acquaintances in Tralee. Distracted by the details of mail coaches and hats, Mistress Mary was gone before breakfast. Dot, passing the girl on the back staircase, had only time to whisper that the governess was gone.
Margaret stood in the middle of the empty bedchamber. Sure enough, Mistress Mary's travelling cloak was missing for the first time since October. Margaret was oddly calm. Her mind was busy wondering what she had done wrong, what brief immodesty or careless phrase would make her governess punish her so, by leaving without a word. She noticed that the writing case had been left behind. No reason not to, now: she wrenched it open and took a handful of pages. "Pity is one of my prevailing passions," she read, and "this world is a desert to me" at the top of another leaf. For a few moments the girl stood, savouring the grandeur of the phrases. But then they were dust in her mouth. All these words, and not an inch of warm skin left. As if Mistress Mary, who had never seemed too fond of having a body, had escaped in the form of a bird or a cloud.
The words were building up behind her tongue, making her gag. Nine months she has been living behind my hair, thought Margaret; that is as long as a baby. She parted her lips to breathe and a howl split her open.
After that she remembered nothing until her mother was standing over her.
"Stop this fuss," her Ladyship advised. "You are making a grand calamity out of nothing at all. Recollect yourself. Who are you?"
"I don't know."
"You are Margaret King, of...?"
"I don't remember."
The girl stood, at the rod's pleasure. It beat and beat and could not touch her.
Due to the excessive regret the girl had shown at the briefest of partings with her governess, her Ladyship explained to the household, she had decided that Mistress Mary would not be coming back. The black trunk was sent off before breakfast.
By August, Margaret was bleeding inside. Feeling herself seep away, she was not surprised. But Dot saw the red path down the girl's stocking; she took her into a closet and explained the business of the rags. Margaret nodded but did not believe her. She knew it was the first sign of the change. Blood had to trickle as the growth sped and the new freakish flesh pushed through. When she was three inches long, she would run away to Galway fair and show herself for sixpences. The pretend families would come with her, riding in the ropes of her hair.
A republican in 1798, Margaret would