Yes, the county placement system exists for a reason. It exists to ensure that children are placed in situations that are genuinely suitable, not in situations that are created by impulse and sentiment. Calder looked at her. You want to come in and see the place, or are you planning to assess it from the yard? Something shifted in Margaret's expression, not warmth, but a slight reccalibration.
She was a woman who respected directness even when she disagreed with its source. I'll come in, she said. What happened in the next hour was essentially a tour except that Margaret Vale's tours were also interrogations, and she conducted this one with a thorowness that Calder found himself genuinely respecting, even as it irritated him. She asked about provisions he showed her, the supply run he'd made that morning, the full pantry, the ledger. She asked about sleeping arrangements he showed her, the two added beds in the cleared storage room, the reorganized linen situation.
She asked about schooling. That's the next thing, Calder said. It's not the next thing, Margaret said. It should already be a thing. I've been here 5 days.
The twins are reading, Clara said from the kitchen doorway. Both adults looked at her. She had come to stand in the doorway without anyone noticing. And she met Margaret's gaze with the particular 12-year-old steadiness that was either impressive or unsettling depending on who was doing the looking. And Eddie's learning, Clara added.
And Jonah knows his numbers already. And Nelly reads some. Margaret looked at Clara for a moment. You're Clara? She said.
Yes, ma'am. Agnes's note said, "You manage the younger children. " "I help," Clara said. Wesley manages. "I cook. " "You're 12. " "Yes, ma'am. " Margaret was quiet for a moment. "What do you need? " she said, not to Calder.
"To Clara. " Clara blinked. It was the first time in recent memory that an adult had asked her that question directly, and she was briefly caught off guard by it. "Bigger cook," she said. The one here is too small and more lamp oil. We're going through it faster because the evenings are long now and everyone's up after dark.
And she stopped. Looked at Calder as if checking whether she was allowed to keep going. Keep going, Calder said. And something for Maisie to sleep with. She doesn't have anything.
They lost her bag somewhere between the county house and the train. And she's been using Nellie's extra blanket, but Nelly needs it back. And Maisie cried for an hour two nights ago, but didn't tell anyone because she didn't want to be trouble. Clara paused. She doesn't like being trouble.
The room was quiet. Margaret Vale looked at Clara for a long, unreadable moment. Then she opened her bag. It was a large bag. The bag of a woman who came prepared and produced a cloth rabbit stitched and worn.
The kind of thing that had clearly been a child's once, and had been kept. I brought several things, Margaret said, which was an unexpectedly human thing to hear from her. I wasn't sure what would be needed. She held the rabbit out for the four-year-old. Clara took it carefully.
Thank you, she said. It was my daughter's. Margaret said she's grown. She said it without visible emotion, matterof factly, but her hand had held on to the rabbit one beat longer than necessary before releasing it. She looked at Calder.
The schooling situation needs to be addressed within 2 weeks, she said formally. Not informally, I understand. In the porch railing, I'll get to it. This week, Mr. Boon, this week, he agreed.
Margaret began to move toward the door, and then she stopped. Wesley was coming across the yard from the north fence, limping slightly because he'd been walking on uneven ground for 2 hours, and his leg was protesting. He was carrying a post digger over one shoulder and sweating through his shirt, and he didn't see Margaret in the doorway until he was almost at the porch steps, and when he did, he stopped. He looked at her with the careful assessing look he gave everyone who came from the county direction. "This is Wesley," Calder said.
Margaret looked at the 13-year-old with a post digger and the limp and the expression that said he was already calculating what her presence here meant. "You've been working the fence," she said. North Corner's soft, Wesley said. I told him about it first day. We're getting to it.
He means I told him to wait and he went ahead anyway. Calder said without heat. Wesley didn't look apologetic. The fence needed doing. Margaret looked at him for a moment.
There is a man in town, she said. Name of Hector Garza runs the feed store who lost his fence entirely to last spring storm. He could use help rebuilding it and he pays in goods, coffee, flour, that sort of thing. He won't hire an adult because he can't afford the wage, but he might hire a boy who knows fence work if that boy was willing to work for trade. Wesley stared at her.
I'm not suggesting it as charity, Margaret said clearly and without softness. I'm suggesting it as commerce. Wesley looked at Calder. Calder shrugged. Your call.
Wesley looked back at Margaret. How many days work? I don't know. You'd have to talk to Garza. Could Jonah come?
He's learning the work and he could carry things. That's between you and Garza. Wesley thought about this with the focused intensity he brought to every practical problem. All right, he said. I'll tell him to expect you Saturday, Margaret said.
She nodded once at Calder. It was the nod of someone who had not decided to approve of something, but had decided not to disapprove of it yet. And then she walked to her buggy and drove back toward Red Hollow. Calder stood on the porch and watched her go the same way he'd watched Agnes go and once again could not quite read the expression he'd se he'd seen on her face at the end of the visit. She brought Maisie something.