Free A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant Page B

Sleeping-quarters, probably, for those Weavers who merited better than a pallet on the front-room floor, and then some sort of pantry or larder. The place could use a good cleaning, beginning with the kitchen table, on which sat the apparent remains of dinner along with a healthy visitation of houseflies. One would think some of the numerous children might trouble to clear the dishes.
    The children appeared to number ten altogether. A few girls, a few boys, and a few young ones of indeterminate gender in smocked dresses and unshorn curls, they disposed themselves listlessly about the pallets and other poor furnishings. One or two spared him a sullen glance. Largely he was ignored.
    Who could approve such children, with no visible capacity either for industry or for childish dissipation? Granted they lacked many of the advantages he’d enjoyed as a child, but a tidy house could boost their spirits prodigiously, and that , at least, was in their power. Someone ought to tell them so.
    A small one roused itself to cough several times, and sank back into lassitude on its pallet. Probably it was ill with something pestilent. Probably this whole room was rank with contagion. If he had been their parent, he should have insisted they go outdoors and breathe better air.
    Some movement in the corner caught his eye: one of the children was not quite idle. A round-faced girl, fifteen or so, sat in a chair with her head bent, her attention all absorbed by something in her lap. Needlework, perhaps? A diminutive pet? But no—she had a piece of gold paper and was folding it with great care and concentration. A favorite pastime of young girls, if his own sisters were anything to go by. So many hours they’d spent in this occupation, turning out the most marvelous things: swans, castles, ingenious little men with jointed limbs. They’d grown out of it, though, by the time of reaching this girl’s years.
    As he watched, she folded the paper in half, lining up the corners. Then in half again. Then two times more, to make a small square with a thickness of sixteen sheets. She looked at it, turned it over, and unfolded it: to eighths, then quarters, then halves, then all the way out. The creases, he could see, were nearly worn through. She smoothed the paper in her lap and began to fold again, in just the same pattern, with the same force of attention.
    Some need of the baby’s drawing Mrs. Weaver away, he leaned near to Granville and spoke in an undertone. “The eldest girl is simple?”
    “Indeed,” his agent answered with a curt nod, managing to suggest quite plainly that the question would better have waited until they were gone from the house.
    So he said nothing more on the subject. The cottage looked different, though, now he knew it contained this sadness. By such an age his sisters had progressed to more intricate crafts—somewhere he had a box Mary had made for him, all pasted over with strips of paper rolled into pretty spirals—and progressed, too, to an interest in gowns, and the balls they should wear them to, and the eligible young men they should meet there. Of course no girl in this cottage was likely to attend balls, but the simpleminded daughter might have to remain here always, watching her younger sisters grow past her to contrive their own establishments.
    Those sisters who survived to adulthood, that was. He was obliged to make that emendation as the small smocked one fell into another coughing fit. What an arrogant fool he’d been to judge them. Probably half these children would never see sixteen.
    He’d worked himself into ridiculously low spirits by the time they left the house, and nearly tripped over the pig, who had taken care to put itself in his path. “What do we pay Mr. Weaver?” he asked as they passed out of the yard.
    “Eight shillings a week, same as all the laborers.” Granville had to close the gate twice before it latched.
    Eight shillings sounded like a pitiful wage. One couldn’t be sure,