My Candlelight Novel by Joanne Horniman

Author:Joanne Horniman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
ISBN: 9781741765304
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2008-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

BECKY SHARP’S HAIR stuck out in all directions, but she was flushed and beautiful from sleep. She yawned, and I reached out and picked several dried leaves from her shirt.

Hetty woke up as sore as a boil, and would not be placated. I felt disoriented and a little ashamed to have spent the night in a park with my baby. Anything could have happened to her while I was dead to the world. I was like one of those feckless nineteenth-century women I’d read about, women who were so careless with their babies that they got drunk and tipped them accidentally into the river, or forgot about them and let the pig eat them.

I gathered her things together to take her home, but Lawson and Tess arrived to fetch us for breakfast. He’d made pancakes, and we ate in the kitchen, along with a few sleepy, tow-haired people I was introduced to but whose names I forgot immediately. There were people still sleeping in and around the house in various places.

My little shrew sat on my knee and crammed bits of pancake into her mouth. With food inside her, she became as sociable as could be. ‘Hetty!’ various people said to her, in greeting. ‘Hey, Hetty!’ And she grinned with a full mouth, stretching out to them with her sticky hands.

I had to get back to make breakfast at Samarkand. Becky Sharp offered to drive me, but I said I felt like walking. I needed some time to gather myself together.

When I got back, I found Maggie Tulliver and Lil making the breakfasts together in the kitchen. Lil bustled about saying something about sixes and sevens. It was the weekend, and we had a full house. It had been my job to be there in the mornings, and here I was, draggling myself home with baby and dog in tow at all hours.

They both made it clear that I wasn’t needed and they were far too busy to have me interrupt. So I went to bed and flagrantly fell asleep for the rest of the morning, leaving Lil to look after Hetty, who was well and truly awake. Later, Lil told me that she needed more help around the house than I was able to give, especially now I was a student. She’d asked Maggie Tulliver to help out in return for her board.

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