6 
Bath and Breakfast
Hector walked into the kitchen with the waif in tow. Sarah had just come down to begin her morning duties. She took one look at Hector, then turned and ran back upstairs to fetch the lady of the house.
It took less than a minute of his attempted explanation of the dirty, cold, straggly haired, wild-eyed thirteen-year-old at his side before Jocelyn’s mother-heart took over. While Hector still stood with a bewildered expression on his face, Jocelyn and Amanda were already climbing the stairs with the girl. Catharine had disappeared ahead of them to begin preparing water for a bath.
“What is your name, child?” were the last words Hector heard his mistress say as they disappeared around the landing. He turned, still shaking his head at the strange affair, and went out for a second time that morning to attend to his creature friends.
Meanwhile, in the first-floor bathroom, after the bath had been prepared, Jocelyn handed their new guest, whose name she had at last managed to ascertain, a towel, a stack of fresh clean undergarments, and a nice fluffy robe.
“When you are finished with your bath, Elsbet, dear,” she said, “come out and I will be waiting for you right here. We will find you a dress and then have breakfast together.”
Still too bewildered at the turn of events that had so suddenly come over her, and hardly knowing what to think at finding herself whisked from a cold, smelly barn into the lap of luxury, little Elsbet Conlin merely nodded, expressionless.
Jocelyn began to close the door, wondering whether the child had ever taken a hot bath in such a tub before, then paused. A strange expression had come over the girl’s face. She seemed to be trying to say something.
“What is it, child?” Jocelyn asked.
“Why is there red all over your face?” she said. “Is it blood?”
“No, dear,” smiled Jocelyn. “This is a mark God gave me to remind me how much he loves me.”
“But it looks funny.”
“To some people it does. But that is only because they do not know it is God’s fingerprint.”
Again Elsbet hesitated.
“Would you . . . would you keep this?” she said. Slowly she held out her hand. In it she held a small framed oval photograph with several dark splotches on it. “I don’t want it to get wet.”
“Of course,” said Jocelyn, taking it from her. She glanced down at the photo. “Who is it, dear?”
“My mother,” replied Elsbet, then turned away. Slowly Jocelyn closed the door, now with more to think about than before. Catharine and Amanda stood waiting behind her.
“She just handed me this,” said Jocelyn, showing her daughters the photograph. All three looked at it for a moment in silence.
“She is a beautiful lady,” said Amanda. “I wonder who she is.”
“Elsbet said it was her mother,” replied Jocelyn.
“But look,” added Catharine, “—those dark stains . . . they look like dried blood.”
“That is what I thought too,” nodded Jocelyn. “I noticed similar stains on her dress and arm.”
“Do you think she is in trouble?” said Amanda.
“I don’t know,” sighed Jocelyn. “If so, we can only hope she will let us help her.”
They returned downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, talking and wondering together where the poor child could have come from, and what she was doing alone so far out in the country.
Forty minutes later, the three Rutherford women sat around the table in the kitchen. Their guest had already gobbled down two eggs and several pieces of toast with jam. She showed no sign of slowing down as Sarah continued to bring more food to the table. As she ate, however, she cast suspicious glances about the room, as if she still hadn’t made up her mind yet whether to trust them, but was not about to ask too many questions before her stomach was full. All their attempts to engage her in conversation had been unsuccessful. She reminded them of a frightened animal.
Amanda sat silently watching the girl, unable to get out of her mind the parallel between herself and Sister Gretchen at the Milan train station. How ironic, she thought, that she now occupied just the opposite role, and was involved in the attempt to befriend a young girl in need, possibly on the run exactly as she had been.
When she had eaten her fill, Elsbet rose without a word, again clutching the photograph of her mother that Jocelyn had laid beside her place at the table, and made for the door. Then she seemed to remember something. She paused and turned around.
“Where are my clothes?” she asked without expression.
“You may wear that dress, Elsbet,” replied Jocelyn.
“I want my own,” the girl replied.
“Sarah will wash them for you.”
“I do not need them washed. I must go.”
“Where . . . why must you go?”
“I don’t know. I just must. They might find me.”
“Who might find you, Elsbet?”
“Nobody. Please—may I have my clothes?”
“You may stay with us, Elsbet. No harm will come to you.”
“I want to go,” she repeated.
“Where are you going, then, Elsbet?” asked Jocelyn. “Perhaps I can drive you there.”
“No—I am going nowhere. I just must go.”
“Are you going to your mother, Elsbet?”
“No—my mother is at the sea. I cannot go to her.”
“Where, then?” said Jocelyn, more perplexed than ever. “Would you like us to help you find your family?”
“I have no family.”
“Your mother is very beautiful—what about her? Does she live near the sea?”
“The sea took her. I cannot go to her until the sea takes me too.”
“What about your father?”
Her voice began to choke, and Jocelyn saw her eyes begin to glisten.
“—he is dead,” said Elsbet, starting to cry.
Tears filled Jocelyn’s eyes. But her eldest daughter, weeping freely by now, was already moving across the floor ahead of her. Amanda approached and placed two loving arms around the poor girl and drew her to her chest. The poor waif melted into the embrace and cried freely.
“Then stay with us for a little while, Elsbet,” she said softly. “My mother will take the best care of you in the world.”