THE SMALL BROTHERS and sisters receive a letter from Madeleine! The envelope is bedecked with bright, mysterious stamps. After gingerly prying open the seal, Beatrice smoothes the contents against her chest, delighting in the crackling fragility of the paper, and then lifts it above her head as the others clamber about her. Mother quiets them in the folds of her skirts so that Beatrice can read the letter aloud:
She is happy at the convent, she says. The others girls like her very much and she has a bed of her own to sleep in. Bernadette is the name of the girl who is kind enough to write this letter for her (Beatrice exclaims over the loveliness of her handwriting). She gives each one of us a kiss (Beatrice delivers kisses) and she prays for us every night before she goes to sleep. Love, Madeleine.
Very good, Mother says, and heads out to the shed to tell Papa that everything has turned out as it should.
Once alone, the children huddle together while Beatrice brings down a candle from the mantelpiece. The wick flares, and they are breathless in their conspiracy. Madeleine has taught them the secret language of siblings, the head flicks and eye rolls and coded words, and now, true enough, she has buried another letter beneath the surface of the first, a letter meant especially for them. Beatrice holds the parchment up to the flame and the effaced writing becomes translucently visible. Written in lemon juice, of course! She sighs at her sister's cleverness. So she tells aloud the second story, the one inscribed in invisible ink, and the children sit around her, rapt.
I do not miss anyone at all, she says. I live with gypsies. I have learned to stretch my feet back behind my head and waddle about on my hands. Yesterday a photographer appeared and asked to take our portraits. He stood me between the dog-girl and the flatulent man and told me to display my hands as if they were the crown jewels. What a fool, his buttocks sticking out from behind his machinery. In the picture, we will all be laughing.