10 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
"She's a bloody marvel, Meggie," he murmured, his face nuzzling into her hair. How fine it was, how rich and full of color! It took him half an hour of cajoling to make her look at Agnes, and half an hour more elapsed before he could persuade her to peer into the scalped hole. He showed her how the eyes worked, how very carefully they had been aligned to fit snugly yet swing easily opened or closed. "Come on now, it's time you went inside," he told her, swinging her up into his arms and tucking the doll between his chest and hers. "We'll get Mum to fix her up, eh? We'll wash and iron her clothes, and glue on her hair again. I'll make you some proper hairpins out of those pearls, too, so they can't fall out and you can do her hair in all sorts of ways." Fiona Cleary was in the kitchen, peeling potatoes. She was a very handsome, very fair woman a little under medium height, but rather hard-faced and stern; she had an excellent figure with a tiny waist which had not thickened, in spite of the six babies she had carried beneath it. Her dress was grey calico, its skirts brushing the spotless floor, its front protected by an enormous starched white apron that looped around her neck and tied in the small of her spine with a crisp, perfect bow. From waking to sleeping she lived in the kitchen and back garden, her stout black boots beating a circular path from stove to laundry to vegetable patch to clotheslines and thence to the stove again. She put her knife on the table and stared at Frank and Meggie, the corners of her beautiful mouth turning down. "Meggie, I let you put on your Sunday-best dress this morning on one condition, that you didn't get it dirty. And look at you! What a little grub you are!" "Mum, it wasn't her fault," Frank protested. "Jack and Hughie took her doll away to try and find out how THE THORN BIRDS / 11
the arms and legs worked. I promised we'd fix it up as good as new. We can, can't we?" "Let me see." Fee held out her hand for the doll. She was a silent woman, not given to spontaneous conversation. What she thought, no one ever knew, even her husband; she left the disciplining of the children to him, and did whatever he com- manded without comment or complaint unless the circumstances were most unusual. Meggie had heard the boys whispering that she stood in as much awe of Daddy as they did, but if that was true she hid it under a veneer of impenetrable, slightly dour calm. She never laughed, nor did she ever lose her temper. Finished her inspection, Fee laid Agnes on the dresser near the stove and looked at Meggie. "I'll wash her clothes tomorrow morning, and do her hair again. Frank can glue the hair on after tea tonight, I suppose, and give her a bath." The words were matter-of-fact rather than comforting. Meggie nodded, smiling uncertainly; sometimes she wanted so badly to hear her mother laugh, but her mother never did. She sensed that they shared a special something not common to Daddy and the boys, but there was no reaching beyond that rigid back, those never still feet. Mum would nod absently and flip her voluminous skirts expertly from stove to table as she continued working, working, working. What none of the children save Frank could realize was that Fee was permanently, incurably tired. There was so much to be done, hardly any money to do it with, not enough time, and only one pair of hands. She longed for the day when Meggie would be old enough to help; already the child did simple tasks, but at barely four years of age it couldn't possibly lighten the load. Six children, and only one of them, the youngest at that, a girl. All her acquaint- ances were simultaneously sympathetic and envious, but that didn't get the work done. Her sewing basket had a mountain of socks in it still