“Will he—you think he’ll … come?” she said. “Here? To see me?” Her voice rose and cracked a little on the last word.
Jamie looked at her for a moment over his shoulder, then nodded.
“I’d come back, Frances,” he said simply. “So will he.”
I WENT BACK to the kitchen to check the yeast. Sure enough, there was a dirty-looking foam on the surface of the water—and the watch indicated that it had been eleven minutes. Checking the ingredients for the biscuits, though, I discovered that some miscreant had eaten all the butter from the kitchen crock and we had no lard. No one else was in the house; Jamie and Mandy were still chatting on the porch. Time enough for me to nip up to the springhouse and fetch enough cream to churn more butter while the biscuit dough was rising.
I was making my way slowly along the path from the springhouse, carrying two heavy pails of cream-laden milk, when I saw a woman approaching the house. She was tall, with a determined step, and wore a black dress with a broad-brimmed straw hat that she held with one hand to prevent it sailing away on the breeze.
Jamie had disappeared, probably to fetch a tool, but Mandy was still on the porch, sitting on her new toilet seat and singing to Esmeralda. She paid no attention to the woman—a more elderly lady than I had thought from her stick-straight posture and easy gait; closer to, I could see the lines in her face, and the gray hair showing at her temples beneath the cap she wore under her hat.
“Where is your father, child?” she demanded, stopping in front of Mandy.
“I dunno,” Mandy replied. “This is Esmeralda,” she said, holding up her doll.
“I wish to speak with your father.”
“Okay,” Mandy replied amiably, and resumed singing. “Ferra JACuh, Ferra JACuh, dormi vooo …”
“Stop that,” the woman said sharply. “Look at me.”
“Why?”
“You are a very impertinent child and your father should beat you.”
Mandy went very red in the face and scrambled to her feet, standing on her new seat.
“You go away!” she said. “I fwush you down the toilet!” She slapped her hand at the air, miming a handle. “WOOOSH!”
“What in the name of perdition do you mean by that, you wicked child?” The woman’s face was growing rather red, too. I had stopped in fascination, but now set down the buckets, feeling that I had better take a hand before things escalated. Too late.
“I put you in the toilet and I fwush you like POOP!” Mandy shouted, stamping her feet. Quick as a snake, the woman’s hand shot out and cracked against Mandy’s cheek.
There was a split second of shocked silence and then a number of things happened at once. I lunged toward the porch, tripped over one of the buckets, and fell flat on the path in a deluge of milk, Mandy let out a shriek that could have been heard as far as the wagon road, and Jamie popped out of the front door like the Demon King in a pantomime.
He grabbed Mandy up in one arm, leapt off the porch, and was nose-to-nose with the woman before I had even got to my knees.
“Leave my house,” he said, in the sort of calm voice that made it clear the only other option was instant death.
To her credit, the lady wasn’t backing down. She snatched off her broad black hat, the better to glare at him.
“The girl spoke rudely to me, sir, and I will not have it! Evidently no one has sought to discipline her properly. No wonder.” Her gaze raked him scornfully up and down. Mandy had stopped shrieking but was sobbing, her face buried in Jamie’s shirtfront.
“Well, speaking of rudeness,” I said mildly, wringing out my wet apron. “I don’t believe we have the honor of your acquaintance, do we?” I wiped a hand on the side of my skirt and extended it. “I’m Claire Fraser.”
Her face didn’t lose its expression of outrage, but it froze. She didn’t say a word but backed away from me, one step at a time. Jamie hadn’t moved, other than to pat Mandy comfortingly; his face was as fixed and stark as hers.
She reached the edge of the path, stopped dead, and lifted her chin toward Jamie.
“You are all,” she said evenly, sweeping her hat in an arc that encompassed me, Jamie, Mandy, and the house, “undoubtedly going to Hell.” With which pronouncement, she tossed a small package onto the porch, turned her back upon us, and sailed away like a bird of ill omen.
“WHO THE DEVIL was that?” Jamie asked.
“Da Wicked Witch,” Mandy answered promptly. Her face was still red, and her lower lip pushed out as far as it would go. “I hates her!”