Rina stared at her thoughtfully and lifted the spoon again to her mouth.
She couldn't understand why the girls began to cry every time they spoke to her.
The home-made vanilla ice cream tasted cool and sweet. She took another spoonful.
"I just spoke to the master," Peters said. "He said it would be all right if we laid her out in my room over the stable. And Father Nolan said we could bury her from St. Thomas'."
"But how can we?" Molly cried, "when we don't even know if she was a Catholic?
Not once in the three years she's been here did she go to Mass."
"What difference does that make?" Peters asked angrily. "Did she not make her confession to Father Nolan?
Did she not receive the last rites from him and take the Holy Sacraments?
Father Nolan is satisfied that she was a Catholic."
Mary, the downstairs maid, who was the oldest of the three girls, nodded her head in agreement.
"I think Father Nolan is right," she said. "Maybe she'd done something and was afraid to go to Mass, but the important thing was that she came back to the church in the end."
Peters nodded his head emphatically. "It's settled, then," he said, starting for the door. He stopped and looked back at them.
"Molly, take the child to sleep with you tonight.
I'm goin' down to the saloon and get sivral of the boys to help me move her tonight.
Father Nolan said he'd send Mr. Collins over to fix her up. He told me the church would pay for it."
"Oh, the good Father," Mary said.
"Bless him," Annie said, crossing herself.
"Can I have some more ice cream?" Rina asked.
There was a knock at the door and Molly opened it quickly.
"Oh, it's you, mum," she exclaimed in a whisper.
"I came to see if the child was all right," Geraldine Marlowe said.
The girl stepped back.
"Won't you come in, mum?"
Mrs. Marlowe looked over at the bed.
Rina was sleeping soundly, her dolls, Susie and Mary, on either side of her. Her white-blond hair hung in tiny ringlets around her head.
"How is she?"
"Fine, mum." The girl bobbed her head.
"The poor darlin' was so exhausted with the excitement, she dropped off like that. Mercifully she doesn't understand. She's too young."
Geraldine Marlowe looked at the child again.
For a moment, she thought of how it would be if she were the one to go, leaving her Laddie alone and motherless.
Though, in a way, that was different, for Laddie would still have his father.
She remembered the day she had hired Rina's mother.
Her references were very good although she had not worked for several years.
"I have a child, ma'am," she'd said in her peculiarly precise schoolbook English. "A little girl, two years old."
"What about your husband, Mrs. Osterlaag?"
"He went down with his ship. He and the child never saw each other." She'd looked down at the floor for a moment. "We had the child late in life, ma'am.
We Finns don't marry young; we wait until we can afford it.
I lived on our savings as long as I could. I must go back to work."
Mrs. Marlowe had hesitated.
A two-year-old child might turn out to be an annoyance.
"Rina would be no problem, ma'am. She's a good child and very quiet.
She can sleep in my room and I'd be willing to have you take out of my wages for her board."
Mrs. Marlowe had always wanted a little girl but after Laddie was born, the doctor had told her there would be no more children.
It would be good for Laddie to have someone to play with. He was getting entirely too spoiled.
She'd smiled suddenly. "There will be no deduction from your wages, Mrs. Osterlaag. After all, how much can a little girl eat?"
That had been almost three years ago.
And Rina's mother had been right. Rina had been no trouble at all.
"What will happen to the child, mum?" Molly whispered.
Mrs. Marlowe turned to the servant girl.
"I don't know," she said, thinking about it for the first time. "Mr. Marlowe is going to inquire in town tomorrow about her relatives."