Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett Page B

swallowsthan about the other goings-on at Burdem Place. Juliet’s pregnancy has made her ill-humoured, and Christopher has changed as well. Sarah Anne knows she should have expected this, but still it has come as a shock. These days the guests tend to be Juliet’s frivolous friends and not the older naturalists. Young, not old; some of them younger than Sarah Anne herself. For weeks at a time they stroll the grounds in fancy clothes and play games while Sarah Anne hovers off to the side, miserable in their company.
    Who is she, then? She doesn’t want to act, as Christopher does, the part of her parents’ generation; but now she’s found that she doesn’t like her own peers either. She fits nowhere. Nowhere, except with Catherine. She and Catherine, tucked into a wing away from the fashionable guests, have formed their own society of two. But she suspects that, after the birth of Juliet’s child, even this will be taken from her.
    Christopher hopes for many children, an army of children. This child, and the ones that follow, will need a nurse and a governess, Juliet says. And a nursery, and a schoolroom. Sarah Anne has seen Christopher prowling the halls near her bedroom, assessing the space and almost visibly planning renovations. He’s welcomed Catherine’s frequent long visits—but only, Sarah Anne knows, because they keep her occupied and him from feeling guilty about her increasing isolation. The minute he feels pinched for space, he’ll suggest to Sarah Anne that Catherine curtail her visits. And then it’s possible he’ll ask Sarah Anne to be his children’s governess.
    But Sarah Anne and Catherine don’t talk about this. Instead they look once more at Linnaeus’s letter, which arrived addressed to “Mr. S.A. Billopp” but which, fortunately, Christopher didn’t see. They arrange their instruments on the bench beside them and shiver with cold and excitement. They wait. Where is Robert?
    It was Catherine who first approached this weedy twelve-year-old,after Sarah Anne told her she’d once overheard him talking about netting birds for food in Ireland. Catherine told him that they required two or three swallows and would pay him handsomely for them; Robert seemed to believe they had plans to eat them. Still, at 4:30 he met them here, silent and secret. Now he reappears in the doorway, barefoot and wet to the waist. His net is draped over one shoulder and in his hands he holds a sack, which pulses and moves of its own accord.
    â€œRobert!” Catherine says. “You had good luck?”
    Robert nods. Both his hands are tightly wrapped around the sack’s neck, and when Catherine reaches out for it he says, “You hold this tight, now. They’ll be wanting to fly.”
    â€œYou did a good job,” Catherine says. “Let me get your money. Sarah Anne, why don’t you take the sack?”
    Sarah Anne slips both her hands below Robert’s hands and twists the folds of cloth together. “I have it,” she says. Robert releases the sack. Immediately she’s aware that the sack is alive. Something inside is moving, leaping, dancing. Struggling. The feeling is terrifying.
    â€œThank you, Robert,” Catherine says. Gently she guides him out the door. “You’ve been very helpful. If you remember to keep our secret, we’ll ask you for help again.”
    By the time she turns back to Sarah Anne and takes the sack from her, Sarah Anne is almost hysterical.
    â€œNothing can satisfy but what confounds,” Catherine says. “Nothing but what astonishes is true.” Once more Sarah Anne is reminded of her friend’s remarkable memory. When Catherine is excited, bits of all she has ever read fly off her like water from a churning lump of butter.
    â€œAll right now,” Catherine says. “Hold the netting in both hands and pull it over the tub—that’s good. Now fasten down the