Page 137 of The Summer Country

Mrs. Davenant pushed her aside, swaying on her feet and nearly overbalancing. “I’m perfectly all right.”

“You’re not perfectly all right.” Emily took her arm to steady her, and this time Mrs. Davenant didn’t object. “Your face is flushed.”

“We’re in the tropics.” Mrs. Davenant winced with the effort of speaking, half doubling over. “Queenie laced my stays too tight.”

Emily didn’t let her waste more breath. “I’m taking you back to the house. No, don’t argue with me. If you’ll like, we’ll scrub everything you touch, but you’re going to your own bed, and you’re going right now, and I’m calling in the doctor—a proper doctor.”

Queenie took one look at Mrs. Davenant and took charge, getting her mistress into a nightdress. It was a sign of Mrs. Davenant’s growing weakness that her protests were decidedly pro forma. Emily saw her settled in bed with a dose of laudanum she staunchly refused to take and left her under Queenie’s care while she first sent an urgent message to Nathaniel and then, tying her apron strings about her, returned to the pest house to do what she could, feeling very small and very alone.

She hadn’t realized, back in Bridgetown, just how much she had relied on Nathaniel. Not to care for the patients—she was perfectly capable of caring for the patients—but to be there. His caustic humor had bolstered her, had kept her going through the losses and the fear.

If he got her message, would he come? It was selfish of her, she knew. He had patients of his own in Bridgetown. And he had his own reasons not to love Beckles or its mistress.

She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t come. Day turned to night, the sun flaring out with the sudden sunset of the tropics. Emily lit a lantern and circulated among her patients, doling out boiled water and broth, and little dribbles of laudanum to those in the worst case. The turpentine wraps she discarded.

George came and called to her from a safe distance. He seemed relieved when his only instructions were to bear Laura company.

“Do you need anything?” he called, in the tone of one who hopes the answer will be no.

“You’ll let me know if Dr. Braithwaite comes?” It was too late now, Emily told herself. It was dark already. No one would attempt the drive from Bridgetown now. There had been rioting of late; gangs of frightened men robbing shops and plantations in St. Lucy.

“You’ve called Nat?”

“He’s the best doctor I know,” said Emily. He was also the only doctor she knew, but that was beside the point.

It was full dark when she heard the sounds of hoofbeats. Emily ran out from the pest house to see the twin lights of carriage lamps bobbing their way toward the house. Emily yanked her apron over her head, dipped her hands in a basin of steaming water, and bolted toward the house, ducking through the gap in the lime hedge, catching him just as he was climbing down from his uncle’s phaeton.

“You came.”

“You’re not with Mrs. Davenant?”

“There are twelve sick in the pest house. Mrs. Davenant had Queenie to look after her.” Emily ran out of words and simply stood, staring up at him. The buttons on his waistcoat glimmered faintly in the torchlight, and his high-crowned hat made him seem very tall. “Thank you.”

“I could hardly say no, could I?” He sounded rueful, and rather weary, and Emily wasn’t quite sure how to take it. She curled her hands into fists and tucked them behind her to keep from reaching for his arm. “You’ll bring me to the patient?”

“This way.” Emily led him into the house, through the front door, which opened for them as it always opened, as if by magic. Up the stairs they went, to Mrs. Davenant’s room, dimly lit by a rose-shaded lamp.

Queenie came to the doorway.

“Is she sleeping? I’ve brought the doctor.”

“As awake as you or I,” said Queenie grimly, and stepped aside to let them through, although Emily saw her subjecting Nathaniel to a long, inquisitive look.

Mrs. Davenant stirred against the pillows, her voice like the rustle of old, dead leaves. “I remember you. Nat Cooper, you were then.”

“That,” said Nathaniel, setting down his bag, “was then. Any vomit? Diarrhea?”

“No,” said Emily, hovering by the bedside. “But you know, the more virulent cases sometimes don’t.”

“Sit up, please,” said Nathaniel to Mrs. Davenant. He took a stethoscope from his bag, a tube of polished wood with an elegant ivory earpiece and chest piece. He saw Emily looking at it and said, shortly, “A gift from my uncle upon my graduation. It’s the latest model from Paris.”

“Am I to have French treatment, then?” rasped Mrs. Davenant.

“Breathe in, please,” said Nathaniel, placing the bell-shaped piece against her back and his ear to the other.

Mrs. Davenant breathed in, flinching at the pain. “I don’t see the reason for this. I’m just tired, that’s all. You’d be tired too.”

“And out,” said Nathaniel.