Page 139 of The Summer Country

“There’s no need.”

“There’s every need. I won’t have you going into a decline.”

“Do I look as though I’m going into a decline?”

Men have died . . . and worms have eaten them . . . Emily covered her confusion by saying primly, “You need to look after your own health. They need you back in town.”

“Not as much as they used to. It will be over soon. There were fewer than ten new cases today.”

“So you don’t miss the extra pair of hands?” She sounded, she realized, as though she were fishing for compliments.

“I didn’t say that,” said Nathaniel.

“Jenny!” There was the sound of thrashing from Mrs. Davenant’s room, and a thud. “Jenny!”

Emily seized on the excuse. “I’d best go to her. You’ll be at the infirmary?”

“I’ll see you in the morning before I go,” said Nathaniel. “We can talk then.”

“The morning, then,” said Emily, and escaped into Mrs. Davenant’s room, where she occupied herself in changing sweaty nightdresses, mixing possets, and other mundane tasks. He wanted to talk about the disposition of the patients, of course. That was all. Just as they had once before.

What else was there to talk about?

Emily wrestled a pillow into a fresh case with unnecessary force and took out her feelings in shaking out the eiderdown.

Mrs. Davenant slept fitfully, waking often. There were moments she was lucid and knew Emily and fretted about her patients back in the pest house, but, more often, she called out for Jenny or argued with her dead husband, her voice rising so that Emily was afraid that anyone would think she was torturing her.

Despite her patient’s instructions to the contrary, she measured out some laudanum and tricked her into drinking it, and finally saw Mrs. Davenant fall into a proper sleep. A drugged sleep, but a sleep all the same.

Emily meant to stay awake and keep watch, but the day had been long and the night even longer and she found herself drifting into sleep and waking with a jerk of the neck, until exhaustion took her and she slept as soundly as though she had been drugged instead of Mrs. Davenant.

When Emily woke, it was dawn, the thin light stretching through the breaks in the jalousies.

Her patient was already awake, lying against her pillows, staring at her. “You’re very like her. Not in looks. Not in looks at all. She was beautiful, did you know?”

“I take after my father,” said Emily. She rubbed her eyes, still muzzy with sleep. “No one has ever praised him for his beauty, but it’s generally agreed he has a beautiful soul.”

“Souls, piffle. My uncle was a handsome man.” Mrs. Davenant coughed into her hand, her chest rattling painfully. Her eyes glittered strangely, darting around the room, as though she were seeing people who weren’t there. “We all knew she was his daughter. He told me when he gave her to me. ‘I give you my own child,’ he said. Of course, that was before I knew him for what he was. A snake. He’d as soon eat his young, if it suited him.”

Distracted, Nathaniel had said. Emily rose painfully from her chair, shaking out her crumpled skirts. One leg had fallen asleep under her and she had a crick in her neck.

Hobbling over to the bed, Emily put the back of her hand to Mrs. Davenant’s head. “You’re burning up.”

“Bring me my wrap, Jenny. It’s cold. I’m cold.” Emily went to look for a blanket, but Mrs. Davenant clawed herself upright, calling, “What are you doing? Where are you going? Jenny!”

“Shhh, Mrs. Davenant, don’t fret yourself.” Emily wrung out a bit of cloth in the basin, bathing the older woman’s forehead.

After a few moments, Mrs. Davenant’s eyes opened. She blinked, and then blinked again. “Miss Dawson,” she said slowly. “Miss Dawson?”

“Yes, Mrs. Davenant. You’re ill but you’re going to get better,” said Emily, with the practiced cheer of the sickroom.

“Did I tell you that I know who you are? I guessed right away. What I didn’t know was whether you knew. At first, I thought you might.”

Emily nodded and dipped the cloth into the water, letting the patient ramble. She’d heard stranger things. She leaned over to put the cool cloth on Mrs. Davenant’s forehead. The older woman was shivering and shaking with the fever.

“You think I’m distracted, don’t you? I’m not. I remember everything.” Mrs. Davenant pointed at Emily’s locket, which had come out of her bodice and was swinging on its ribbon. “That’s a pretty bauble you’ve got there. Give it here. I want a look at it.”

Reluctantly, but not wanting to upset her further, Emily untied the ribbon and handed Mrs. Davenant the locket. Her neck felt very bare without it.