Page 49 of Libby's London Merchant
Libby got to her feet. “We were only trying to help.”
“Marime,” the woman said again, her voice more emphatic. She jabbed the air with her finger, motioning Libby away, as the silver bangles on her arms rattled. “Unclean!”
Libby stamped her foot and the woman retreated with her baby to the trees, as if afraid to come closer. Libby stared at her hard for a moment and the gypsy put her hands to her face, covering her eyes.
Libby sighed and turned back to the young girl, who was whimpering now even as she tried to draw closer to Libby as the rain pelted down. “Dear me,” Libby said, and put her arm around the girl. “It appears that we could use some help.”
She looked up at her brother, who hovered close by, his eyes on the woman in the trees. “Joseph, hurry and run to Dr. Cook’s house.”
He shook his head. “The squire will beat me if he sees me. I don’t think I would like that.”
Libby gritted her teeth to keep from shouting. “My dear, you’ll have to chance it. This girl needs a physician. Only look how strangely her leg appears. I wonder, do you suppose she fell out of that tree?”
Joseph looked at the tree that swayed in the wind, the leaves turning over in agitation. “I know that it is a tree I would have fallen out of.”
Libby resisted the urge to shout at him, to hurry him along. Angry words would only confuse him. “You probably would have, my dear,” she agreed. “And now I really think you should run for Dr. Cook.”
He looked over his shoulder again at the gypsy woman, who had set her baby down and was rocking back and forth in agitation, keening a low tune that raised the hairs on Libby’s arms. “If they do not want us, they won’t want the doctor.”
He was right, of course. “Do it anyway, Joe. We need Dr. Cook,” she ordered.
Without another word but several backward glances, Joseph started across the field on a run. Libby returned to the girl, who only stared at her out of pain-filled eyes and tried to move her leg.
Libby touched the child’s arm and the gypsy woman threw the first stone. Libby sucked in her breath and whirled around as the rock landed against her skirts.
“Unclean,” the woman shouted, and threw another stone. This one landed short of the mark. Libby released her hold on the young girl and the woman put her arm down.
“So that’s how it is?” Libby murmured out loud. She looked at the little one, who huddled close but did not touch her. “Usually it is not so hard to do a good deed for someone, my dear. If that is your mother, she does not perfectly understand my intentions.”
Libby brushed the tangle of hair from the girl’s eyes and was rewarded with a handful of pebbles thrown harder against her skirts. Pointedly, she turned her back on the woman in the trees and looked toward the direction Joseph had disappeared.
Hurry up, Joe, she thought. And for goodness’ sake, bring the doctor.
11
Each minute seemed like an hour as Libby waited for Joseph to return with Dr. Cook. Libby shivered in the rain, wishing she could hold the girl closer to her. Another attempt resulted in a rock that nearly struck the child. After that, Libby folded her hands in her lap, gritted her teeth, and speculated on the perversity of human nature.
The girl settled down to an occasional whimper. She caught her breath and sobbed out loud and tried to move her leg. Her mother stayed where she was in the trees, unwilling to leave her child, even to run to the gypsy encampment, where the men watched their horses.
Perhaps I should be grateful for that, Libby thought, shivering at the unwelcome idea of stones thrown by men. She kept her hands to herself and willed the doctor to hurry.
And then he came over the little rise and down toward them. He appeared in no great hurry and Libby felt a rush of irritation. She started to stay something to hurry him along when she looked at the trees again and noticed that the woman was running back and forth in greater agitation, calling to her daughter.
The doctor stood still, coming no closer. He squatted on his haunches and Libby let out a sigh of great exasperation, audible to ships at sea, she thought. “Dr. Cook, I need you!”
To her further dismay, he put his finger to his lips. “Hush, Miss Ames. We have a delicate situation here.”
She shook her head at that understatement. “I am sure this girl has a broken leg. Can’t you do something for her?”
“I wish to God I could. If I touch her, that woman will run for the men and we will be in for it.” He held up his hand to ward off Libby’s hot words. “Hush, now! There is some strange taboo about a man looking upon a woman’s legs, even one as young as this.”
The doctor regarded the little girl, who watched him with wary eyes and edged closer to Libby, evidently the lesser of two evils.“Surely you can do something.”
“My dear, I have beat frustrated for years by gypsies,” he said. “I have watched them die when I could have saved them, and I have watched them driven from town to town because they are so strange.” He looked at the woman in the trees. “She is like a mother bird, trying to attract our attention away from the nest. It makes me shudder to imagine what treatment in our good British towns compels people to behave this fashion.”
He sat in silence in the driving rain, as if trying to make up his mind. “Well, Libby,” he said at last, “are you game for a stoning? I am not, but let us try something. Pull up her skirt so I can see her leg. ”
Libby did as he said, pointing to the place below the child’s knee where her leg bent at an odd angle. A shower of pebbles struck Libby on the cheek.
