Page 63 of Libby's London Merchant
She giggled behind her hands, dusting flour across her face. “‘Can’t but be an improvement on the original,’ says I to Doctor.”
Libby laughed out loud. “Farrell Frink! I doubt the doctor will get a ha’penny for all his stitching.”
The cook joined in the laughter. “More like he’ll get a poached hen, dumped at the back door in the dead of night, and then won’t we all be in trouble? When Doctor heard who had fallen down the well, Lord love us, he rolled his eyes and muttered something about ‘Damn that old Hippocrates anyway!’ ”
Libby heard heavy footsteps in the hall. She looked behind the housekeeper to see Dr. Cook. He was dressed in buckskin breeches and a shirt without a neckcloth, which he held in his hand. He ran his fingers through his curly dark hair with the other hand and managed to boost his spectacles higher on his nose. He came closer to feel her forehead. “You’re not ill?”
“No, sir, I am not,” she said, feeling suddenly shy to be standing on Anthony Cook’s doorstep. “I need to talk to you, though. Have you a moment?”
He smiled and somehow the exhaustion left his eyes. “I have more than a moment, Miss Ames. Do come in. That will be all, Mrs. Weller.”
The cook seemed reluctant to leave what promised to be an interesting interview. “Can I bring you some biscuits, Dr. Cook?” she asked.
He nodded. “And a little sherry, if the maid hasn’t drunk it all.” He gestured down the hall. “Come to my surgery, Miss Ames.”
“Libby,” she corrected. “Didn’t we decide on that the other day?”
‘‘So we did,” he agreed. “I had wondered if you would remember.”
They passed open doors on the way to the back of the house. Libby couldn’t help but peer into rooms either empty of furniture or stuffed with furniture and shrouded in Holland cloths. What a curious house, she thought.
Anthony must have understood the process of her mind, for he grimaced. “We have been without the services of a housekeeper since the last one took umbrage in 1813, I believe.” He gestured with his head in the direction Mrs. Weller had disappeared. “She’s a dreadful substitute, but can she cook!” He opened the door to his surgery and she stepped in, looking about her in delight.
It was an oasis of calm in an untidy house. The room was as neat and clean as the rest of the house was chaos. One wall was lined with books, each carefully in place but all bearing the unmistakable look of volumes well-read and much thumbed-over. There was a large desk by the books, and a diploma with many seals and elaborate scrollwork framed on the wall. A handsome screen stretched across one comer of the room. Libby could see an examining table behind it, and rows of instruments, all gleaming, under glass.
“I wish we had a hospital hereabouts, like in Edinburgh,” he said, gesturing to a chair. “As it is, I dream that I will chance upon a nabob in need of a good physicking, whom I will heal of an incurable illness, and he will build me a hospital to show his deep gratitude.”
Libby laughed and removed her bonnet. “And all you get is Farrell Frink!”
He laughed along with her. “Do we ever get what we want, Libby Ames? I doubt it.”
“I suppose we do not, Anthony, but we try,” she said, and sat down.
She thought she would be embarrassed to bother Anthony Cook with her trouble, especially if he sat behind that intimidating desk. Instead he pulled up the other chair opposite her and relaxed himself into it.
“What’s troubling you, Libby?” he asked quietly.
She took a deep breath. “Joseph has run away, and I don’t know where to look. I hate to bother you, but I am afraid he might be in trouble.”
There was a scratching on the door, and Mrs. Weller opened it and peeked around, carrying a tray laden with biscuits and sherry.
The doctor held up a glass, sighed, and wiped it out with his neckcloth. He poured in silence, his face red. “I wish we had a housekeeper, Libby.” He offered her a biscuit.
She selected a promising morsel and bit into it, uttering exclamations of delight. “You certainly don’t want for a cook, Anthony.”
He downed two biscuits to her one. “That’s why we keep her on, Libby, and, yes, let us go find your brother.” As she nibbled on the biscuit, he leaned closer. “There is something else troubling you, isn’t there?” he asked.
“No... no,” she stammered, her face as red as his. “That is, nothing of any great importance.”
He leaned back in his chair, eyeing her carefully. “Do you know, some of my best patients only come to talk?”
I cannot tell him about the duke. It would be too painful, she thought as she looked into his kind face.
After another moment of silence, he got to his feet, putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her in the chair. “Stay where you are and I will arrange for the gig. Have another biscuit.” He patted her shoulder, gave up on his neckcloth, and tossed it on the desk. “It will be dark soon enough. We’d better find the wanderer.”
14
LIBBY was still eating biscuits, drinking sherry, and feeling very much better when the doctor returned to his surgery. By then she had propped up her feet on the other chair and had sunk down further in the overstuffed armchair, on the verge of a nap. Libby sat up quickly when he came into the room and began to dust crumbs off her lap.
