Page 67 of Libby's London Merchant
“Better than warming pans,” was Maud’s comment as she turned to Libby. “You’re next, miss,” she ordered, and then looked at the doctor, absolutely fearless. “You’re a big looby to bring this little bit of a thing out in such a storm. Where are your wits, Dr. Cook?”
He backed off, a smile on his face. “This little bit assures me that she has the constitution of a horse. She’s even healthier than you are, Maud, and that’s going some. But I will turn my back while you do your best.”
He turned around, shoulders shaking, as Libby was led off to a darker comer, taken from her wet clothes, enveloped in a nightgown as large as the doctor’s coat, and tucked into the other bed.
By this time, Maud was running short of children. She carried the baby to the bed and placed him in Libby’s arms. “He’s a regular little camp fire, is John,” she boasted. “Will you have your bread toasted or plain, miss?”
“Toasted,” she said, startled, and then hugely pleased with herself as little John regarded her, burped, and snuggled into her arms. In a moment she felt warm. In another moment, her eyes closed.
When she woke later, the doctor was sitting close to the fire, eating her toast dipped in milk. His breeches dangled in front of the fire and he was wrapped in a blanket. Maud was laughing about something, Wallis pulled on his pipe, and the littlest Casey girl leaned against the doctor’s knee. He put down his cup, picked her up, and fed her every other bite as she nestled in the crook of his arm.
Careful not to wake little John, who slumbered beside her like a banked furnace, Libby raised herself up on one elbow and watched Dr. Cook make himself the perfect guest. He chuckled over Maud’s tales of children and animals, nodded at Wallis’s cryptic comments about com prices and unemployed soldiers, and told the Caseys grouped around him about the gypsies. The cattle lowed in their pen on the other side of the wall.
Maud noticed that she was awake. “Come over to the fire, Miss Ames,” she said. “Likely John’ll never budge.” She poked her husband in the ribs and he grinned. “Like his dad he is!”
Libby crawled out of bed and grabbed up the robe at the end of it, hugging it tight about her as Anthony Cook made room for her on the bench. He set his spectacles up higher on his nose. “You don’t appear any the worse for wear, Libby. I could recommend pills and potions to ward off the devil, but the best specific I know of is Maud Casey’s hot milk and toast.”
In another moment she was warming her hands around a huge mug and wondering how she would drink it all. It was gone before Wallis finished his longish story about excisemen and rum found buried in the pasture.
“I tells him, whisht man, how do I know how it got there? He didna believe me, but, laddy, I don’t know anything about it.” He drew out the word “anything” in such droll fashion that Libby laughed. Wallis drew on his pipe and crossed his heart.
Anthony tucked the little girl on his lap in closer and gestured with his free hand. “I am remiss. Miss Libby Ames, these are the Caseys—Wallis and Maud, who command this army, and Rebecca, Louis, Russell, Brian with the red hair, little Maudie here, John you have met, and a bed full of Thomas, Lisa and William.”
“Goodness,” said Libby in awe. “Did you deliver them all?”
Anthony shook his head. “No. Maud is usually quite well in charge of that herself. Only little John, right, Maud?” He smiled at Libby. “Cork in a bottle, was John.”
Anthony continued his story about Libby and the gypsies, adding a few embellishments that she intended to take him to task about when they were alone again.
When he finished, Maud looked at her with respect. “Weren’t you afraid of them dirty beggars?” she asked, brushing away the chickens that had moved closer to peck at the crumbs the doctor and little Maudie had dropped.
“She needed me, Mrs. Casey,” Libby said. “You would have done the same.”
Maud tucked her arm through her husband’s. ‘‘I would have more like, but first that little’un would have had a good wash.”
They sat a long while in companionable friendship before the fire. Another Casey found his way onto the doctor’s lap and Libby smiled at Anthony, her eyes heavy. “I never cared much for my doctor when I was their age,” she said. “Of course, he was the regimental surgeon and believed in chewing tobacco for all ailments.” She was silent a moment, thinking about her grandfather, dead these ten years. “I sometimes think that chewing tobacco is good enough.”
Maud looked at her with a question in her eyes, but Anthony understood. He gathered her under his arm with the Casey children. “Sometimes nothing else will do, Libby. I have been known to recommend it, on occasion.”
Tears came suddenly to her eyes, and he flicked them away with his finger. “Let it go now, Libby.”
She nodded, sleepy again, and closed her eyes. When she woke, it was much later. Mrs. Casey snored beside her in the bed, with a smaller Casey snuggled close by and a large one draped across the foot of the bed.
Libby looked at the other bed. Anthony Cook, pants on, but his shirt half-buttoned with the tails out, stood over her brother. As she watched, he felt Joseph’s neck for his pulse and pulled the blanket up higher. He stood there, watching his patient.
After a long moment’s contemplation, he went back to the fireside, stretched until his hands touched the ceiling, and then sat down. Libby lay watching him and then got quietly out of bed, careful not to wake anyone.
She sat beside the doctor, who was staring at the fire. He seemed not to be aware of her for a moment and started in surprise when she cleared her throat.
“I did not mean to give you the jitters,” she whispered. “I just wanted to thank you for ... for everything today. When Joseph didn’t come home, 1 had no one to turn to.” She looked deep into the fire, too. “And thank you for hearing me out about . . . Well, you know.”
He smiled faintly, but did not look at her. “Do you love him, Libby?” he asked when a log crashed and settled on the glowing coals.
“I suppose I do,” she said. “Right now, I just feel confused, rather out to sea, and I’m not quite sure why.” She didn’t pull away when he put his arm around her. “I think I will go to Brighton, after all, and visit my mother.”
“An excellent idea, my dear.”
He was silent a long time then, even as he sat so alert beside her, tense even, as though he had something to say.
