Page 76 of Libby's London Merchant
He nodded and closed his eyes again. Libby squeezed his hand gently. To her surprise, there was a slight answering pressure from the squire.
She sat with him for most of the afternoon, watching him drift in and out of sleep. Candlow came to her after an hour. He pulled up a chair for a whispered conversation and the good news that the redoubtable Mrs. Manwaring and her husband, Jim— “Who can repair anything, I vow”—were on their way to the Cook estate, plus two stout girls from Holyoke who never let a cobweb escape them.
“After we have done what we can, we will consider the situation further,” Candlow said. “I put the issue to several others who appeared reluctant to help the squire, but were enthusiastic about his son. We shall have all the help we require, Miss Ames.”
“Candlow, you are a wonder,” she marveled.
He merely raised his eyebrows, put his finger to his lips, and left the room, a slight smile on his face that made Libby laugh softly to herself. In a few minutes she heard voices in the next room and the sound of water being poured into a tub. She smiled. Anthony Cook doesn’t have a chance, she thought with some glee. Candlow is in charge.
Shortly after, Mrs. Weller brought her a bowl of soup and tea, which she drank gratefully.
Mrs. Weller looked over the squire and then whispered behind her hand. “There’s many as would like to see him stretched out that way with daisies on his chest. More like, you must be one of them.”
Libby shook her head. “No, I am not, Mrs. Weller.” The cook nodded in sympathy. Libby took her by the elbow and led her to the door.
Mrs. Weller put her hands one her hips. “Miss Ames, there is a dragon downstairs, and now you are unkind. I shall grow distracted.”
“A dragon?”
“Goes by the name of Manwaring, from Fairbourne,” she said, drying her tears. “There she is, telling me what to do and all.”
“I trust you will listen to her, Mrs. Weller,” was Libby’s firm reply.
Mrs. Weller nodded. “I wouldna dare do otherwise, would I?”
Libby shook her head, wondering what this dragon was like that Candlow had found, grateful to him beyond words. Uncle Ames, I shall bully you until you give your own butler an increase in wages, she thought, and even then, Candlow is too good for you and your gouty crochets.
She stayed where she was outside the door for a moment more, enjoying the sound of splashing coming from the doctor’s room. I only hope he does not fall asleep suddenly and drown in his bathwater, she thought as she took a deep breath and went back into the squire’s room.
The doctor came into the room much later, as she rested her chin on her hand, thinking of Benedict Nesbitt. She sat up, startled, at his hand on her shoulder, and for the smallest moment she thought it was the duke.
He went to the bed, looking down on the squire as she had done. She watched the doctor, noting with satisfaction that his face was shaved, he wore clean clothes, and he smelled of eau de cologne. He didn’t have his spectacles, however, and he squinted at his father.
“I left your spectacles in the surgery,” she said. “You handed them to me.”
He nodded, feeling his father’s pulse, resting his head upon the squire’s chest, and then sitting on his bed in silent observation for another moment. ‘‘When you go downstairs, send someone back with them, my dear,” he whispered. “And if you will, there is a volume on my desk that I would like to peruse while I sit here.”
“I can stay,” she insisted. “Mrs. Weller brought me something to eat.”
He shook his head. “No. I want you to return to Joseph. Take a good look at his cheek. If it is red and swollen, please send for me. If it is not, here is the prescription I have for him . . . and you.”
He handed her a folded piece of paper, which she opened and held up to the faint light from the window. “Brighton— July and August until the hops harvest. I will write.”
She folded the paper carefully, hurt somehow that he would want her away, but determined not to show it. His advice was sound. She would remove Joseph to the house that Uncle had rented for the summer, and it would be good for him.
“Very well, sir, if that’s what you wish,” she said, and got up to leave.
He took her hand. “Not so much what I wish, Elizabeth, but what I think you—we—need.”
He kissed her hand and said good-bye. She left the room in tears that she did not understand.
Libby found his glasses in the surgery where she had left them. Mrs. Manwaring—it could only be Mrs. Manwaring—had gathered together bloody rags and crimsoned water from the surgery and discarded them. The room was tidy once again, and a small fire had been laid.
Mrs. Manwaring came into the room, bringing back the clean basin to set on the shelf. She curtsied to Libby and then shook the hand that was extended to her. “A fearsome task you have set us, Miss Ames,” she said, her voice brusque, but spoken with a lilt that belied the stem look in her eyes.
“Indeed I have, and you are brave to take up the challenge,” Libby said, her voice equally firm. “I only hope that Candlow did not understate the case.”
Mrs. Manwaring laughed. “He said the magic word—Dr. Cook—and we knew we would be happy then.” She put away the basin and flicked at imaginery dust on the glass instrument case. “Dr. Cook sat through a dreadful bout with Jim’s pneumonia this winter.” She paused a moment, as if unable to trust herself with words. “We never did feel that we had repaid him enough. This is our opportunity, Miss Ames.”
