The Last Refuge

SIXTEEN

‘It’s nine o’clock on a Monday night, and ordinarily I’d be watching Dancing with the Stars. Last night, Hannah was sitting in the parlor in front of the fire reading Tom Jones out loud. As soon as I finish washing up the glassware, I’ll be going upstairs so I can hear the next chapter.’

French Fry, housemaid

As I lay under the covers in a sweltering fog, the noises of the house went on around me. The clatter of dishes being carried down to the kitchen for washing, the drumming of Gabe’s feet as he ran along the hallway, Melody’s voice – yelling – ‘Quiet, or you’ll wake up Mrs Ives. She’s sick, you dope.’ At one point, I thought I heard Amy playing the harpsichord, but I must have been dreaming, because Amy is gone.

When I opened my eyes again, the sun was just setting, casting long shadows across the floorboards of my room. A man stood at the foot of my bed. He was tall, fair, sturdily built, wearing a suit of dark blue wool, trimmed with gold braid. He peered at me curiously through a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses. ‘I’m Doctor Kenneth Glass, Mrs Ives. We’ve been worried about you.’

If I hadn’t been so out of it, I’d have been worried about myself, too. I opened my mouth to reply, but the only thing that came out was a croak. My tongue had grown fur, and was several sizes too big for my mouth.

I didn’t realize French stood at my bedside until she said, ‘Would you like a drink of water, Mrs Ives?’

I started to nod, but it hurt too much to move. I heard water trickling, followed by a cool, wet cloth being laid across my forehead. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.

‘You can put it over there, Samuel,’ French said after a moment. She was speaking to a black man who had entered the room carrying a wooden box by a pair of rope handles. Samuel set the box down on my dressing table, then turned to Dr Glass and held out his arms expectantly. The doctor handed over his gold-handled cane and his tri-corned hat. Samuel set them down on the table next to the fireplace, then returned to help the doctor remove his elegant coat.

Dr Glass pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. ‘Tell me how you feel,’ he said.

‘Headache,’ I mumbled. ‘Fever. Upset stomach. Probably the flu.’

In the shadows by the window, a red light winked. Oh, hell. Derek lurked there filming, or maybe it was Chad.

I considered the doctor’s well-groomed wig, his expensive wardrobe, the finely-wrought gold chain that ended at the watch peeking out of the pocket of his weskit. I began to panic. ‘Are you a real doctor, doctor, or do you just play one on television?’

Dr Glass smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘I’m a real doctor, Mrs Ives, both in the eighteenth century and in the twenty-first.’ He lifted my wrist and took my pulse. ‘Hmmm,’ he muttered enigmatically, thereby confirming his credentials.

‘How come you don’t carry a stethoscope, then?’

Dr Glass was checking the lymph nodes in my neck, under my arms. ‘Remember when you signed the contract to be on Patriot House?’

I grunted in reply.

‘There’s a clause in that contract where you agree to be treated for minor medical problems using eighteenth-century medicines and techniques. Do you recall that, Mrs Ives?’

‘That contract was longer than Atlas Shrugged,’ I moaned. ‘I think I missed that chapter.’

‘Well, they didn’t have stethoscopes in colonial Annapolis. Didn’t have them anywhere until 1816, in fact. Looked like ear trumpets.’

Dr Glass asked French to hold up the sheet to shield me from the camera while he checked the lymph nodes in my groin. Then, he cautiously pressed his fingertips into my stomach.

I screamed in pain.

‘Sorry. This will be over in a minute. Take a deep breath now.’

I tried to comply, but it hurt too much. I felt tears rolling sideways down my cheeks.

‘Your stomach is distended, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed. But I see you’ve had your appendix removed, so appendicitis can be eliminated. What have you eaten lately?’

I tried to remember. ‘Nothing that the rest of the house hasn’t eaten.’

‘You could be suffering from verdigris, which is usually caused by eating tainted meat. Have you eaten any meat that’s turned green?’

Before I could answer, French sputtered, ‘We’d never serve meat that had turned green in Patriot House!’

Dr Glass held up a hand. ‘Fine, then, fine. Are you having diarrhea, Mrs Ives?’

Just thinking about having diarrhea in a house with no bathrooms made my stomach roil. I curled over. ‘I’m going to vomit!’

French held a basin while I retched, but there was nothing left in my stomach to hurl except nasty yellow bile. I fell back on my pillows, exhausted, as my brain bounced painfully back and forth against the inside of my skull. Even the roots of my hair ached.

‘How about melons? There’s been an outbreak of lysteria linked to cantaloupes grown out in Colorado.’

‘We grow cantaloupes in our greenhouse right here, Dr Glass,’ French informed him. ‘And before you ask, no night soil is involved.’

I closed my eyes for a moment, and my lids scratched hotly against my eyeballs.

‘What kind of treatment would an eighteenth-century doctor usually give in a case like this?’ French asked as she straightened the sheet and tucked it in around me like a cocoon.

Dr Glass had crossed to the washstand where Samuel stood at attention holding the pitcher. As he scrubbed his hands vigorously with soap, the doctor said, ‘Pretty much as I’m doing now, except for the hand washing part.’ He grinned back at French over his shoulder. ‘I must be a visionary. The connection between germs and disease isn’t going to be discovered for another half century or so.’ Samuel rinsed the doctor’s hands with water, pouring it over them into the wash basin, then held out a towel.

Dr Glass dried his hands, then returned to my bedside. ‘There could be something more serious going on, of course, such as a partial obstruction or blockage of the bowel. We’ll have to watch for that.’ He patted my hand where it lay on the sheet, limp and boneless. ‘The odds are, though, that it’s something viral and self-limiting.’

I grabbed the doctor’s wrist, using what little strength I had to pull him down until his ear was close to my lips. ‘Could I have been deliberately poisoned?’ I croaked.

His pale eyebrows shot up under his wig. He straightened, but I kept my vise-like grip on his wrist. Dr Glass laid his hand over my clenched fingers. ‘I very much doubt that, Mrs Ives.’

‘Who would want to poison you?’ French clucked. She gave the doctor a knowing glance. I read the message in her eyes: poor woman must be delusional.

How about a disgruntled Navy SEAL, I thought, who wanted to make sure that I kept his secret?

‘What’s in the box?’ I wondered miserably, as I watched Samuel lift up the lid.

‘Ah, those are my medicinals, my mortar and pestle. I’ve bleeding instruments in there, too. Lancets and such. Sometimes I carry leeches. But don’t worry. We don’t generally bleed post-menopausal women.’ He paused, nodded to Samuel, then bent again to whisper in my ear. ‘I am going to take a blood sample, however, and send it out for testing. Just to be sure.

‘Everyone out now!’ He made shooing motions with his hand, the lace at his wrist flouncing gaily. ‘Miss Fry, please fetch some more hot water.’ He paused, glared into the shadows where Derek was trying his best to blend into the curtains. ‘That means you, too, young man; you and your camera.’

When everyone had gone, Dr Glass rolled up the sleeve of my shift, swabbed the inside of my forearm with cotton soaked in alcohol, and took a blood sample in the twenty-first-century way, using a rubber tourniquet and a syringe.

‘They didn’t know how to do that back then, did they?’ I asked stupidly as he transferred my blood from the syringe to a sealed test tube, gave it a shake. He handed the tube off to Samuel, who wrote something on the label with an anachronistic ballpoint pen.

‘Of course not, Mrs Ives, but I refuse to take chances with a patient’s health, no matter what century she fancies she wants to live in.’ He handed the used syringe to his assistant who disposed of it in a red plastic bag and sealed it shut. ‘As I said, I’m having your blood tested, and if it turns up anything serious, I’ll be back with proper medication.’

‘Can you give me anything now? I feel like shit.’

‘We’ll brew up some tea out of white willow bark. It’s what the American Indians used for pain. It contains salicin which was one of the components used in the development of aspirin.’

‘Popcorn, peanuts, chocolate, tobacco… and aspirin. God bless the Native Americans, doctor.’

Dr Glass smiled and patted my hand like a favorite uncle.

When French came back with the tea kettle, Dr Glass began issuing orders. He had her fill up a pottery hot water bottle, wrap it in cloth and tuck it under the covers next to my feet. ‘Build up the fire,’ he instructed. ‘Make sure you keep the windows open to let the putrid air out. And if you’ve got any fir boughs, you can spread them out on the floor. I’m not exactly sure what that’s supposed to do, but it was common practice back then. Probably served as an air freshener.’

While Samuel packed up his case, Dr Glass sat at the table and wrote something out on a piece of paper. He handed it to French. ‘The tea should take care of the pain, but if you take that to the apothecary, he’ll give you something for her fever.

‘In the meantime, white willow bark tea. There’ll be some in the kitchen. Don’t be alarmed when you see it. In spite of the name, when it’s brewed up, it’s ruby red in color. You can add a stick of cinnamon if she doesn’t like the barky taste. In the morning, you can start her on a broth, chicken or beef. Cool, not hot.’

Samuel helped his master back into his coat; handed him his hat and cane. At the door, the doctor turned, adjusting the lace where it protruded from his sleeves as he spoke. ‘Send for me if you feel worse, or there’s any change. I know you’re reluctant to leave the project, Mrs Ives, but if I think you need modern medical attention, I’ll sling you over my shoulder and carry you off to the hospital myself.’

‘In a horse-drawn carriage?’ I murmured.

‘If I have to,’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow, same time,’ the doctor said, and he was gone, with Samuel and the box of medicinals in his wake.

French placed another cool compress on my forehead, then scurried off to the kitchen to brew up the tea. Half an hour later, she returned and helped me sit up. Propped against several pillows, I cradled a cup in my hands and sipped the brew slowly, knowing that if it didn’t stay down, it couldn’t work its magic. It tasted like tree bark with cinnamon in it, but felt deliciously warm and soothing as it trickled down my throat.

Soon, I felt myself nodding. French relieved me of the cup, tucked the comforter in around me, then settled into the upholstered chair next to the fire with her feet curled up under her.

‘You don’t have to stay,’ I whispered as sleep began to overtake me at last.

‘I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to read to you?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

She opened the book and began, ‘Eight months after the celebration of the nuptials between Captain Blifil and Miss Bridget Allworthy – a young lady of great beauty, merit, and fortune – was Miss Bridget, by reason of a fright, delivered of a fine boy. The child was indeed to all appearances perfect; but the midwife discovered it was born a month before its full time.’

‘They don’t write ’em like they used to,’ I thought, as I drifted off.

I’m not sure what woke me. It could have been the cool October wind that was making the bed curtains dance around me as it whistled through the open windows. It might have been my bladder, in eminent danger of bursting from all the liquid I’d been force-fed over the past several hours. I needed to use the chamber pot in the worst way, but the thought of leaving the warmth of my bed effectively paralyzed me.

A fire still flickered in the grate – somebody must be tending it – but the chair that French had occupied was deserted. Our novel – Tom Jones – lay open on the table next to the chair, a strap of fringed-leather marking the place where she’d left off.

The book could wait, but my bladder couldn’t. Gritting my teeth and thanking my lucky stars that I didn’t have to rush outside to use the privy, I slid out of bed and found the chamber pot, wincing as I pulled up my shift and sat down on the ice cold porcelain.

As relief washed over me, I heard the long case clock in the downstairs hall strike the quarter hour. But the quarter of what hour? I’d lost complete track of time.

When I finished, I stood up, wobbly. My head swam. My legs felt like cooked spaghetti and I grabbed for a bed post.

I looked to the windows for a clue to the hour, but it was still dark outside. Then I remembered Amy’s iPhone.

It was probably less than eight feet from my bed to the dresser, but the distance seemed to stretch out forever before me. I released the curtain and shuffled to the straight-backed chair, clung there for a moment, head pounding, then moved on. At the dresser, I rested, breathing hard, as exhausted as if I’d just run a marathon. Even the Chinese vase felt like lead, but I managed to scoot it toward me across the dresser top, tilt it toward me and stick my hand inside.

But the vase was empty.

Amy’s iPhone had gone.