Carla Kelly (20 page)

She moved closer to him. “In the Peninsula, Mama dressed me in wool and flannel, but that never seemed adventurous to me. Only think what a dull life I lead now.”

Anthony held up his hand. “Hush! Did you hear that?”

Nerves on the alert, she listened. At first there was only the sound of rain and leaves blowing about on bending branches, and then she heard it. Someone sneezed again and again.

Anthony cupped his hands around his mouth. “Joseph! Joseph!” he called.

Libby strained to see through the rain. She gripped the doctor’s arm. “Look, there he is. Joseph, over here!”

“Can’t see a thing,” the doctor muttered. “Spectacles all wet.”

Libby leapt out of the gig and splashed along the road to the figure that was coming toward them, head down, arms slapping his chest to keep warm. Behind him trailed three equally sodden horses.

Libby grabbed her brother and hugged him.

“Libby?” he said, and then threw his arms around her. “Libby, I was so lost. And here are these horses and I can’t remember when I got them, or where they are supposed to go, and they keep following me.”

He was on the ragged edge of hysteria. She turned around to call for the doctor, but Anthony was right beside her. He took a firm grip of Joseph’s shoulders and shook him gently.

“You’re fine, laddy. These horses belong to my father and you are returning them to him. The other horse is your uncle’s hunter. Laddy, you’re just blue with cold.”

Libby took off the doctor’s coat and wrapped it around her brother, who was looking back at the horses, recognition in his eyes. “That’s it,” he exclaimed, pumping the doctor’s hand in gratitude. “I remember now!” His face fell again. “But I really am lost.”

The doctor put one arm about Joseph and the other about Libby. “Laddy, you are in luck. I know precisely where we are.”

Joseph burst into tears and the doctor tightened his grip on his patient. Libby started to cry, too, tears of relief, and Anthony laughed. “Here I stand, a soggy petunia in the midst of the Ames watering pots.”

The idea of the portly physician as a petunia captivated Libby’s tired brain and she laughed along with him. Joseph did not join in, but his tears stopped. The horses trailed along behind them like large, bedraggled hounds.

Anthony helped Joseph into the gig and then handed Libby up to him. “Here, lad, she’ll have to sit on your lap. I would graciously volunteer, but I am busy with the reins.”

Whistling to himself as the rain drummed down, the doctor tied the horses to the back of the gig and started off again, moving faster down the lane and keeping up a spanking pace until they saw the glow of a single lamp in a crofter’s cottage. The doctor pointed. “Maud and Wallis Casey,” he said. “We’ll be six in a bed tonight, but won’t we be warm.”

The door was flung open wide to the doctor’s knock, and they were pulled inside. Wallis sized up the situation and led the horses off to the barn, which made up the larger half of the cottage. He was followed by three or four little Caseys, laughing, dodging the puddles, and hollering that they wanted to help.

Almost before he knew what was happening, Joseph was stripped of his wet clothes, tucked in someone’s nightshirt, and dropped into the middle of a large bed that filled one side of the cottage. At Maud’s command, another two or three Caseys leapt into bed, too, cuddling close to Libby’s brother. Joseph looked about in amazement, accepted his fate without a murmur, and closed his eyes.

“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 corner, 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 John’s cryptic comments about corn 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 the excisemen and the 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 again 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 finished 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 then, just 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 John.

She sat down 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, I 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.

Libby cleared her throat finally. “If you have something to say to me, I wish you would do it. I suppose I deserve a bear-garden jaw for being such a gapeseed about Benedict Nesbitt.”

“Not a bit of it. He’s an engaging man, and I, for one, wish him very well.” He paused. “I was thinking along other lines.”

Again the silence. She poked him. “Really, Anthony, if I didn’t know better, I would think you were trying to work up the courage to propose again.”

She regretted the words the moment she said them. I am so stupid, she thought, dredging that up again.

“That’s it, Libby,” he said, the words surprised out of his mouth as though she had struck him on the back. He took off his spectacles, polished them on his shirt in one nervous movement, and replaced them as she stared at him. “Would you even consider making me the happiest man in the world by marrying me?” he asked. “I know I asked before, and I thought I would not again.” He shook his head and regarded her mildly. “And so I ask you once more.”

“Your father would be so disappointed,” was the first thing she thought of, even before she thought of “no” this time. Her heart began to pound and she felt the blood rush to her face.

“He wouldn’t be marrying you; I would,” the doctor replied, warming to his subject. “Go ahead and list all your objections.”

“I can think of many,” she said in exasperation. “I don’t have any money. Not any, Anthony,” she declared.

“Did I say I needed your money? As my wife, you’ll not have the elegancies of life, but with Mrs. Weller as our cook, you’ll never starve. Well?”

She giggled. “You can’t possibly be serious! My papa was disgraced in the family. No one receives us in Holyoke.”

He shrugged. “Your Uncle Ames likes me, except when I bother his gouty foot, and that’s good enough. They’ll receive the doctor’s wife or look elsewhere for services.”

“Well, how about this?” she said. “The man who marries me will have to take Joseph sooner or later. I could never abandon him and Mama will not live forever.”

“I like the lad, and I think we can find plenty for him to do.”

Libby was quiet then, leaning forward and watching the flames as they flickered and then died. The doctor rested his hand on her back. The feeling was pleasurable beyond words and she knew she should sit up. She did, and his hand dropped away.

“There is this, Anthony. You needn’t offer for me because you feel I have been compromised by this situation tonight. There,” she concluded, triumphant.

“Silly nod,” he whispered. “The thought never entered my head. I doubt even Aunt Crabtree would make exception to our arrangement tonight. How on earth could I compromise you in a room filled with eleven Caseys, one brother, a handful of chickens, and through the wall, two cows and four horses? No, I think that is not an issue.”

She laughed out loud and then clapped her hand over her mouth and shook in silence.

“You’ll have to do better than that, Libby,” he said finally.

She stared into the fire again and then turned to face him. “I do not wish to have to say this, Anthony, but I still do not love you. It’s as simple as that.”

He rubbed his chin. “That is an obstacle indeed, now that you mention it.” He thought a moment more. “Do you think you ever could?”

She considered the merits of the question. Only yesterday I had my answer so ready. What is there today that makes this same answer impossible? She looked at him. He was too big, too nearsighted, too busy, and too homely for her. No, she reconsidered, he is not at all homely, setting aside the spectacles that never stay where they belong. That could be remedied. And his face, although fleshy and inclined to redness, was frank, honest, and appealing in a way she was hard put to explain. He was kindness itself. Perhaps she could like him someday, but love him? She did not know.

She said as much as he bent closer to hear her reply. “I don’t know, Anthony. I never really considered it before.”

“I know that well enough. I love you enough for both of us,” he said, and put his arm around her waist, drawing her close. “I think that eventually we would deal very well together. Whether it was early or later in our marriage, I would never force your hand, Elizabeth.”

He had never called her by her given name before. No one did, and she liked the sound of it. Her name had never seemed so pretty as when he spoke it.