“Yes, perhaps I should.” She sat down. “You are full of helpful ideas this morning, Miss Ravenswood.”
A servant I had never seen before, a youngish woman with a doleful face, staggered in and put down a large tray with tea things and more: bread, butter, a plate of thinly sliced meat, a hunk of seedcake. Jane looked at it with a frown. I poured a cup of tea and put it in her hands. “Here,” I said. “Let me give you a bit of this cake, it looks excellent.”
“I am not hungry.” She took a sip of tea.
“Yet you must eat,” I said, adding impulsively: “You want to disregard the body, perhaps; you consider it a bit beneath you, slightly coarse, even to have one. But think about this. Where do you suppose reason and imagination dwell?” I put a slab of cake on a plate and passed it to her. “If the weather improves tomorrow, I would like to take you out in our carriage. You need air. Will you promise to come?”
Her eyes had grown wider at this speech. “I promise to consider it,” she said, and took a bite of cake, then another.
Nearly finished by the time we heard footsteps coming down the stairs, she wiped her mouth and stood up.
“Dr. Ravenswood,” she said as he walked in, her expression a question.
“You are right. He is worse. But I am confident of an eventual, full recovery. At present matters approach a crisis. The liver is much disordered.” I repressed a smile at the conviction with which Liam delivered this line.
“Should I write—if you were in my situation—that is, do you think it advisable to summon my sister and brothers, if there is the slightest danger that he—”
To my surprise, Liam reached out and touched her shoulder for an instant. “Ah, Miss Austen, how brave you are! You cannot carry all this alone. ’Twill be a comfort to have them here, will it not? Do not hesitate; write to them.”
“I shall, if you think it advisable, not alarmist. If you will excuse me, I shall do so at once.”
She went to the table, pulled up a chair, and sat down in front of her writing desk. I tried not to stare as she took out a new piece of paper, opened her ink bottle, examined two quills before choosing a third, dipped it, wrote a line, quick and sure, and stopped to look up at Liam. “Mr. Haden continues with Henry?”
“He will be down presently. We exchanged some thoughts on the case; he will share them with you. I do not want to impose; he is in command of your brother’s care. I merely seek to advise.”
I wished Liam would take command and put a stop to the bloodletting and doses of mercury; a doctor outranked an apothecary. But this answer seemed to please Jane, who gave him a look warmer than any she had ever given me as he continued: “And if there is anything, anything, I can do, do not hesitate to summon me, at any hour.” He bowed. “We leave you to your letters.”
“WELL?” I ASKED ONCE WE WERE HEADING HOME. WE HAD LEFT Wilcox behind again today, so we were free to talk.
“He looks like hell. Much more yellow. Complained of nausea and vomiting. He said he has kept down nothing but tea and barley water since that other night, when we saw him. And you will rejoice to hear that I got a look at his chamber pot.” He paused, as if hoping to increase my suspense. “Very dark urine.”
“Everything points to the liver. Wash your hands thoroughly when we get home. If it’s a hepatitis strain transmitted by the oral-fecal route—”
“I’ve touched nothing fecal.” Liam looked worried.
“Just keep your hands away from your mouth and your eyes until you can wash them. We can’t afford to get hepatitis.”
THE NEXT DAY, THE SUN HAD COME OUT. WE RETURNED TO HANS Place, where Liam was immediately led upstairs, as if this had already become a routine, while I was shown into the empty drawing room but told Miss Austen would be with me soon. My eyes returned to her writing desk, but it was closed up tight this time. Focused on sitting quietly, properly, not to be caught in some wrong attitude if she walked in unexpectedly, I found myself looking at my hands, strong though small, which once stitched up patients, now reduced to sewing shirts. I thought how our cells are constantly dying and being formed anew, and that the longer I stayed here, the more I was becoming a product of 1815. At least, on a cellular level; I did not think my thoughts and feelings had changed. But would I know, necessarily?
After ten minutes or so, as I was starting to wonder if there had been some misunderstanding, footsteps coming down the stairs announced the arrival of Jane Austen.
“Miss Ravenswood,” she said, and for the first time she took my hand, saying, “Do not fear, I washed it. I beg your forgiveness for making you wait. I was talking to your brother.”
“You can atone by coming for a drive with me. The day is fine, and you seem to me in want of an outing.” She looked better than yesterday, though still tired. At my words she smiled faintly.
“I cannot think of it at such a time. My brother—”
“Is in the capable hands of my brother. Do come. Today I have with me not only the coachman but my footman, so we can ride in state.”
“Your footman! Indeed.” Footmen were luxury goods; Henry himself did not have one.
“He had many errands and did not want to accompany us, but I insisted, because it was my wish to take you out, and I knew you would not, if there was no footman. See, he is outside, looking melancholy.” I had drawn her to the window with my prattling nonsense; I could not let Liam be the only one who could act his part with such an appearance of ease.
“A very handsome equipage,” Jane said, and I knew from her tone she was coming.
I HAD HAD SOME THOUGHTS OF TAKING HER SHOPPING; COULD anything match being in a bookstore with Jane Austen? But in the end we stayed in the park, enjoying the rare sunlight and the people-watching from the carriage, which had its top retracted to maximize our pleasure.
“There is the notorious Mr. Manwaring, in that gig,” Jane said. “I know him from Henry’s parties. He is looking—he is looking at me, but he cannot understand how I could be riding in such a fine carriage, with a lady he has never seen and a footman—there, I shall nod to him, too late for him to react—that will give him something to think about.”
“Do you enjoy your brother’s parties? He had left me with the impression you were more fond of quiet.”
“I am old now.” I rejected this with a shake of my head. “And Henry, too, is not as he was. When his wife was still living—those were parties. With musicians, and ices, and quantities of French émigrés, each one with an improbable story of escape. Those days are gone, Miss Ravenswood.” If her words were nostalgic, her tone was brisk and her glance amused as she looked at the sunlit landscape ahead of us. “But one cannot live in the past. Nor would I want to. I sometimes feel the most interesting part of my life has started only now.”
Her words chilled me; I knew how little of it she had left. “Why is that, do you imagine?”
She gave me an enigmatic smile but did not answer.