“Women are free to pursue all professions and I am cried up alongside Shakespeare. Why I would not like it?”
I tried to describe my world. But I had trouble settling on its salient features: what would be most interesting to her? I talked about the Die-off, the resurgence of Old Britain, the advances in supercomputing and energy generation that made time travel possible. I talked about the destruction of species and habitat, about rising ocean levels, yet I kept feeling, as she looked at me with a skeptical smile, that I was missing the point.
MR. CURTIS SHOWED UP A FEW HOURS LATER, ACCOMPANIED BY Liam. The apothecary was a pockmarked man in the garb of a Quaker, middle-aged, with a wooden box of remedies and a kind but worried face. Henry, with some more friends to see, had stayed in Alton.
The day had turned colder by then, sending Jane and me inside, where we joined the other ladies in the sitting room and stopped talking about the world of the future. As the apothecary sat down with them, I took Liam by the arm and pulled him into the stillroom, closing the door behind us.
“Listen,” I muttered, going on tiptoe to talk more directly into his ear, “have him bleed her. Twenty ounces today, and the same weekly until I see improvement.”
Liam looked amazed. “Are you not the person who kept telling me how terrible it was to let Mr. Haden bleed Henry?”
“I’ll explain later. Just tell him that. And for god’s sake, make sure he sterilizes the instrument. Make him hold the blade in a flame, at the side, not the top, for at least sixty seconds.”
He stared at me. “She’s so thin. Can she lose so much blood?”
“We have to try. I’m not sure it’s going to work. But if it doesn’t—” I stopped. She’ll die anyway, I could not make myself say. But Liam understood, or I thought he did. He nodded slowly.
JANE WENT UPSTAIRS TO HER ROOM FOR THE PROCEDURE, WHILE Martha, Cassandra, Mrs. Austen, and I stayed in the parlor, talking and laughing as the daylight faded in the garden outside. I refused an offer of tea, then met Mr. Curtis and Liam coming down the stairs on my way up to say good night to Jane. Liam and I left the house with warm handshakes all around and a promise to come back tomorrow and see how she was.
There was nothing special about that visit except in retrospect; it was the last of its kind. On our short walk down the lane toward home, Liam and I heard rapid hoofbeats and turned to see a rider, not bothering to dismount, pound on the door of the house we’d just left and hand the maid a letter. Express. We exchanged an uneasy look, then a worried one as the rider flew past us and pulled up at Ivy Cottage.
CHAPTER 18
AUGUST 7
Chawton
TOM HAD ACCEPTED THE LETTER AND PAID FOR IT; HE HANDED it to us wordlessly and we hurried to the front room, which had the best light. Liam snapped the seal and stood, back to the window, as I leaned over his arm trying to read upside down. He got through it fast, or didn’t bother to finish; after he handed me the paper and left the room, I heard his hasty steps on the stairs.
It was from Edward Knight, as I’d feared, and polite considering its contents. Having written to his relative in Jamaica and learned that no one there had ever heard of anyone by the name of Ravenswood, he must consider his acquaintance with us at an end. He could hardly force us to leave the neighborhood—“I am sure he could,” I muttered when I got to that part—but hoped we would leave of our own accord, as we must understand. He deplored the prospect of informing his brothers and sisters what he had learned, but concluded it was incumbent upon him to do so.
He closed by thanking me for saving his daughter’s life.
I threw the letter in the flames and watched it curl to ash. We’re done for, was my first thought. But at least Jane will understand, was my second. My third was to wonder what Liam was up to.
I found him in his bedroom, his trunk on his bed, standing in the middle of the room and pulling on his hair in an exaggeratedly agonized attitude that made me think of a Kabuki actor in a woodblock print.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, walking over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. Being close to him still sent a thrill through me like a zap of electricity, but Liam did not have sex on his mind.
“Tell Tom to go to the Crown and have them get our horses and carriage ready. We must leave tonight.” He whirled and stalked back to his linen press, whose doors already stood open. He pulled out a drawer and stared at it, took an armful of shirts and threw them into the trunk. “Or I must, at least.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t you understand?”
“I understand we’ve got a problem, but—”
He’d turned back to the linen press and pulled open another drawer. “Go and tell Tom to run to the Crown.”
“But I don’t see—”
He glanced at me, wild-eyed. “How much cash is there in the house?”
“I don’t know, I’ll look in the strongbox. At least fifty pounds, because—”
“So never mind that right now. Run and tell Tom.”
“But I don’t see why—”
“Mother of god, I’ll tell him myself, so I will,” Liam said, pushing past me and thundering down the stairs. “Tom!” I heard him call. “Tom, where are you, lad?”
I arrived downstairs in time to see Tom, wide-eyed, on his way out. “But I don’t understand,” I said again. Liam was standing in the middle of the front room, staring blankly at the fire.
“Don’t you? Don’t you? They found us out.”
“I realize it’s a problem, but—”
“It’s more than a problem, if Henry Austen—Don’t you see?” He left the room and ran upstairs. I followed, increasingly concerned about his sanity.
“If Henry Austen, what?” Finally realizing we’d been talking too loudly and sounding like ourselves, I closed the bedroom door behind me. “Liam,” I said in a lower tone, “pull yourself together. If we ever suspected Jencks of listening at doors, we’re giving him a lot to work with today. Please tell me, in simple words, what’s wrong.”
“I’m wrong,” he said, grabbing a handful of stockings and throwing them, all in a jumble, into the trunk. “How could they ever have thought I would get away with this? What were they thinking, to send me?” He hurried to the window. “Moonlight, thank god, at least it’s moonlight.” He came back to the linen press and seized a heap of neckcloths. “Tomorrow, pay off the servants and arrange to get rid of the animals. Jencks can . . . the next market day at Alton . . . I’ll write to the house agent, and break the lease.” He threw the neckcloths into the trunk, and pulled his hair again. “Oh, Jesus.”
“Liam!”
He shuddered and seemed to see me for the first time. “Will you be all right here? No, maybe you should come tonight. We can leave instructions with the servants and arrange it all by letter. Like it matters,” he added gloomily. “Yes, yes, you should come. But you’re losing time. Go and pack!”