Return to Summerhouse (The Summerhouse 2)

Thomas didn’t look as though he were going to win any awards for scholarship, but she could see the love he had for William. His words of praise made Faith feel the best she had in a long time. “Thank you,” she said. “Will you stay with him while I see to some things?”

“Aye, I will,” Thomas said, and sat down on the chair he’d brought with him in the last wagonload.

Eighteen

“Good morning,” Faith said to William when he finally woke up. He’d slept for nearly eighteen hours. Maybe the way he found himself upon waking was a bit disconcerting, but not to Faith. He was lying on his stomach, his nightshirt up to his neck, the whole back of him naked, and Faith was dabbing at his sores with a soothing herbal ointment.

The sun was coming in through the overhead glass so the room was pleasantly warm. Yesterday, while William slept, Faith had gathered equipment and cut herbs, then worked into the night brewing potions to use on William. Thomas had made a pallet on the floor for himself, and his even, quiet snoring was calming as she worked. She’d gone to bed only when it was too dark to see what she was doing.

When the sun came up, Faith was at work again, and by mid-morning, she was ready to start on the sores on William’s body. Thomas had walked to the main house and brought back a box of food and more things that Amy thought they’d need. He produced a box of oranges with a smile of triumph. There was a note from Amy in the box, written on heavy paper with what looked to be a quill. Yet another use of the geese, she thought.

Tristan went to Southampton yesterday as he said he could ride the fastest. He rode all night, got the oranges, and came back immediately afterward. He didn’t sleep. I told you William is a well-loved man. Tell Thomas whatever you need. If it can be had, we will get it.

Faith read the note to Thomas and he smiled. “Aye, he is well loved.”

She wanted to say, Then why the hell was he allowed to rot in a bed? But she said nothing as she sat down at the table he’d brought with him and ate breakfast.

She couldn’t help admiring the change in the old orangery. The surfaces were covered with objects that, to Faith’s eye, were beautiful. There was no plastic, nothing that hadn’t been painstakingly made by hand. The herbs she had placed about the room smelled divine. She’d even put sprigs of wormwood around the edges to repel bugs.

Yesterday she’d started to tell the men to cut down the old grapevine, but on impulse she’d watered it. The vine grew out of a cleverly designed trough into which water was poured at one end and flowed out across the whole root system. Time would tell if there was life in the vine.

The room was filled with steam from the pots of water she’d boiled on the fire that Thomas had built for her outside. The tops of the cabinets were covered with pots and bowls and a couple of big marble mortars and pestles.

After she and Thomas had eaten breakfast, she’d asked him to turn William over onto his stomach so she could get to the sores.

Faith gently lifted William’s nightshirt off his sleeping body and began to apply the ointment she’d made of self-heal and soapwort. It was something that she’d used on Eddie when a bandage had made a blister on his skin.

William wasn’t embarrassed by his nudity or Faith’s

touch. “Ah, at last,” he said when he woke up to feel her warm hands on his skin. The sun was shining through the tree leaves and into the building. “I have at last died and I am in heaven.”

Thomas gave a guffaw of laughter.

“Dear Thomas,” William said. “He always laughs at my jests.”

“I don’t think your death wish is a reason to laugh,” Faith said.

“I have never wanted to die,” he said. “I just thought it was God’s plan for me.”

“All right,” Faith said, “you win. Sorry.” He’d flinched when she touched one of the many sores on his back. Now that he was clean, and he was in a bright room, she could see the extent of his wounds. She didn’t know what had started his illness, and without a modern doctor and equipment, she’d never know, but from what she could see, his real problems were lack of food and care.

When she’d covered the back of his body with ointment, she pulled his gown down. William asked Thomas to take him to the outhouse, and Faith was pleased. Now William had the energy to want to get out of bed.

While they were gone, Faith glanced at the mirror that Amy had sent and tidied her hair. It was pulled off her face but not too tightly. And Amy had sent Faith a clean dress. Last night she’d managed to give herself a sponge bath and today she hoped to use some of Beth’s shampoo to wash her hair.

“Hungry?” she asked William when Thomas brought him back inside.

“I am,” William said as though it were the strangest thing he’d ever felt. He winced when Thomas put him in the bed, and he lay back against the pillow wearily, but there seemed to be some color in his face.

First, there was fresh-squeezed orange juice that Faith had made that morning. She got an entire glass of it down William, who used a real straw to sip from the glass that Amy had sent to her. Hand-blown, hand-etched, eighteenth-century glass, Faith thought as she looked at the beautiful object.

Thomas went outside with a skillet and a big pat of hand-churned butter and fried an egg that was laid that morning. Faith dipped bread that was still warm from the oven in the egg and mashed it up for William to eat with his loose teeth. He couldn’t really chew but he could dissolve the food in his mouth.

With every bite, he closed his eyes and gave himself over to the flavor. For Faith, watching him eat was close to a sensual experience. He was thin and gaunt, but she could see a bit of the man he’d once been.

“Can Thomas shave you?” she asked.

“Perhaps he should shave my head as well,” William said as Faith fed him another bite.