“More or less,” Faith said as she started walking backward. “Don’t forget the bathtub and I’ll need lots of hot water. And soft soap,” she said louder as she got farther away.
“I won’t forget anything,” Amy called back.
“I will,” Faith shouted. “I’m going to try to forget a lot of things.” Turning, she started running down the path. She made a detour to run through the kitchen garden. Based on what she’d heard so far, she was sure that everyone in the garden knew what she was doing. Yesterday she hadn’t liked that idea, but today their nosiness made her feel as though she were part of an extended family. She ran straight through to the herb area and grabbed an armful of mallow, and another of lemon verbena. She’d put the mallow in the tub as it was good for rashes and boils. The lemon verbena was just to make the room smell good.
As she left, a stout man with gray at his temples raised his hand to her. She guessed he was the head gardener and he was letting her know that what she had picked were good choices.
By the time she saw the chimney stacks of the old house, she was out of breath but feeling wonderful. The house was just as Amy had described, as though William Shakespeare had lived in it, with its half-timbered upstairs and its plastered lower floor. She could imagine Queen Elizabeth walking in front of the house, a half-dozen beautifully dressed courtiers behind her.
Her illusion was ruined when she saw a cow saunter out the front door. “I don’t have time to worry about that now,” she said as she looked for the orangery.
She found the beautiful old glasshouse in what had once been the walled kitchen garden. It was half the size of the new garden, barely over an acre, but Faith could imagine what it had once been. She could see the remnants of brick pathways, could see untrimmed box hedges, and there were herbs along one wall. They were so old that their centers had died out. A few fruit trees, unpruned, but still alive, were espaliered against the walls.
At the far end was the orangery, where the precious orange trees had once grown. Now it stood forlorn and unused, some of the glass on the end wall replaced with slabs of wood.
The door was ajar and she had to pull hard to get it open. Inside, it was dusty and dirty, but the stone floor was good and there was a woodstove at each end of the long, shallow building. Old, dry vines were at one end of the room. Grapevines, she thought, but they looked as though they’d been dead for a long time. Outside, at the other end, fruit trees that had once been kept pruned were now wild, with their branches spreading out over the glass of the orangery, filtering the sunlight inside. The branches let in the warmth and light but not the glare.
She would put a bed for William at one end, close to the stove, and a bed for herself at the other end, under the old vine. The truth was that she’d like to get away from the main house, which had so many people in it that a person was never alone. And she’d like to have her own bed.
“You plannin’ to live in here?” came a woman’s voice, and Faith turned to see three women with buckets in their hands.
“I’m going to look after Mr. William in here,” she said.
The women looked at her as though she were daft. “But, miss, he’s dyin’.”
“Maybe so, but he’ll die clean. Can you tell me where there’s a water supply near here? And where’s the…The…uh?”
They understood her well enough, and showed her where the rain barrels were. The water collected from the walls was funneled into big barrels and Faith saw that she had an abundant supply. True, she had to carry it in buckets, but it was better than nothing.
There was an outhouse nearby. She was learning what she’d seen when she’d visited Monticello, that there were outhouses placed at frequent intervals throughout the garden. “Easier than putting in a septic tank,” she mumbled.
It took nearly four hours to get the orangery in shape. Amy had been as good as her word and she’d sent eight people to help Faith get the place ready. After the women spent two hours scrubbing, men arrived with a wagonload of furniture and clean bedding. As Faith told the men where to put the beds and four cabinets, she couldn’t help asking about the nurse.
“Did Amy let Mr. William’s nurse go?” she asked as casually as she could manage.
When all the women stopped cleaning the glass and looked at the men expectantly, she knew they were as eager to hear what had happened as she was. One of the men turned out to be a good storyteller and he reveled in telling the juicy gossip about the way Amy had thrown the woman out.
“His lordship heard the ruckus,” the man said, “and he went running. He thought the house was on fire. When he saw it was just Miss Amy he tried to tiptoe out of the place. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of it.”
The man took a breath for emphasis. He liked having an audience. “But the nurse was having none of it. She saw him and demanded that he tell Miss Amy that she was to stay. She said that the woman with the red hair—beggin’ your pardon, ma’am—was a hussy and not fit to take care of a gentleman like Mr. William. She said you had other plans for the man than just gettin’ him well.”
“What other plans could I have?” Faith asked.
“Marriage,” the man said, and the women nodded.
Faith laughed, but the others kept looking at her in question. “I just want to make the man comfortable,” she said. “So what happened next?”
“His lordship took Miss Amy’s side and the nurse was sent back to town in a wagon. Now Miss Amy is tearin’ out Mr. William’s room.”
“And what has she done with Mr. William?”
“Thomas is carryin’ him here now,” the man said.
“Then let’s get this finished,” Faith said. “Come on, we don’t have much time. When you get the furniture in I need enough hot water to fill that tub.”
“It’s on the wagon,” the man said. “You plannin’ to take a bath?”
“No, I’m going to bathe Mr. William.”