A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(69)

In spite of the earliness of the hour, the local folk were all up and about their business. We made several stops in the village so that Mertensia could dispense her remedies, tonics, embrocations, and balms of every variety. The local folk were cordial to us and deferential to Mertensia, accepting her instructions and her preparations with equal respect. She was sure of herself, I noted, missing all traces of her customary awkwardness when she inquired about a child’s cough or an old woman’s rheumatism. In caring for the islanders, she came out of herself, relaxing enough to discuss the various ailments with Stoker in his capacity as a former naval surgeon. He gave a little quiet advice from time to time, to which she listened with interest, and I found myself excluded, taking the role of observer.

When we reached the last of the cottages, Mertensia preceded us inside to make a private examination of an elderly patient whilst Stoker and I waited.

“Do you ever miss it?” I asked.

“Miss what?” He rummaged in his pocket for a paper twist of peppermint humbugs, popping one into his mouth and crunching hard. The fact that his teeth were even and white and uncracked from such abuses was proof that Mother Nature played favorites.

“Practicing medicine. You trained as a surgeon, and I have seen you play the part several times. You are good at it.”

He shrugged. “I am good at many things I no longer do.”

I thought of the scores of women he had bedded during the period of enthusiastic debauchery that had preceded the self-imposed chastity of his last few years. I gave him a level look and he colored furiously.

“In the name of seven hells, Veronica, I did not mean that,” he protested. “And no, I do not miss amputating limbs and mopping up after a flogging.”

“I thought floggings went out with Napoléon,” I said, plucking a humbug from his palm.

“Just because something is forbidden doesn’t mean it won’t flourish,” he told me. He put the paper twist on a stone and brought another sharply down upon it, breaking the last humbug in half. He handed the larger piece over to me.

Just then, a pair emerged from around the corner of the cottage, young Peter from the inn and Daisy the castle maid. Peter was carrying a covered pail and Daisy was hurrying him along.

“Mind you come along smartly, lad. Mrs. Trengrouse will not wait for that,” she warned him. She caught sight of us and bobbed a swift curtsy.

“Hello, Daisy. What brings you down to the village?” I asked.

Peter brandished the pail. “Chicken dung, miss.”

“I beg your pardon?”

Daisy clucked her tongue at him. “Do not speak to the lady of such things,” she scolded. “Now, get on to the castle and take that straight to the laundry or I will make you the worse for it.”

He darted a hopeful look at Stoker, who obliged him with the last piece of humbug. He grinned as he put it into his pocket with grubby hands.

“Thank the gentleman!” Daisy told him.

Peter bowed. “Very kind of you, sir.”

“You are most welcome, Master Peter,” Stoker replied with a courtly inclination of the head.

Peter scampered off and Daisy looked after him with an exasperated expression. “More trouble than a dozen monkeys, he is.”

“Dare I ask what Mrs. Trengrouse requires of . . . that?” I asked.

“The chicken leavings? ’Tis for scorch marks, miss. I was put up from laundrymaid to chambermaid but the new lass scorched a sheet when she was ironing and Mrs. Trengrouse was fit to be tied, she was. Now we have to soak it in a mixture of what the chickens give with a bit of vinegar and fuller’s earth to make it right again.”

Just then Mertensia emerged from the cottage. “Hello, Daisy. Chicken dung, I presume?”

“Yes, miss.”

Mertensia turned to us. “Mrs. Polglase’s chickens are the most prolific on the island for that sort of thing. Off you go, Daisy. Mrs. Trengrouse will be looking for you.”

The maid hurried off and Mertensia turned to us. “Mrs. Polglase the elder is having a difficult morning, but she wanted very much to meet our visitors. Will you oblige her?”

We expressed our willingness to do so and Mertensia guided us into the cottage. It was neat as a new pin, with freshly whitewashed walls and scrubbed stone floors. It was one main room with a sturdy table and chairs and a set of shelves with a loft made up for sleeping. In the back wall, a Dutch door had been cut, giving onto a hen yard, where a raucous clucking could be heard along with a woman’s voice as she shushed them patiently. Inside the cottage, a fire of good hardwood was burning in the hearth, and near it a bed had been arranged and fitted with blinding white linens—no doubt the handiwork of Mrs. Polglase’s excellent chickens, I surmised. In the bed, a tiny old woman of indeterminate years, anywhere between eighty and a century, peeped out from a pile of shawls and blankets and scarves, her little head topped by a vast cap of the sort worn by French queens and superior parlormaids of the last century.

“Mrs. Polglase, this is Miss Speedwell and Mr. Templeton-Vane,” Mertensia shouted.

The old woman smiled vaguely and a plump figure bustled into the cottage through the Dutch door. Mertensia made the introductions again, presenting us to the younger Mrs. Polglase, a woman of perhaps fifty with a broad, comely face and a hearty handshake.

“Welcome you are, and how kind of you to come and visit Mam,” she said with a nod towards the withered little woman in the bed.