William hit the corridor at a dead run, scaring Moira, who was coming down it with her huge shopping basket overflowing with fish and loaves of bread. She leapt out of the way but lost her grip on the basket. William heard feminine cries behind him but didn’t stop.
The door to the parlor was standing ajar and he was vaguely conscious of a smell as he shoved it open. Brandy. And … vomit.
The source of both was Percy Wainwright, who was lying on the floor, curled up like a hedgehog, his back heaving as he retched. He’d thrown up profusely already, but the smell was overlain by the stronger reek of spilled brandy.
“Jesus,” William said, swallowed, and knelt to grab Wainwright by the shoulder. “Moira!” he shouted, seeing the man’s face. “Amaranthus! Get a doctor! Bring some water and salt, quick!”
Wainwright was conscious, but his face was clenched like a baby’s fist, all lumps and lines. His lips were blue—actually blue. William hadn’t seen that before, but he knew it wasn’t good.
“What happened?” he asked urgently, trying to unfold Wainwright and get him into a more comfortable position. “What’s the matter with you?”
Wainwright heard him. He brought one trembling hand to his chest, pressed hard in the middle.
“It’s … it won’t … I can’t …”
William had seen Mother Claire take someone’s pulse, more than once, and he hastily pressed his fingers at the side of Wainwright’s neck. He didn’t feel anything, moved his fingers, nothing … there. He’d felt a single throb. And then another. One more—then a light, rapid tapping—but this was nothing like the way a heart should beat.
“Here’s water and the saltcellar.” Amaranthus spoke behind him, breathless. “Moira’s gone for Dr. Erasmus. What’s wrong with him?”
“Oh, God, he must have drunk the brandy!” The pulse—if that’s what it was—was getting slower, and Wainwright’s body twisted, mouth gaping open, looking for air. “His heart, I think, maybe … Here, give me it!” He took the carafe from her hand and sloshed some over Wainwright’s face, making him open his eyes, then poured a little into his open mouth. It ran out at the side, and so did the next try.
“Salt?” Amaranthus said, very doubtfully.
“You give it to soldiers with heatstroke,” William said, and having no other possibility to hand, grabbed the saltcellar and spooned salt onto the back of Wainwright’s tongue, trying to wash it down with water.
That worked, to the point that it did make Wainwright come to himself sufficiently as to swallow, but within a few moments a new spasm seized him and he belched everything up in a spew of salt, water … and blood. Not a lot of blood, but the sight alarmed William beyond anything he’d seen so far.
“Brandy,” he said urgently, and sat back on his heels. It was the most popular remedy for almost anything, maybe … He spotted the bottle on the floor and grabbed it, hearing Amaranthus’s cry even as his fingers touched the round black glassy curve.
“Not that one!” she said, and bent to snatch it from his hand. It slipped and rolled across the rug, spilling the last of its aromatic reddish drops and displaying its label: Blut der M?rtyrer.
Wainwright made a soft gurgling noise that faded into a sigh, echoed by the faint sputter of his loosened bowels.
There was a deep silence in the room, but beyond it, William heard the faint cries of distant gulls.
“Jesus,” he said softly. “The ship will have sailed by now.”
153
Special Delivery
I WAS IN THE garden, sowing turnips and talking to the bees, who were beginning to float through the air in ones and twos, following the elusive scents of early dogwood and redbud, when I heard the faint rumble of a wagon coming up the road to the dooryard. Then I heard an unmistakable yodeling hail, borne on the breeze.
“That’s John Quincy!” I said to the bees, and laying down my trowel I hurried to the house, rubbing dirt from my hands with my apron.
It was indeed John Quincy, beaming with delight.
“Brung you-all a special delivery, Missus,” he said, and pulled the canvas off the load in his wagon, revealing the excited faces of Germain, Joanie, and Félicité, where they had been hiding, packed in amongst his boxes and barrels like heads of cabbage.
“Grand-mère!” “Grannie!” “Grandma!” The children leapt out of the wagon and rushed to me, all talking at once. I was hugging everyone, overwhelmed by the gangly, long-legged bodies of the girls and the sweetly grubby scent of unwashed children. Germain stood back, smiling shyly, but then Jamie came round the corner of the house and shouted, “Germain!” and Germain broke into a run and leapt into his grandfather’s arms, nearly knocking him flat.