She held it out to him. “I could wish we could take a bit of glass paper to it to smooth the rough surfaces, but I believe the rustic quality is what you were looking for.”
“Precisely. This is to be my set of chimes and that is what I wish. Flora, I need your complete attention now,” he told the child. “This is how you are going to pay me back for the surgery on Pudding.”
In less than a half hour, Flora proved to be adept at stringing shells. Her eyes full of accomplishment, she held up the chimes and gave them a gentle shake. “?’Tis magic,” she whispered.
“I believe it is,” Douglas agreed. “I am going to hang it outside my front door. Flora, this is magnificent.” He bowed, and she curtseyed and then giggled.
“I would like one as well,” Olive said. “I will pay you for mine.”
Flora stared at her.
Olive looked beyond Flora to Douglas, who held up three fingers. “Three pence,” she said.
Flora nodded, so solemn. After a moment of quiet consideration—who knew what a six-year-old thought about money?—she pointed to the three boxes of shells. “Which ones would you like, Miss Grant?”
Olive made her choice while Douglas hung his shells on a nail outside the front door. Flora let her help, and soon Olive had her own chimes. She handed three coins to Flora, who stared at them in her palm.
Olive closed her fingers over the little girl’s hand. “Put them in your apron pocket, and keep them safe.” She glanced at the surgeon, who nodded his approval. “Mr. Bowden, I have a good idea. Flora, would you make three more of these?”
“One for me and Gran, but who are the others for?” Flora asked. “Do you know, Mr. Bowden?”
Olive appreciated his fine instincts, where children were concerned. He squatted on his haunches so he was eye to eye with the girl. “It’s this way, Flora: surgeons haven’t much business sense. I believe Miss Grant has a lot of good ideas. She and I both think you can make these little baubles and sell them to traveling visitors.”
Flora was silent again. Olive could nearly hear the gears turning in her brain, but what she saw humbled her. Nothing in Flora’s face even hinted at discouragement; instead, there was barely suppressed excitement, an energy that seemed like a candle catching fire and growing taller. The child patted the coins in her pocket and gave the surgeon such a look of admiration.
“People will really buy them?” she asked him.
“They really will, Flora,” he assured her. He got up, sat in a chair, and motioned for her to sit in the chair next to him. “I have traveled to so many places.”
“Farther than Dumfries?” Flora asked. Her face grew solemn, all the light and energy gone. It was as though some cosmic hand had snuffed glowing hope. “I traveled too, only it was not fun.”
“My travel wasn’t fun either,” he said, and Olive saw his struggle to remain in control of his own emotions. She could tell he saw the sudden difference in Flora’s demeanor. “But some of those places were beautiful and I wanted to remember them. People do that when they travel. They want to take something home from their adventure. Your shells will be just the right touch.”
Flora nodded, still so serious. “They will pay me? They won’t just steal the chimes or break Mam’s mirror or drive off the cattle or … or kill my dog or shout at us?” She put her hands over her ears and scrunched down small, her breath coming faster and faster.
Olive grabbed Flora and sat the child on her lap, holdingher close. She took in Douglas’s shocked expression as he understood what was happening to this little one who was suddenly more his patient than Pudding ever could be. His arms went around them both as they sat close together on the two chairs. The only sound was Flora weeping.
“My poor, poor wee one,” Olive whispered, wondering if Flora had ever allowed herself the luxury of tears for her own cruel uprooting.
“Gran and I, we couldn’t keep Mam warm, not with the rain and the wind. And then that soldier! No one helped us! We needed a little help!”
Olive didn’t try to stop her own tears as she wished with all her heart that someone, anyone, had at least held a blanket over Flora’s dying mother.I would have, she thought, frustrated because it was such a small, puny thing.
“What have we done?” she said to Douglas.
“Us? Nothing,” he replied, speaking into her ear as Flora cried between them. “The better question is what are we going to do now?”
In a few minutes, Flora’s tears subsided into sniffs. Douglas disentangled himself and went into the next room, returning with squares of cotton. “Blow,” he commanded them, and they did.
With a sigh, Flora leaned against Olive, whose arms tightened around the child. “Gran says crying never solves anything.”
“Actually, it can, Flora,” Douglas said. He dabbed at Flora’s face and then Olive’s. “Whenever you feel sad, come here or visit Miss Grant if I am not here.”
“You don’t have a pill for this, do you?” Flora asked.
“I don’t, but you may weep all you wish. And when you’re done, we’ll sit here and make shell chimes.”
Flora nodded. She got off Olive’s lap and went to the table where she had laid out Olive’s shells. In another minute, she was humming to herself and stringing shells.
