Again the blank stares.
“Four pence,” he repeated. “If the cost is too dear, noone will buy. We’re going to ask the innkeep at the Hare and Hound …” He looked at Olive.
“Jamie Dougall.”
“… Jamie Dougall, if we can display your fancies in his front window. The coaches all stop there.”
He felt Flora nodding against his chest and knew he had an ally. The little minx did understand business. “And we will suggest to Mr. Dougall that he sell Seven Seas Fancies for five pence, with him getting the extra pence for his troubles. What say you?”
“Aye,” they all said, and Duke thumped his tail harder.
“Very well. We’ll put five pence on the label. Flora, you need to find your little friend and show her what to do. Make her your business partner.” Another nod. “Tommy, can we send you to the bridge for more driftwood? Tell me no if your leg won’t manage it with crutches just yet, and I’ll go.”
“I’ll manage,” Tommy said. “Mrs. Aintree doesn’t need me ’til evening now.”
“I’ll cut those strips for the charms,” Olive said. She frowned. “I am no great shakes at penmanship, but the minister’s wife is good at lettering. I’ll take these to her.”
Tommy shook his head. “The minister wouldn’t even read a scripture at my wee sister’s burial.”
“Then we will give his wife a chance to make amends,” Olive said smoothly. “I believe in repentance, even if the minister is shaky on the matter.” She looked at Flora. “What do you think?”
“Minister’s wife.”
“Well, then? We all have assignments. Hop down, Flora, and get to it,” Douglas said. He certainly hadn’t forgotten his warrant officer voice of command.
Flora hopped down and handed Olive back one of the pence she had paid for her fancy. “Some fish stew for my gran and Sally MacGregor? If she doesn’t have the dress today, we can put these together at her cottage.”
Olive hurried to the kitchen for a can. Douglas followed her, knowing what he would find. Her marvelous face a study in control, she leaned on the kitchen work table, trying not to weep. He clapped his arm around her shoulder, gave her a squeeze, and said he was off to drill more holes in shells.
“You’ll appreciate this as few women would, I think,” he said, eager for a smile, if not a laugh. “I’m using the smallest drill in my cranial kit.”
She gasped and threw a dish towel at him, which Douglas Bowden counted as complete success.
“Imagine what I could do with my dental key.”
“You are a wretch.”
They reassembled at four o’clock, Flora carrying six Seven Seas Fancies. The minister’s wife had been more than willing to use her prettiest calligraphy on the labels, going the extra mile to scallop the edges of the paper. Even Tommy approved.
Olive dredged up some ribbon from her late mother’s sewing basket. “I never have time to mend anything,” she confessed. “Thank goodness I am easy on stockings.” She blushed and laughed out loud when Douglas covered his face with his hands and peeked between them.
Flora was smiling; so was Tommy. Douglas waited for the tail thump from Duke, and there it came. “We are quite a corporation,” he said.
Olive had already run the ribbon through the labels. She tied one on a fancy, and Flora watched and then finished the others. Maeve brought a pasteboard box from the pantry and Flora arranged the six ornaments.
“Here we go,” Douglas said. “I can carry the box. Olive, do you have time to accompany us to the Hare and Hound?”
“I’ll make time. We’re having some of your venison haunch tonight, Mr. Bowden,” she informed him. “It’s roasting in the Rumford. Flora, you will like it. Tommy, you may join us too.”
He shook his head. “Time for me to milk. C’mon, Duke.” He thumped handily to the door, adept on his crutches. He stopped and looked back and said with real pride. “Mrs. Aintree watched me milk Lucinda for a whole week, but now she lets me alone. She even fixes me supper and gives me enough for my mam and Mrs. Cameron.”
“We’re getting nicer here in Edgar,” Olive said after Tommy left. “I give you the credit, Mr. Bowden.”
There it was again, that feeling of another sort of pride, the kind that comes as part relief and part competence. “I’m just doing what I was taught,” he said. “You know, to help where I can, same as you.” He touched the fading green and yellow skin around his eye. “Better give the credit to that rascal Joe Tavish. If he hadn’t broken his boy’s leg, I never would have stopped in Edgar.”
“He’s still a rascal,” Olive said as she took her bonnet off the nail just inside the kitchen. “Now let’s see if we have any friends at the Hare and Hound.”
“At least the innkeeper doesn’t see Miss Olive Grant’s Tearoom as competition,” Douglas said as they walked up the street, Flora between them, her eyes serious and her hands knotted into fists with thumbs tucked inside.
