“It feels like three years since I snatched Tommy Tavish out of his mother’s arms,” he said. “Only two weeks? Olive, I’m just tired.”
She didn’t know Douglas Bowden well, but she doubted he meant to use such a petulant voice. “And you think I am not?” she wanted to say. Then to her embarrassment, she realized she had said precisely that. She opened her mouth again to apologize but then closed it. Edgar was her village. Its problems were her problems and she knew them well. She was wrong tothink anyone else would care as much as she did, even a surgeon.
They stared at each other. She looked at every wrinkle around his tired eyes, and the tightness of his lips, and the way he carried his shoulders so high. This was a man so tightly wound that she had no words for that much exhaustion.
They stood in the street and she watched his eyes as he looked around, almost as though anticipating where the next crisis would begin, trying to identify it and buy himself a few more seconds to cushion himself against whatever the crisis might be. Was this what it meant to go to war? She could probably apologize from now to the twentieth century for living in a shabby village in Scotland that needed him so badly. Douglas Bowden had already given every last ounce of his strength to a country at war for a generation; he was done with misery. What right did she have to complicate his life when all he wanted was peace and quiet?
“I am so sorry,” she began, “so sorry. I … We needed you and we took from you without even asking. We won’t ask any more.”
She did something then so forward, right there on the street. She kissed his cheek, patted his shoulder, and gave him a little push toward his rented house.
“Go to bed, Mr. Bowden. If I could sing you a lullaby, I would.”
He smiled at that, so Olive knew she hadn’t completely fractured whatever sort of friendship this was.
“You left out the part about warm milk and biscuits,” he said, the ragged edge to his voice receding now. “Did you ever have those?”
“Once or twice. My mother was the kind sort.” She put her hands on her hips when he continued to stand there. “I mean it. Go to bed. Flora is going home to plan world domination, for all we know. Tommy is busy in Mrs. Aintree’scattle bier. I will bring over some of your venison that you so kindly paid for, and see that Flora and Gran get some too.”
“The neighbors will talk, if you come bearing food.”
“Maeve will come with me. Seriously. Go on.” She turned on her heel and went into her tearoom, touching her metal chimes to set them in motion and make a little music that she suddenly needed. She closed the door behind her and didn’t look out the window until she was certain he had to be inside his own dwelling. And when she looked and found the street empty, she felt a little sad that he had done what she bade him do.
The noon meal was the big one, so Olive took her time with supper. Unable to resist a nibble at the crusty layer on the venison haunch, she cut off a corner, and then a little more, unable to remember something as delicious as meat, with potatoes and onions nestled shoulder to shoulder and treading broth thickened by a little flour.
Her few diners were wide-eyed with amazement. The fragrance must have traveled down the street because others came to the tearoom, people of modest means but still able to pay for their portions. The minister’s wife dropped by more of her exquisitely printed labels, sniffed the air, and stayed to eat.
“Poached deer?” the well-mannered lady asked, her eyes lively.
“No, I roasted it,” Olive teased back.
When the last customer left, after tipping his hat to her and hinting for venison sandwiches tomorrow with lots of sliced onions, Olive prepared a plate for Douglas Bowden. She saw no lights in the upstairs rooms, so she called Maeve away from the dishes.
“We’re taking food across the street,” she said. “When we’re done there, we’ll take some to the MacLeods.”
Douglas must have been watching for them, because he stood in his open doorway, his shirttail out, his neckcloth a distant memory somewhere. He took the food withthanks and set it on the table in the surgery waiting room, among a pile of books that appeared well-thumbed. What looked like strips of twine marked the pages.
“It’s oakum,” he said, following her gaze. “You know, the old rope that sailors unravel to use for plugging leaks.”
She didn’t, aware that she probably knew as little about ships as the bewildered crofters from the Duchess of Sutherland’s Highland holdings.
She looked at the book open on the table, with its diagrams of hands. “I haven’t tried to unfuse fingers,” he admitted. “I have no doubt I can do it, but it’s nice to consult the experts. I always study, no matter how many times I have done a procedure. Well, if time allows.”
“You’re supposed to relax, eat, and go to bed,” she reminded him as he sat down with no ceremony and started to eat, the book propped close by.
“Don’t you know it’s rag manners to order someone about in his own house?” he asked, his eyes tired still, but with humor lurking around his mouth. “You’re as troublesome as Napoleon.”
“I am a managing spinster,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, Flora has it right: you are a kind lady.”
Embarrassed, Olive glanced at Maeve, who appeared to be hugely enjoying this whole exchange. “And now we are going to see Flora and Gran. Maeve?”
Someone knocked on the door. When Douglas rose to answer it, Olive silently thanked her own wisdom in taking Maeve along on an errand that required no assistance. She didn’t need the person on the other side of the door to spread the sort of gossip that a village where nothing happens sometimes craved.
With relief, Olive saw Mrs. Aintree standing there, a small pitcher of milk in her hand. She gave it to Douglas. “For your dinner, Mr. Bowden.” The widow looked around. “Do you have a moment?”
“We were just leaving,” Olive said.
