A Breath of Snow and Ashes - Diana Gabaldon [87]
My hands were damp with excitement and nervousness, lest I drop the precious thing. I clutched a fold of my apron round it, and turned to and fro, debating where best to put it. I hadn’t expected one so large; I should need Bree or one of the men to make me a suitable support.
“It has to go over a small fire,” I explained, frowning at the little brazier I used for brewing. “But the temperature is important; a charcoal bed may be too hard to keep at a steady heat.” I placed the big ball in my cupboard, safely behind a row of bottles. “I think it will have to be an alcohol lamp—but it’s bigger than I thought, I’ll have to have a good-size lamp to heat it. . . .”
I became aware that Bobby was not listening to my babbling, his attention having been distracted by something outside. He was frowning at something, and I came up behind him, peering through the open window to see what it was.
I should have guessed; Lizzie Wemyss was out on the grass, churning butter under the chestnut trees, and Manfred McGillivray was with her.
I glanced at the pair, engaged in cheerful conversation, then at Bobby’s somber countenance. I cleared my throat.
“Perhaps you’d open the other crate for me, Bobby?”
“Eh?” His attention was still fixed on the pair outside.
“Crate,” I repeated patiently. “That one.” I nudged it with my toe.
“Crate . . . oh! Oh, aye, mum, to be sure.” Pulling his gaze from the window, he set about the task, looking glum.
I took the rest of the glassware from the open crate, shaking off the straw and putting globes, retorts, flasks, and coils carefully into a high cupboard—but I kept an eye on Bobby as I did so, pondering this newly revealed situation. I hadn’t thought his feelings for Lizzie were more than a passing attraction.
And perhaps it was no more than that, I reminded myself. But if it was . . . Despite myself, I glanced through the window, only to discover that the pair had become a trio.
“Ian!” I exclaimed. Bobby glanced up, startled, but I was already heading for the door, hastily brushing straw from my clothes.
If Ian was back, Jamie was—
He came through the front door just as I barreled into the hallway, and grabbed me round the waist, kissing me with sun-dusty enthusiasm and sandpaper whiskers.
“You’re back,” I said, rather inanely.
“I am, and there are Indians just behind me,” he said, clutching my bottom with both hands and rasping his whiskers fervently against my cheek. “God, what I’d give for a quarter of an hour alone wi’ ye, Sassenach! My balls are burst—ah. Mr. Higgins. I, um, didna see ye there.”
He let go and straightened abruptly, sweeping off his hat and smacking it against his thigh in an exaggerated pantomime of casualness.
“No, zur,” Bobby said morosely. “Mr. Ian’s back, as well, is he?” He didn’t sound as though this was particularly good news; if Ian’s arrival had distracted Lizzie from Manfred—and it had—it did nothing to redirect her attention to Bobby.
Lizzie had abandoned her churn to poor Manfred, who was turning the crank with an air of obvious resentment, as she went laughing off in the direction of the stable with Ian, presumably to show him the new calf that had arrived during his absence.
“Indians,” I said, belatedly catching what Jamie had said. “What Indians?”
“A half-dozen of the Cherokee,” he replied. “What’s this?” He nodded at the trail of loose straw leading out of my surgery.
“Oh, that. That,” I said happily, “is ether. Or going to be. We’re feeding the Indians, I suppose?”
“Aye. I’ll tell Mrs. Bug. But there’s a young woman with them that they’ve fetched along for ye to tend.”
“Oh?” He was already striding down the hall toward the kitchen, and I hurried to keep up. “What’s the matter with her?”
“Toothache,” he said briefly, and pushed open the kitchen door. “Mrs. Bug! Cá bhfuil tú? Ether, Sassenach? Ye dinna mean phlogiston, do you?”
“I don’t think that I do,” I said, trying to recall what on earth phlogiston was. “I’ve told you about anesthesia,