The Fiery Cross - Diana Gabaldon [159]
My heart had begun to slow a little, but prickles of irritation still ran over my skin like nettle rash. I tried to shake it off, opening the big cupboard to assure myself that neither Mrs. Bug’s nor the children’s depredations had harmed anything truly important.
No, it was all right. Each glass bottle had been polished to a jewellike gleam—the sunlight caught them in a blaze of blue and green and crystal—but each had been put back exactly in its place, each neatly written label turned forward. The gauzy bundles of dried herbs had been shaken free of dust, but carefully hung back on their nails.
The sight of the assembled medicines was calming. I touched a jar of anti-louse ointment, feeling a miser’s sense of gratification at the number and variety of bags and jars and bottles.
Alcohol lamp, alcohol bottle, microscope, large amputation saw, jar of sutures, box of plasters, packet of cobweb—all were arrayed with military precision, drawn up in ranks like ill-assorted recruits under the eye of a drill sergeant. Mrs. Bug might have the flaws of her greatness, but I couldn’t help but admit her virtue as a housekeeper.
The only thing in the cabinet that plainly hadn’t been touched was a tiny leather bag, the amulet given to me by the Tuscaroran shaman Nayawenne; that lay askew in a corner by itself. Interesting that Mrs. Bug wouldn’t touch that, I thought; I had never told her what it was, though it did look Indian, with the feathers—from raven and woodpecker—thrust through the knot. Less than a year in the Colonies, and less than a month in the wilderness, Mrs. Bug regarded all things Indian with acute suspicion.
The odor of lye soap hung in the air, reproachful as a housekeeper’s ghost. I supposed I couldn’t really blame her; moldy bread, rotted melon, and mushy apple slices might be research to me; to Mrs. Bug, they could be nothing but a calculated offense to the god of cleanliness.
I sighed and closed the cupboard, adding the faint perfume of dried lavender and the skunk scent of pennyroyal to the ghosts of lye and rotted apples. I had lost experimental preparations many times before, and this one had not been either complex or in a greatly advanced state. It would take no more than half an hour to replace it, setting out fresh bits of bread and other samples. I wouldn’t do it, though; there wasn’t enough time. Jamie was clearly beginning to gather his militiamen; it could be no more than a few days before they would depart for Salisbury, to report to Governor Tryon. Before we would depart—for I certainly meant to accompany them.
It occurred to me, quite suddenly, that there hadn’t been enough time to finish the experiment when I had set it up to begin with. I had known we would leave soon; even if I got immediate good growth, I would not have had time to collect, dry, purify . . . I’d known that, consciously—and yet I had done it anyway, gone right on with my plans, pursuing my routines, as though life were still settled and predictable, as though nothing whatever might threaten the tenor of my days. As though acting might make it true.
“You really are a fool, Beauchamp,” I murmured, pushing a curl of hair tiredly behind one ear. I went out, shutting the door of the surgery firmly behind me, and went to negotiate peace between Mrs. Bug and Mrs. Chisholm.
SUPERFICIALLY, peace in the house was restored, but an atmosphere of uneasiness remained. The women went about their work tense and tight-lipped; even Lizzie, the soul of patience, was heard to say “Tcha!” when one of the children spilled a pan of buttermilk across the steps.
Even outside, the air seemed to crackle, as though a lightning storm were near. As I went to and fro from sheds to house, I kept glancing over my shoulder at the sky above Roan Mountain, half-expecting to see the loom of thunderheads—and yet the sky was still the pale slate-blue of late autumn, clouded with nothing more than the wisps of mare’s tails.
I found myself distracted, unable to settle to anything. I drifted from one task