Chapter Nineteen
“It is important that you not overexert yourself,” Dr. Wilstead told Nia as he walked attentively at her side toward the drawing room. “But it is also important that you move about— sedately , mind—keep your spirits up, take some fresh air each day. The trickiest aspect of that will be striking the appropriate balance between rest and movement.”
“How does one go about discovering that balance?” To Eve’s relief, Nia didn’t sound as exhausted as she had before the doctor’s arrival, though she was certainly not her usual self.
“Unfortunately,” Dr. Wilstead said, “usually by getting the balance wrong and paying the consequences.”
“I do not like that methodology,” Nia said.
“I don’t blame you,” was the doctor’s kindly spoken response.
Eve plumped a cushion on the sofa, placing it in what she hoped was the exact right spot to give her sister optimal comfort. Eve had felt so helpless that morning, hearing the doctor diagnose Nia’s illness as rheumatic fever, worrying over what that meant, hoping Duke was right that the Greenberrys would pay the doctor’s fee whilst simultaneously feeling guilty about that.
Dr. Wilstead saw Nia seated and looked her over, no doubt checking her coloring and the clearness of her eyes and all the other symptoms doctors were forever studying in their patients.
“How long is this likely to last?” Eve asked.
“With rheumatic fever, duration is difficult to predict. Many people feel markedly better in only a few weeks.”
Hearing the words rheumatic fever fall from Dr. Wilstead’s lips in the room she shared with Nia had driven fear directly to her heart, but this declaration gave her hope.
Then he snatched it away by adding, “Many others are afflicted for years.”
For years. Nia might be ill for years. Heavens above.
To Nia, Dr. Wilstead said, “You are young but not a child, and healthy. And by your own recollection, you have not had rheumatic fever in the past. All of those things are marks decidedly in your favor.”
But was it enough?
“I am in a rather lot of pain,” Nia said, and her expression revealed the truth of that.
“I have sent down to the Fairfield kitchen a recipe for a very effective tisane that should relieve much of that without making you sleepy. Keeping your spirits up is important. At night, you can take the powders I will have delivered to your room to help you sleep.”
“But I don’t have to remain in my room for the entirety of the house party?” Nia pressed.
The doctor shook his head. “Your activity will need to be limited, but it needn’t be curtailed entirely. Rest whenever you feel you need to. I will be here at Fairfield for the next few days to make certain you are doing as well as you ought. After that, I will return as needed to check on your progress.”
“Thank you, Dr. Wilstead,” Nia said.
As he turned toward the door, he motioned for Eve to walk with him. “She is doing well,” he said in low tones, “but rheumatic fever is not to be taken lightly. Should she show any signs of heart distress, I am to be sent for immediately, even if I have already returned to Epsom.”
Heart distress.
For years.
Eve nodded, doing her utmost to hide the worry that surged at his firmly delivered instructions. Everyone knew rheumatic fever could cause tremendous damage to the heart, but no one seemed to know how to predict if it would or how to prevent it from happening.
Keeping her voice low, she asked Dr. Wilstead, “You said she could be ill for years. Is Nia likely, then, to need a doctor’s care after we return to Ireland?”
“When are you planning to return?”
“In about two weeks.”
Dr. Wilstead nodded. “She will not be recovered by then. She might still be too unwell to travel.”
Eve summoned the closest expression she could manage to calm and collected, while inwardly she was anything but. “I’ll not risk her health by forcing her to travel, but if the house party has ended...” She didn’t have an immediate answer to the dilemma.
“If you are unable to extend your time at Fairfield,” he said, “there are several very reputable inns in Epsom that you could remove to while she continues her recovery. I can look in on her there.”
They couldn’t afford to pay for the doctor’s services or the medicines Nia needed, let alone pay for a drawn-out stay at an inn. Eve would have to find an answer to that difficulty should Nia not be recovered enough to return home. And since the doctor didn’t believe Nia would be truly well before returning to Ireland, there would be continued expense after they were at Tulleyloch.
How were they ever to manage it?
“How likely do you think it is that Nia will be ill for years upon years?” Eve asked the doctor.
“I think it more likely that she’ll recover in a few weeks and emerge quite healthy and not terribly worse for the experience.” A bit of warning entered his expression. “I, of course, cannot guarantee that.”
Eve nodded. “I understand.”
She wished Duke were here. He’d not merely told her that she could talk with him about her worries and uncertainties, but he’d also shown himself to be a wonderfully kind and considerate listener. He was reassuring and comforting. Just being with him helped her feel better no matter what was weighing on her.
Doing her utmost to wipe the worry from her expression, she returned to where Nia sat on the sofa. “If that doctor hadn’t said you were to join in a bit of the revelry to come, I think I would have demanded a different man of medicine be summoned.”
Nia’s smile helped ease some of Eve’s worry. It wasn’t as broad or easy as it usually was, but neither was it weak nor forced. “I don’t know how much ‘revelry’ I will manage, but I would be cruelly disappointed not to at least be permitted to watch.”
“Shall we demand that Charlie undertake some very diverting mimicry for your entertainment?” Eve suggested. Charlie had a shocking knack for portraying in mannerisms and voice a great many people with incredible accuracy.
“We should demand that everyone do all I ask for my entertainment.”
“Excellent plan. I shall implement it immediately.”
They laughed, Nia lightly, Eve with an eye on her sister. A moment’s silence descended on them.
“Do you think Dr. Wilstead was making light of the situation?” Nia asked after a moment. “I have never felt this ill before. Not like this. I’m—I’m a little worried.”
Eve took her hand. “I think he was being entirely forthright. There is a chance that you’ll grow more ill or have a prolonged recovery, but he doesn’t seem convinced that either is inevitable.”
Nia pulled her shawl a bit more tightly around her shoulders. “But Dr. Wilstead is staying here at Fairfield for several days. I don’t think he would take such precautions if he was confident in my recovery.”
It was a very logical evaluation, yet Eve didn’t think Dr. Wilstead had been dishonest. “The fact that he hasn’t said he will remain for weeks tells me he knows you will feel quite unwell for a few days but expects you to greatly improve after that.”
Nia leaned a little against her. “I don’t want to be excluded from the party.”
“It would hardly be a party without you.”
Artemis Jonquil had ever been one to make a dramatic entrance. That she glided into the room just as Eve made that declaration further proved the fact. “Nia most certainly will be part of this house party, even if we have to hold the entirety of it at the foot of her bed.”
“That’d be terrible crowded, that would.” Nia’s bit of humor did much to reassure Eve. Somehow, they would weather this unexpected storm.
Charlie poked his head into the room. “A carriage is coming, Artie.”
“It must be Lisette.” Artemis turned bright, hopeful eyes on them. “Are you equal to rushing with us to the windows in the entryway to peek out like vagabonds?”
“I am always eager for vagabondish peeking,” Nia said.
They walked sedately, on account of Nia’s aching body, from the drawing room to the entryway. All the other Huntresses, aside from the one they were anticipating, and the entirety of the Pack were gathered at the two tall windows, looking out. Even Duke, who did not always participate in their ridiculousness, was doing so now.
Colm fetched a chair and set it at one window, motioning for Nia to sit there. Eve silently chastised herself for not having thought of that. Thank the heavens Nia had so many people here who cared about her.
Into the absurdly immature tableau, Mr. and Mrs. Greenberry arrived.
“I would be shocked,” Mr. Greenberry said, “but this is precisely the sort of thing our friends would have done at your ages.”
“We believe the final Huntress has arrived,” Artemis said. “A carriage has stopped in front of the house.”
“I hate to disappoint you,” Mrs. Greenberry said, “but I know whose carriage that is, and ’tisn’t who you think.”
As one, the group turned and looked at her, but she offered no further explanation. The Greenberrys stepped through the door as a footman opened it, and walked out to meet this mysterious new arrival. No longer satisfied with just watching the goings-on, Eve, as she suspected the rest of the group was doing, strained her ears to hear what was said as well.
The carriage door was opened, and a lady was handed out. She was of the same generation as the Greenberrys, very elegantly and tastefully attired. She was pretty in a graceful way.
Next, a gentleman, also of the Greenberrys’ generation, emerged from the carriage. His brand of elegance tended more toward simplicity, but it suited him perfectly. Who was this striking couple?
The newly arrived lady said something to Mrs. Greenberry in French. Though Nia had something of a grasp of that language, she was nowhere near proficient.
In a low whisper, Duke said, “She asked, ‘Has she arrived?’”
Eve glanced back at him, not having realized he’d come and stood near her. She smiled quickly at him, her heart leaping at the chance to see his gorgeous eyes light up with a smile of his own. They didn’t, but he also didn’t look upset.
Duke continued his translation. “My aunt just replied, ‘Not yet, but she is expected at any moment.’”
The elegant gentleman also spoke in French.
“Then, we are not too late?” Duke translated. His uncle’s response to that, he explained was, “You are not. And it wasn’t—” He had to think for a moment. “Nothing was said to her.” The new arrivals looked immediately relieved.
“ Merci , Penelope,” the French lady said. “ Merci beaucoup , Niles.”
Eve didn’t need help understanding that.
When his aunt replied, Duke took up the translation once again. “I only wish we could have found a means of arranging this sooner.”
Arranged what sooner? It was all so mysterious.
The Frenchman spoke to Mr. Greenberry. Duke once again translated. “It is better that this is... done later than we hoped than... for it not to be done at all.”
Eve leaned a bit back, so she could speak to Duke. “Translator?”
He looked confused.
“Your dreamed-of future is as a translator, isn’t it?”
He allowed only the tiniest and briefest show of amusement. “No.”
“Then, perhaps as a solver of mysteries. Have you been able to sort what it is they are talking about?”
“I haven’t.” His tone was a little distant, a little impersonal. Odd.
“Are they talking about Lisette?” Daria asked from her place of watching, her husband, Toss’s, arms around her. “Lisette is French.”
“And soon to be arriving,” Gillian added.
The Greenberrys walked beside their French friends back to the doors and into the entryway. The new arrivals spotted the crowd of curious onlookers and, far from shocked, laughed.
“They are like our Gents, are they not?” the French lady said, shifting seamlessly to English.
“And our Gents’ ladies,” the gentleman Eve assumed to be her husband replied.
“Monsieur Fortier.” Toss stepped out from among them and shook the gentleman’s hand enthusiastically. “I didn’t realize you were going to be at Fairfield.”
“A pleasure to see you again, Mr. Comstock.”
Eve had heard of the Fortiers. They had helped Toss sort out a difficulty with his brother and his chosen profession. They had invested in a property of Gillian and Scott’s, allowing it to be brought to rights without draining what little funds the young couple had. And no one seemed to know why they would do so much for people they didn’t know and to whom, as far as those beneficiaries could tell, they had no connection.
“These are the Huntresses, oui ?” Mme Fortier said, watching them all with a fondness not usually shown to complete strangers.
“ Oui .” Artemis stepped forward. “All of us, save one.”
Everyone’s eyes pulled wide as Mme Fortier wrapped her arms around Artemis in a hug that could be described only as motherly. “ Merci beaucoup, Mme Jonquil. Merci. Merci. ”
Artemis looked utterly baffled. What was happening?
Eve turned to Duke, hoping he might have some explanation, but he wasn’t standing near her any longer and wasn’t looking at her.
“ Merci to all of you wonderful Huntresses.” Mme Fortier stepped away from Artemis as she looked over the group with obvious gratitude. But gratitude for what? No one else seemed to have any better idea than Eve did.
M. Fortier spoke next. “I can tell all of you, we did not see another carriage on the road this morning, meaning the arrival you are awaiting is not likely to reach Fairfield immediately.”
With a huzzah, Charlie declared, “To the drawing room, friends!” then rushed in that direction as if storming a fortified city.
“He is very like his father was,” Mme Fortier said.
Charlie stopped his forward march, spun around, and bowed deeply to the Fortiers before resuming his energetic exit.
With a smile that was somehow both amused and sad, M. Fortier said, “So very like him.”
The Pack and Huntresses followed Charlie’s path. Eve helped Nia stand, and Colm quickly saw to the chair Nia had been using. Duke passed by on his way to the drawing room.
“I can only imagine what mischief Charlie will get into this next fortnight,” Eve said to Duke.
“We’ll soon find out, I suppose.” The response was not unfriendly, but he kept going rather than walking with her as she had fully expected him to.
“Is Duke upset with you?” Nia asked as they slowly walked toward the drawing room.
“I don’t know.” In her confusion, that was all Eve could manage to say. “I don’t know.”