‘Well, if you’re sure…’ He didn’t look convinced.
‘Derek, I really appreciate your not saying anything about Amy’s iPhone.’
Derek switched off the overhead light, pulled the door shut behind him, gave it a tug. ‘No problem. If you don’t tell anyone that I left the door unlocked.’
I smiled, marveling at my luck. ‘It’s a deal.’
When I got back to my bedroom, it was still dark. I leaned against the bed, pulled the iPhone out and checked the time: 4:25 a.m. I wandered over to the window, tapped Settings, and looked for a wireless signal, but there was none, rogue or otherwise, leaking into my bedroom. No way, then, to check for any emails from Paul. I’d have to do that in the morning from the privacy of the privy.
Following Amy’s example, I looked around for a good place to hide the iPhone, finally deciding on one of the blue and white Chinese vases that decorated my dresser. I slid the charger in first, followed by the iPhone.
The effort seemed to exhaust me.
I stumbled to the bed and fell against it, desperate to climb in and burrow under the covers, but inexplicably unable to lift myself up. Nausea continued to sweep over me, wave after wave. I sank to the carpet, grabbed the chamber pot and clutched it to my breast only seconds before vomiting into it all that remained of the supper I had eaten the night before.
‘That’s what you get for sleeping on a cold, hard floor,’ I heard my late mother say, and then everything went dark.
SIXTEEN
‘It’s nine o’clock on a Monday night, and ordinarily I’d be watching Dancing with the Stars. Last night, Hannah was sitting in the parlor in front of the fire reading Tom Jones out loud. As soon as I finish washing up the glassware, I’ll be going upstairs so I can hear the next chapter.’
French Fry, housemaid
As I lay under the covers in a sweltering fog, the noises of the house went on around me. The clatter of dishes being carried down to the kitchen for washing, the drumming of Gabe’s feet as he ran along the hallway, Melody’s voice – yelling – ‘Quiet, or you’ll wake up Mrs Ives. She’s sick, you dope.’ At one point, I thought I heard Amy playing the harpsichord, but I must have been dreaming, because Amy is gone.
When I opened my eyes again, the sun was just setting, casting long shadows across the floorboards of my room. A man stood at the foot of my bed. He was tall, fair, sturdily built, wearing a suit of dark blue wool, trimmed with gold braid. He peered at me curiously through a pair of wire-rimmed eyeglasses. ‘I’m Doctor Kenneth Glass, Mrs Ives. We’ve been worried about you.’
If I hadn’t been so out of it, I’d have been worried about myself, too. I opened my mouth to reply, but the only thing that came out was a croak. My tongue had grown fur, and was several sizes too big for my mouth.
I didn’t realize French stood at my bedside until she said, ‘Would you like a drink of water, Mrs Ives?’
I started to nod, but it hurt too much to move. I heard water trickling, followed by a cool, wet cloth being laid across my forehead. ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.
‘You can put it over there, Samuel,’ French said after a moment. She was speaking to a black man who had entered the room carrying a wooden box by a pair of rope handles. Samuel set the box down on my dressing table, then turned to Dr Glass and held out his arms expectantly. The doctor handed over his gold-handled cane and his tri-corned hat. Samuel set them down on the table next to the fireplace, then returned to help the doctor remove his elegant coat.
Dr Glass pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed. ‘Tell me how you feel,’ he said.
‘Headache,’ I mumbled. ‘Fever. Upset stomach. Probably the flu.’
In the shadows by the window, a red light winked. Oh, hell. Derek lurked there filming, or maybe it was Chad.
I considered the doctor’s well-groomed wig, his expensive wardrobe, the finely-wrought gold chain that ended at the watch peeking out of the pocket of his weskit. I began to panic. ‘Are you a real doctor, doctor, or do you just play one on television?’
Dr Glass smiled, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘I’m a real doctor, Mrs Ives, both in the eighteenth century and in the twenty-first.’ He lifted my wrist and took my pulse. ‘Hmmm,’ he muttered enigmatically, thereby confirming his credentials.
‘How come you don’t carry a stethoscope, then?’
Dr Glass was checking the lymph nodes in my neck, under my arms. ‘Remember when you signed the contract to be on Patriot House?’
I grunted in reply.
‘There’s a clause in that contract where you agree to be treated for minor medical problems using eighteenth-century medicines and techniques. Do you recall that, Mrs Ives?’
‘That contract was longer than Atlas Shrugged,’ I moaned. ‘I think I missed that chapter.’
‘Well, they didn’t have stethoscopes in colonial Annapolis. Didn’t have them anywhere until 1816, in fact. Looked like ear trumpets.’
Dr Glass asked French to hold up the sheet to shield me from the camera while he checked the lymph nodes in my groin. Then, he cautiously pressed his fingertips into my stomach.
I screamed in pain.
‘Sorry. This will be over in a minute. Take a deep breath now.’
I tried to comply, but it hurt too much. I felt tears rolling sideways down my cheeks.
‘Your stomach is distended, as you’ve undoubtedly noticed. But I see you’ve had your appendix removed, so appendicitis can be eliminated. What have you eaten lately?’
I tried to remember. ‘Nothing that the rest of the house hasn’t eaten.’
‘You could be suffering from verdigris, which is usually caused by eating tainted meat. Have you eaten any meat that’s turned green?’
Before I could answer, French sputtered, ‘We’d never serve meat that had turned green in Patriot House!’
Dr Glass held up a hand. ‘Fine, then, fine. Are you having diarrhea, Mrs Ives?’
Just thinking about having diarrhea in a house with no bathrooms made my stomach roil. I curled over. ‘I’m going to vomit!’
French held a basin while I retched, but there was nothing left in my stomach to hurl except nasty yellow bile. I fell back on my pillows, exhausted, as my brain bounced painfully back and forth against the inside of my skull. Even the roots of my hair ached.
‘How about melons? There’s been an outbreak of lysteria linked to cantaloupes grown out in Colorado.’
‘We grow cantaloupes in our greenhouse right here, Dr Glass,’ French informed him. ‘And before you ask, no night soil is involved.’
I closed my eyes for a moment, and my lids scratched hotly against my eyeballs.
‘What kind of treatment would an eighteenth-century doctor usually give in a case like this?’ French asked as she straightened the sheet and tucked it in around me like a cocoon.
Dr Glass had crossed to the washstand where Samuel stood at attention holding the pitcher. As he scrubbed his hands vigorously with soap, the doctor said, ‘Pretty much as I’m doing now, except for the hand washing part.’ He grinned back at French over his shoulder. ‘I must be a visionary. The connection between germs and disease isn’t going to be discovered for another half century or so.’ Samuel rinsed the doctor’s hands with water, pouring it over them into the wash basin, then held out a towel.
Dr Glass dried his hands, then returned to my bedside. ‘There could be something more serious going on, of course, such as a partial obstruction or blockage of the bowel. We’ll have to watch for that.’ He patted my hand where it lay on the sheet, limp and boneless. ‘The odds are, though, that it’s something viral and self-limiting.’
I grabbed the doctor’s wrist, using what little strength I had to pull him down until his ear was close to my lips. ‘Could I have been deliberately poisoned?’ I croaked.