An echo in the bone - Gabaldon Diana (читать книги TXT) 📗

“Ah,” I said, not really liking the notion of his going round for a cozy tete-a-tete with the elegant Frenchwoman who had once been his partner in the whisky-smuggling business but admitting the economy of the proposal. “And where would Andy Bell be at ten o’clock in the morning, do you suppose?”

“In bed,” Jamie said promptly. “Sleeping,” he added with a grin, seeing the look on my face. “Printers are sociable creatures, as a rule, and they congregate in taverns of an evening. I’ve never known one to rise wi’ the lark, save he’s got bairns wi’ the colic.”

“You’re proposing to roust him out of bed?” I asked, stretching my step to keep up with him.

“No, we’ll find him at Mowbray’s at dinnertime,” he said. “He’s a graver—he needs some light to work by, so he rises by noon. And he eats at Mowbray’s most days. I only want to see whether his shop’s burnt down or not. And whether the wee bugger’s been using my press.”

“You make it sound as though he’s been using your wife,” I said, amused at the grim tone of this last.

He made a small Scottish noise acknowledging the presumed humor of this remark while simultaneously declining to share in it. I hadn’t realized that he felt so strongly about his printing press, but after all, he’d been separated from it for nearly twelve years. Little wonder if his lover’s heart was beginning to beat at thought of being reunited with it at last, I thought, privately entertained.

Then again, perhaps he was afraid Andy Bell’s shop had burned down. It wasn’t an idle fear. His own printer’s shop had burned down twelve years before; such establishments were particularly vulnerable to fire, owing both to the presence of a small open forge for melting and recasting type and to the quantities of paper, ink, and similar flammable substances kept on the premises.

My stomach growled softly at thought of a midday dinner at Mowbray’s; I had very pleasant memories of our last—and only—visit there, which had involved some excellent oyster stew and an even better chilled white wine, among other pleasures of the flesh.

It would be a little time ’til dinner, though; laborers might open their dinner pails at noon, but fashionable Edinburgh dined at the civilized hour of three o’clock. Possibly we could acquire a fresh bridie from a street vendor, I thought, hastening in Jamie’s wake. Just to tide us over.

Andrew Bell’s shop was, luckily, still standing. The door was closed against the draft, but a small bell rang over it to announce our presence, and a middle-aged gentleman in shirtsleeves and apron looked up from a basket of slugs he was sorting.

“A good morning to you, sir. Ma’am,” he said cordially, nodding to us, and I saw at once that he was not a Scot. Or, rather, not born in Scotland, for his accent was the soft, slightly drawling English of the Southern colonies. Jamie heard it and smiled.

“Mr. Richard Bell?” he asked.

“I am,” said the man, looking rather surprised.

“James Fraser, your servant, sir,” Jamie said politely, bowing. “And may I present my wife, Claire.”

“Your servant, sir.” Mr. Bell bowed in return, looking rather bewildered but with perfect manners.

Jamie reached into the breast of his coat and withdrew a small bundle of letters, tied with a pink ribbon.

“I’ve brought ye word from your wife and daughters,” he said simply, handing them over. “And I’ve come to see about sending ye home to them.”

Mr. Bell’s face went blank, and then all the blood drained out of it. I thought he was going to faint for a moment, but he didn’t, merely grasping the edge of the counter for support.

“You-you—home?” he gasped. He had clutched the letters to his breast, and now brought them down, looking at them, his eyes welling. “How—how did she … My wife. Is she well?” he asked abruptly, jerking up his head to look at Jamie, sudden fear in his eyes. “Are they all right?”

“They were all bonny as doves when I saw them in Wilmingon,” Jamie assured him. “Verra much desolated by your absence from them, but well in themselves.”

Mr. Bell was trying desperately to control his face and his voice, and the effort reduced him to speechlessness. Jamie leaned over the counter and touched him gently on the arm.

“Go and read your letters, man,” he suggested. “Our other business will wait.”

Mr. Bell’s mouth opened once or twice, soundless, then he nodded abruptly and, whirling round, blundered through the door that led to the back room.

I sighed, and Jamie glanced down at me, smiling.

“It’s good when something comes right, isn’t it?” I said.

“It’s no made right yet,” he said, “but it will be.” He then pulled his new spectacles out of his sporran and, clapping them onto his nose, flipped up the counter flap and strode purposefully through.

“It is my press!” he exclaimed accusingly, circling the enormous thing like a hawk hovering over its prey.

“I’ll take your word for it, but how can you tell?” I came cautiously after him, keeping back my skirts from the ink-stained press.

“Well, it’s got my name on it, for the one thing,” he said, stooping and pointing up at something under it. “Some of them, anyway.” Leaning upside down and squinting, I made out Alex. Malcolm carved on the underside of a small beam.

“Apparently it still works all right,” I observed, straightening up and looking round the room at the posters, ballads, and other examples of the printing and engraving arts displayed there.

“Mmphm.” He tried the moving parts and examined the press minutely before reluctantly admitting that, in fact, it seemed in good condition. He still glowered, though.

“And I’ve been paying the wee bugger all these years, to keep it for me!” he muttered. He straightened up, looking balefully at the press. I had in the meantime been poking about the tables near the front wall, which held books and pamphlets for sale, and picked up one of the latter, which was titled at the top Encyclopedia Britannica, and below this, “Laudanum.”

Tincture of opium, or liquid laudanum, otherwise called the thebaic tincture, is made as follows: take of prepared opium two ounces, of cinnamon and cloves, each one drachm, of white wine one pint, infuse them a week without heat, and then filter it through paper.

Opium at present is in great esteem, and is one of the most valuable of all the simple medicines. Applied externally, it is emollient, relaxing, and discutient, and greatly promotes suppuration: if long kept upon the skin, it takes off hair, and always occasions an itching; sometimes it exulcerates it, and raises little blisters, if applied to a tender part: sometimes, on external application, it allays pain, and even occasions sleep: but it must by no means be applied to the head, especially to the sutures of the skull; for it has been known to have the most terrible effects in this application, and even bring death itself. Opium taken internally removes melancholy, eases pain, and disposes of sleep; in many cases removes hemorrhages, provokes sweating.

A moderate dose is commonly under a grain…

“Do you know what ‘discutient’ means?” I asked Jamie, who was reading the type set up in the form on the press, frowning as he did so.

“I do. It means whatever ye’re talking about can dissolve something. Why?”

“Ah. Perhaps that’s why applying laudanum to the sutures of the skull is a bad idea.”

He gave me a baffled look.

“Why would ye do that?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.” I returned to the pamphlets, fascinated. One of them, titled “The Womb,” had some very good engravings of a dissected female pelvis and internal organs, done from varying angles, as well as depictions of the fetus in various stages of development. If this was Mr. Bell’s work, I thought, he was both a superb craftsman and a very diligent observer.

“Have you got a penny? I’d like to buy this.”