Doing No Harm (21 page)

They all looked at him, which Douglas found flattering. And there was little Flora, drumming her fingers on the table. Her serious expression touched his heart. As young as she was, this child of cruelty and misfortune knew exactly what was at stake with the little whatchamacallits.

“I collected my shells from the seven seas,” he said, “and they were too charming to pitch overboard. I hauled them from the Baltic to Australia.” He looked at each face, startled at how dear they were becoming to him. “Seven Seas Fancies, since they aren’t really chimes. What do you think, Flora?”

He knew who was in charge. A glance at Olive’s smiling heterochromatic eyes told him she understood too.

“I like it. How do we—”

“I have some stiff paper in with my ordinary stationery,” Olive said. “If we cut it in strips, poke a wee …” She flashed those marvelous eyes at Douglas again. “… a little hole and then tie it on with yarn or twine, that will do. We can write the price on it too.”

The others nodded. “What should we charge?” Flora asked. “I know we should pay you for your shells. Without them, we couldn’t do this.”

Where is this enormous love coming from?
Douglas asked himself. He had never felt anything like it before, not in his life of war and wounds. He could no more charge Flora for his shells than fly.

“The shells are a gift, Flora,” he said simply. “I’ve never met a braver child than you.”

Other than Olive’s intake of breath and another kind look, the room was silent and the conspirators motionless. Slowly, Flora put out her hand. He took her small fingers in his, grasped her hand, and gave it a shake.

Her hand still in his, Douglas answered the question he thought he saw in her eyes. “I can get more exotic shells like these. I know a kind lady in Plymouth who has wanted to do me a favor for years.”

Flora swallowed and seemed to feel no inclination to let go of his hand. He knew there had never been a father in her life, that man who stood firm with the 93rd Sutherland Foot and died at the Battle of New Orleans. He tugged on her hand. “Flora, come sit on my lap.”

With no hesitation, she did precisely that, leaning back with a sigh that made him wonder how he could keep breathing, he who knew so much about respiration.

“What should we charge?” he asked and looked around. Everyone looked back at him. “Well?”

He realized that none of them, probably including Olive, had much experience with money. “Four pence,” he said decisively.

Flora and Tommy gasped. Even Duke, who had insinuated himself into the dining room thumped his tail. Olive seemed to be considering the matter, but mostly she was just smiling.

“Too much? Not enough?” he asked.

Again the blank stares.

“Four pence,” he repeated. “If the cost is too dear, no one will buy. We’re going to ask the innkeep at the Hare and Hound …” He looked at Olive.

“Jamie Dougall.”

“… Jamie Dougall, if we can display your fancies in his front window. The coaches all stop there.”

He felt Flora nodding against his chest and knew he had an ally. The little minx did understand business. “And we will suggest to Mr. Dougall that he sell Seven Seas Fancies for five pence, with him getting the extra pence for his troubles. What say you?”

“Aye,” they all said, and Duke thumped his tail harder.

“Very well. We’ll put five pence on the label. Flora, you need to find your little friend and show her what to do. Make her your business partner.” Another nod. “Tommy, can we send you to the bridge for more driftwood? Tell me no if your leg won’t manage it with crutches just yet, and I’ll go.”

“I’ll manage,” Tommy said. “Mrs. Aintree doesn’t need me ’til evening now.”

“I’ll cut those strips for the charms,” Olive said. She frowned. “I am no great shakes at penmanship, but the minister’s wife is good at lettering. I’ll take these to her.”

Tommy shook his head. “The minister wouldn’t even read a scripture at my wee sister’s burial.”

“Then we will give his wife a chance to make amends,” Olive said smoothly. “I believe in repentance, even if the minister is shaky on the matter.” She looked at Flora. “What do you think?”

“Minister’s wife.”

“Well, then? We all have assignments. Hop down, Flora, and get to it,” Douglas said. He certainly hadn’t forgotten his warrant officer voice of command.

Flora hopped down and handed Olive back one of the pence she had paid for her fancy. “Some fish stew for my gran and Sally MacGregor? If she doesn’t have the dress today, we can put these together at her cottage.”

Olive hurried to the kitchen for a can. Douglas followed her, knowing what he would find. Her marvelous face a study in control, she leaned on the kitchen work table, trying not to weep. He clapped his arm around her shoulder, gave her a squeeze, and said he was off to drill more holes in shells.

“You’ll appreciate this as few women would, I think,” he said, eager for a smile, if not a laugh. “I’m using the smallest drill in my cranial kit.”

She gasped and threw a dish towel at him, which Douglas Bowden counted as complete success.

“Imagine what I could do with my dental key.”

“You are a wretch.”

They reassembled at four o’clock, Flora carrying six Seven Seas Fancies. The minister’s wife had been more than willing to use her prettiest calligraphy on the labels, going the extra mile to scallop the edges of the paper. Even Tommy approved.

Olive dredged up some ribbon from her late mother’s sewing basket. “I never have time to mend anything,” she confessed. “Thank goodness I am easy on stockings.” She blushed and laughed out loud when Douglas covered his face with his hands and peeked between them.

Flora was smiling; so was Tommy. Douglas waited for the tail thump from Duke, and there it came. “We are quite a corporation,” he said.

Olive had already run the ribbon through the labels. She tied one on a fancy, and Flora watched and then finished the others. Maeve brought a pasteboard box from the pantry and Flora arranged the six ornaments.

“Here we go,” Douglas said. “I can carry the box. Olive, do you have time to accompany us to the Hare and Hound?”

“I’ll make time. We’re having some of your venison haunch tonight, Mr. Bowden,” she informed him. “It’s roasting in the Rumford. Flora, you will like it. Tommy, you may join us too.”

He shook his head. “Time for me to milk. C’mon, Duke.” He thumped handily to the door, adept on his crutches. He stopped and looked back and said with real pride. “Mrs. Aintree watched me milk Lucinda for a whole week, but now she lets me alone. She even fixes me supper and gives me enough for my mam and Mrs. Cameron.”

“We’re getting nicer here in Edgar,” Olive said after Tommy left. “I give you the credit, Mr. Bowden.”

There it was again, that feeling of another sort of pride, the kind that comes as part relief and part competence. “I’m just doing what I was taught,” he said. “You know, to help where I can, same as you.” He touched the fading green and yellow skin around his eye. “Better give the credit to that rascal Joe Tavish. If he hadn’t broken his boy’s leg, I never would have stopped in Edgar.”

“He’s still a rascal,” Olive said as she took her bonnet off the nail just inside the kitchen. “Now let’s see if we have any friends at the Hare and Hound.”

“At least the innkeeper doesn’t see Miss Olive Grant’s Tearoom as competition,” Douglas said as they walked up the street, Flora between them, her eyes serious and her hands knotted into fists with thumbs tucked inside.

“Mercy, no! You’ve seen my afternoon tea and coffee customers who all clear away before I start serving the less fortunate among us. Jamie Dougall has the commercial trade in town.”

Whatever the complexities of the argument, the Hare and Hound was empty, with the innkeep wiping off his already spotless counter. Douglas knew the coach he had taken from Dumfries arrived at midday, and another followed around six o’clock. He had eaten at the Hound once, a beef roast just the proper shade of pink, with fat laced through it, accompanied by the best dripped pudding he had ever eaten. He looked down at Flora and wondered if she could even comprehend such a meal. He doubted it.

“Mr. Dougall,” Olive began. “I believe the only person here you do not know is Flora MacLeod.” Olive knelt beside her. “We have a business proposition to make. Mr. Bowden?”

Douglas set the pasteboard box on the counter and took out one of the Seven Seas Fancies. He stared at it, trying to see the brave little trinket through the eyes of Edgar’s best businessman, certainly its most critical. He felt his courage head directly toward a lee shore.
Don’t you dare laugh at us
, he thought. It would ruin Flora. He glanced at Olive Grant, a woman he already knew who wore her heart pinned on her sleeve. Flora knew her as the kind lady. Her lips were set tight, too.

A slight smile on his face, Jamie Dougall turned the fancy over and gave it a little shake. The soft rustle made him nod his head. He looked down at Flora. “Did you make these?”

Her eyes wide with fear, Flora swallowed and stepped forward. “Aye, sir. Tommy Tavish gathered the driftwood, Mr. Bowden gave us his shells from every, every sea there is, and Miss Grant had some ribbon.” Her voice grew stronger as she warmed to her subject. She touched the catgut that held the shells in place. “Mr. Bowden says this is catgut, but he tells me he never uses real cats.” She looked up at Douglas for reassurance. “It’s not … it’s not …”

“… not the Royal Navy way, Mr. Dougall.”

Jamie Dougall laughed out loud and spoke over his shoulder. “Brighid, you’d better come out here. We have a business proposition you’ll want to see.”

A red-faced woman with a floury apron came out of the kitchen, tucking her stray hairs under her cap. She took in the sight before her, but her eyes rested the longest on Flora MacLeod.

Mrs. Dougall nodded while her husband explained the strange visit. She turned over the label. “Five pence?”

Flora nodded. “That way you can keep one pence out of all the Seven Seas Fancies we make.”

Mr. and Mrs. Dougall looked at each other. Flora must have known it was the critical moment. “You see, if we keep four pence, that’s enough for Gran and me to eat at Miss Grant’s Tearoom, and not feel …” Her voice trailed away. “Poor.” She brightened. “And there will be enough for my partner Sally MacGregor and her sister to each have a dress. They share one now.”

Flora stepped back, looked from Douglas to Olive, saw what she needed, and turned her face into Olive’s skirt to hide herself.

“I said too much,” she whispered when Olive dropped to her knees to hug the child.

“What you said was right and true,” Olive said. She stood up, her arm around Flora, whose face was still turned into her skirt.

Silence. Douglas reminded himself to breathe.

“We had a wee daughter once,” Mrs. Dougall said. She wiped her apron across her face, even though more flour clung to her cheeks now. She looked at her husband, and there was something in her eyes remarkably close to Flora’s eyes.

“We have enough room in the window for such a bauble,” Mr. Dougall said finally. “I’ll put up a little sign. We get enough visitors on the coach trade through here in the summer. There’s no guarantee in wintertime, but we’ll worry about winter later.”

When I’m far away from Edgar
, Douglas thought and hated himself for the reminder. “Thank you, Mr. Dougall,” he said.

Mr. Dougall lifted the hatch in the counter and came out to face them. He touched Flora on the shoulder, and she looked around, her eyes dark and worried.

“We’ll take all you can make, Miss Flora MacLeod, you and Sally MacGregor. And mind you, we don’t need the profit. You can keep all five pence.”

Flora burst into tears, which meant that Mrs. Dougall followed suit. Douglas looked at Olive, who was biting her lip to keep back her emotions. He swallowed down his own, grateful that none of his former patients he had bullied unmercifully to take care and follow instructions were there to point at him and hoot.

Mr. Dougall put his arms around Flora. “Business ladies don’t cry. Dry your eyes now. Make me five more and bring them over tomorrow. We’ll see how they sell. No promises, mind.”

Flora dried her tears on her plaid shawl, so many sizes too large that it had to be Gran’s. She nodded and held out her hand to the innkeeper, just as she had held out her hand to Douglas.

Jamie Dougall had no proof against that, the same as Douglas, hours before. His lips quivered, but he shook hands with Flora MacLeod.

Chapter 20