There was a feeding cup with a spout, another of Mrs. Pryor’s sick-room aids. Persis used that to give him a drink, and he swallowed thirstily. She dared to touch the skin on his forehead—it was damp and not, she thought, entirely from the toweling. Perhaps the fever was breaking! Then she discovered that his eyes were fully open and he was gazing up at her, the scowl gone, just puzzlement mirrored in them now.
“You are not—Lydia—” His voice was a harsh whisper.
“I am Persis Rooke,” she returned and allowed her fingers to slide down to cover his mouth. “I was on the Arrow. Now rest, Captain Leverett, you have been hurt and have a fever.”
But he did not close his eyes she noticed as she turned away from setting the feeder back on the table, and drew again the bed net. His eyes, dark as they had seemed earlier, were really blue, not the light, more shallow blue of Lydia’s—rather like the blue of the deep ocean he had set himself to master.
A thought struck her. “Do you want Lydia?”
For the first time his lips shaped a shadow of a smile. And even as faint as that was, the change in his face startled Persis. She had seen him angry as he had been on board the Arrow, she had seen him handle what must have been a daunting duty when he officiated at the burial of Uncle Augustin, but she had never seen the least hint of lightness or youthfulness in his expression before.
“Lydia,” his voice still was hardly above that whisper, “is not well versed in sick-room attendance.”
“She probably has never had to face it before,” Persis returned tactfully.
“And you have?”
“My uncle was ill for many weeks before we left New York,” she answered composedly. “Molly, Shubal, and I were all he had to depend upon.”
“Molly—” Once more he looked puzzled. “Oh, the one who pours a draft down you whether or no. She reminds—me—of—my old nurse—”
His eyelids were drooping, his voice slurred away into the even breathing of a sleeper. Just then Mrs. Pryor came in, carrying a tray piled with various bowls, napkins, and armed with such an air of purpose that Persis did not go back to her chair.
“I think his fever has broken,” she reported.
Mrs. Pryor made her own examination. “Praise the Lord, and it has! Did he wake?”
“Only for a moment or two. I gave him a drink of water.”
“Good enough. We shall get some broth into him today.” The housekeeper bustled about, changing the things on the night table for those she had brought. with her. Persis offered to take the discarded bowls and cloths away.
“Kind of you, Miss Rooke. Then I suggest you lie down. You look a little peaked.” It was plain that Mrs. Pryor had already dismissed her.
Persis put the tray on a table in the upper hall, to be picked up by Sukie later, and went to what was now her chamber. She found Molly there and also two cans of water, one hot, one cool, waiting.
“He’s better. The fever broke-”
Molly nodded. “He’s a fighter that one, just like Mr. Augustin. Only he doesn’t have the weight of years on him to hold him down. Miss Persis, you look worn out. Take a nice sponge bath now and get to bed. I’ll bring you up some toast and tea and then you just sleep and-”
She had been folding aside garments in the lower drawer of the chest apparently hunting a fresh night rail. Now she straightened up, something else in her hands.
“Miss Persis, whatever in the world is this? I’ve never seen it before!”
Persis took one long look and could not believe her own eyes. The fan—the opal-eyed fan!
“Open it,” she demanded.
Molly shook her head. “It doesn’t open. The sticks seem all stuck together like—”
Then it was the fan she had found—the one she re-buried! There could not be two such around. Was she haunted by the thing?
“It isn’t mine, Molly,” she forced calm into her voice. “Put it back in the bottom drawer. Someone must have forgotten and left it there. I’ll ask Miss Lydia about it.”
But all the time she sponged her tired, hot body, put on the night rail Molly had laid out for her, and then crawled into bed, she was seeing that fan as Molly had held it. Who had known that she found it—only that Indian Askra. And why would she dig it up again and hide it in Persis’ room? The girl was afraid, afraid enough to wish that Molly would hurry back with the tea and toast she had promised. She wanted to ask Molly to stay with her. But what reason could she give? She had no proof except her own word that she had indeed found the fan in the sealed box (she wondered what had become of that) and reburied it again, because just to hold it made her frightened of it.
Settled back against her pillows she kept her eyes on the drawer into which Molly had dropped the fan—if it were a fan at all. She almost expected to see that drawer inch open, the black carving with the staring eyes of the opal rise into her sight again.
She would take it out the first chance she got and throw it straight into the canal, making very sure that no one, especially Askra, saw her do it. That was the answer and, having made that decision, Persis’ mind was a little more easy.
She found when Molly did arrive with the tray that she was not very hungry after all. But there were some slices of fresh melon, thinly slivered and made tasty by a sharp new vinegary sauce which pleased her better than the conventional toast and tea. Then Molly drew the shutters a little to keep out the sun and Persis settled back, sure that she could not sleep, only to do so.
It was perhaps the afternoon heat which aroused her, for she turned uncomfortably in bed, realizing that her night rail was damp on her body and her hair plastered dankly to her forehead. If there was any sea wind now—and certainly the gale had left them long since—the shutters kept that out along with the punishing sun.
There was no going back to sleep again. Persis sat up in the huge bed and rubbed her forehead, brushing away her hair. She licked her lips experimentally and tasted the salt of her own perspiration. The memory of Mrs. Pryor’s explanation of the dark and rising water under the kitchen, that it was at times used as a bathhouse, somehow crept into her mind. But a second memory of the turtles quickly banished it. She had made do with a sponge bath before, she could certainly do so again.
As she slipped over the edge of the wide bed she looked toward that drawer in the chest. Was it or was it not open a fraction? She did not in the least want to go and make sure. But there was still, she discovered, a half-filled jug of water on the commode and that she used with vigor, sprinkling her body thereafter with the lavender water which might not be cooling the least but which made her feel fresher.
Molly had laid out clean clothing. There must be a great deal of washing necessary on Lost Lady. Certainly no lady in this heat could use the same body linen a second day. And now she was hungrier than she had been earlier. Thoughts of ham and biscuits, of some of the baked fish and fruit Mam Rose seemed to have a fine hand at serving filled her mind.
Her dress was her own—a cream muslin with small, meticulously printed moss roses scattered across it. And the style of it was far more staid than the lace and ruffles which Lydia affected and which did become her golden prettiness.
Lydia—she had not come but once to see her brother and then, viewing him flushed with fever, deliriously calling to his men, she had beat such a hasty retreat that she might never have entered the door of his chamber at all. She had looked both sick and scared. There were people like that, Persis thought, as she brushed her hair carefully. They could not face up to any illness or hurt. But though she knew they existed, Persis had never been able to understand them. What had Lydia been doing all these days? Certainly not running the house, for she had early given evidence that she left that strictly to Mrs. Pryor.
The door behind her opened softly and slowly. Persis seeing that movement in the mirror felt a small lurch of fear. She had not forgotten the strange fan, no matter how hard she had tried to put that firmly out of her mind until the time came to deal with it.