“Surely you have time to drink your tea?” said Rachel; but it seemed the hour was later than they thought, and at length, after some pother, Nick Kendall and the Pascoes departed in the brougham.
Louise alone remained.
“Since there are only the three of us,” said Rachel, “let us be informal.
Come to the boudoir.”
And smiling at Louise she led the way upstairs.
“Louise shall drink tisana,” she called, over her shoulder.
“I will show her my method.
When her father suffers from insomnia, if ever, this is the remedy.”
We all came to the boudoir and sat down, I by the open window, Louise upon the stool.
Rachel busied herself with her preparations.
“The English way,” said Rachel, “if there can be an English way, which I rather doubt, is to take peeled barley.
I brought my own dried herbs from Florence.
If you like the taste, I will leave some with you when I go.”
Louise rose from the stool, and stood beside her.
“I heard from Mary Pascoe that you know the name of every herb,” she said, “and have doctored the tenants here on the estate for many ailments.
In old days, the people knew more about these things than they do now.
Yet some of the old folk can still charm away warts and rashes.”
“I can charm more than warts,” laughed Rachel.
“Call in at their cottages, and ask them.
Herb-lore is very ancient.
I learned it from my mother.
Thank you, John.”
John had brought up the kettle of steaming water.
“In Florence,” said Rachel, “I used to brew the tisana in my room, and let it stand.
It is better thus.
Then we would go out into the court, and sit, and I would turn on the fountain, and while we sipped our tisana the water dripped into the pool.
Ambrose would sit there, watching it, for hours.”
She poured the water that John had brought into the teapot.
“I have a mind,” she said “to bring back from Florence, next time I come to Cornwall, a little statue, like the one above my pool.
It will take some finding, but I shall be successful in the end.
Then we can put him to stand in the middle of the new sunken garden we are building here, and make a fountain too.
What do you think?”
She turned to me, smiling, and she was stirring the tisana with a spoon in her left hand.
“If you like,” I answered.
“Philip lacks all enthusiasm,” she said to Louise; “either he agrees to all I say, or does not care.
Sometimes I think my labors here are wasted, the terrace walk, the shrubs in the plantation. He would have been content with rough grass, and a muddied path.
Here, take your cup.”
She gave the cup to Louise, who sat down on the stool.
Then she brought me mine, where I was sitting on the windowsill.
I shook my head.
“No tisana, Philip?” she said.
“But it is good for you, and makes you sleep.
You have never refused before.
This is a special brew.
I have made it double strength.”
“You drink it for me,” I replied.
She shrugged her shoulders,
“Mine is already poured.
I like it to stand longer.
This must be wasted.