Page 10 of The Summer Country

Thursday morning found Emily and her cousins on the road to Peverills.

Emily half expected Dr. Braithwaite to discover an emergency at the hospital, possibly involving plague. But the plague, if plague there was, stayed within bounds, and aside from an admonition that they must be on their way early if they wished to avoid the heat of the day, Dr. Braithwaite voiced no further objections.

The sun pounded down on Mr. Turner’s barouche, reflecting off the road and the bright brass trappings of the carriage. After the gray of Bristol’s cobbles, the white of the road looked as though someone had dunked it into carbolic and scrubbed. The world had been scoured clean: from the bright-painted pastel houses to the white road to the brilliant scarlet leaves on the trees. Emily had to blink and blink again, like someone who had emerged from the gloom of the sickroom. It made halos around her eyes and around the heads of Adam and Dr. Braithwaite, who sat in the rear-facing seats, their backs to the coachman. A picnic basket, stuffed to bursting by Mr. Turner’s cook, rattled in tune to the rhythm of the horses’ hooves.

“It is very bright, isn’t it?” said Laura faintly. Her parasol was white lace, designed for the fugitive sunlight of Bristol summers. The starched fringes were already looking a bit wilted about the edges.

Emily furled her own sturdy green parasol and held it out, handle first. “Here. Take mine. It’s larger.”

“But what about you?”

“I have my bonnet,” said Emily. One of Cousin Lily’s, made over, the brim unfashionably deep. But like the outmoded pagoda sleeves on her dress, it was perfect for the weather. “You know I don’t mind if I’m burnt brown.”

“At least you don’t freckle,” put in Adam, who did. His hat was tipped down over his eyes. “Gran used to make me put lemon juice on my nose in summer. Much good it did me.”

Dr. Braithwaite nodded toward a passing carriage. “Some women wear masks made of white gauze. The sight can be discomfiting for visitors. It makes them look like ghosts.”

“Ah, ghosts.” Adam sat up straighter in his seat. “You did promise us a ghost story, Dr. Braithwaite. Or must we wait until we stand at twilight by the ruins?” Turning to his wife, he said, “What was that poem you made me read? Something about waning moons and demon lovers.” He pulled a face as he said it.

“Don’t be such a Philistine,” Emily scolded. She had always admired Laura’s love for the written word, even if she didn’t share it.

“Don’t tell me you read it,” retorted Adam.

“Well, no. But then, I never pretended to be poetical,” said Emily apologetically. She turned to Dr. Braithwaite. “And as for ghosts . . . As a man of science, I shouldn’t have thought you would give credence to ghost stories.”

Dr. Braithwaite settled back against the squabs, provokingly aloof. “There are more things in heaven and earth, they say.”

“Hamlet said, you mean,” retorted Emily. “I hardly think he was a reliable source.”

She surprised him into a grin. It made him look years younger, closer to her own age than she’d first imagined. “He did see ghosts.”

“Wasn’t he mad?”

“Only north by northwest.” As if regretting his descent into whimsy, Dr. Braithwaite said, “I haven’t heard of any demon lovers at Peverills, but there are caverns. Some of them are quite deep. You won’t want to go wandering about on your own. It’s not just the caves. There are snakes, manchineel trees . . .”

“You make it sound like the Garden after the fall.” Emily rather suspected Dr. Braithwaite of deliberately warning her off, retaliation for having to waste an afternoon of his time.

“If you eat any apples here, you’ll be meeting your maker sooner than you intend,” warned Dr. Braithwaite. “The Spanish call the fruit of the manchineel tree the apple of death.”

“There’s your Scripture for you, coz,” said Adam lazily. “Like the apple in the Garden, which brought death to the world.”

Dr. Braithwaite was not amused. “Only not quite so immediately. Or so painfully. Do not put anything in your mouth that wasn’t first packed in that basket.”

“I had thought the island was almost entirely under cultivation.”

“It is,” said Dr. Braithwaite bluntly. “That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. This isn’t Bristol, Miss Dawson.”

Did he think Bristol was without dangers? Emily bit her tongue, settling back against the luxurious velvet squabs of the coach. He was right, though. She might know how to stitch an arm slashed by a knife, but she didn’t know the first thing about snakebite.

The urban landscape of Bridgetown, so foreign in some ways, so familiar in others, was long behind them. The pastel houses by the side of the road had given way to an unbroken landscape of green fronds. The shoots swayed and whispered in the wind. It wasn’t just the sound but the smell that surrounded them; Emily could feel it clinging to her skin, like the residue of a sweet. It tickled against the back of her throat.

The foliage surrounded them, the road the only sign of human habitation. Emily thought she could hear voices, just, and the thwack of something heavy, but the rustling of the leaves in the wind filled her ears, distorting all other sounds. She knew that one could cross the whole island in less time than it took to get from her aunt’s house in Bristol to their summer lodging in Weston-super-Mare, but the mathematics of the distance fell away against the impression of vastness, of endless cane, endless sky.

They were less than an hour from Bridgetown, but they might have been the only people in the world, Noah and his family in the ark, bobbing about with no set destination.

“It does go on and on, doesn’t it?” said Emily, knowing she sounded ridiculous, but not sure how to put her feelings into words. She had grown up in a tiny house surrounded by tottering structures crammed with humanity, people pressing about on all sides. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about all this emptiness.

“This?” Adam wrinkled his nose at her. “This is no great distance. The last time I went to London . . .”