Without further danger

When I came back from looking for something to read I checked on him, and he was still awake, a little, so instead of taking the armchair I climbed onto the bed with the book I’d picked out. I leaned against the headboard with the fat tome on my lap, holding the book with one hand and stroking Curry’s hair with the other. “I’m going to read to you from a book called The Gentlewoman’s Housewifery,” I informed him. “According to the title page, this being a volume containing Scarce, Curious, and Valuable Receipts, For making ready all sorts of Viands—A REPOSITORY of USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, Adapted to meet the wants of GOOD WIVES AND TENDER MOTHERS—ALSO—Sundry Salutory Remedies of Sovereign and Approved Efficacy—AND—Choice Secrets on the Improvement of Female Beauty—COMPILED FROM OLD AND RELIABLE SOURCES.”

“Oh, is that all,” he muttered into the covers when I ran out of breath and stopped reading to exaggeratedly gasp in air. “Where did you even find this thing?”

“On the high bookshelf in the front room.”

“And how’d you reach that without breaking your neck?”

“Stood on a kitchen chair.”

“Liar,” he said without opening his eyes.

“Well. Stood on a crate, on a kitchen chair.”

“Mmphm,” he rumbled disapprovingly. “Don’t ever do that again, will you?”

“I just thought, I wanted to have a look at some of the stuff nobody ever gets down.”

“There’s a reason nobody ever gets it down. That book probably belonged to Nan’s grandmother’s grandmother’s great aunt or somebody.”

“But listen to the introduction for the all sorts of Viands section,” I said, then read, “it has not been my Endeavor to write these Receipts in a high polite Style, but rather to keep intact the choice Diction of those with whom they Originated, and to present those which illustrate in some Fashion or Other the Characteristics of the last Century, and not to hasten society’s accommodation to that Modern Abomination—the iron Cook-stove. I mean, can you imagine?” I asked him. “The horror of it—cooking with a stove. On the next page she condemns women with ambition.”

“That’s pretty rich considering how ambitious the scope of the book is. Remember when I said you could read the dictionary? You want to do that instead?”

“Oh,” I said, in a tone of mock apology. “If you want that I’m going to have to climb up on that crate again.”

He made a feigned grumbling sound into the blankets. “Will you keep doing that on my head? It feels nice.”

“Sure.” I extended my fingers and used the nails to lightly massage his scalp. Curry made an indistinct noise of satisfaction and wiggled a little to settle himself, then asked, “What section are you starting with?”

“I was going to say the section on female beauty, except I was flipping through just now and saw an anecdote for a remedy against something called wolf in the breast. Do you know what that is? I don’t. But anyway,” I said without giving him a chance to answer, “it’s one of these old books where the letter s looks like an f, so when I saw that the lady’s kind hufband fucked out the poison I had to stop and have a look—oh, shit, wow,” I broke off as I read a bit further.

“What?” Curry asked. “What came of fucking out the poison?”

“It says he lost all his teeth. Then it says, but without further danger.”

“Losing all your teeth seems danger enough.”

“Sure enough. Different times, Mag. The next one is, For Paines in ye Breast or, um, s-i-n-n-u-e-s. Does that mean sinews, you think?”

Curry made a shrugging movement under the covers. I realized I’d been distracted and accidentally left off scratching his head, and started again.

“Weare a Wilde Catts skin on ye Place grieved, is all it says, for that,” I told him.

“I meant to ask. Would you pop round to the chemist when they open and get me a wildcat’s skin? Gotta be big enough for my whole body,” Curry said, making me giggle.

“There’s a remedy for madness, but I don’t recognize any of the ingredients. Then one that says old cheese is the best remedy for trouble with one’s belly.”

“What if old cheese is what gave one’s belly the trouble to start?”

“It doesn’t say what then.”

“I want to hear the beauty remedies,” he requested. “Are they as dangerous as the medical advice?”

“Well, hang on a second,” I said. “This one here says that for your fever and aches I ought to have fed you as much raw bear grease as you could stand, then smeared you in the stuff and made you to lie naked on an untanned bear skin. It says this is a Gallant remedy.”

“Mm, I’m starving, Fuzzy—we got any raw bear grease down there?”

“Fresh out,” I told him, then winced when this made him laugh, and the laugh turned into another long coughing fit. “Sorry,” I said, once it settled and he was able to drag in his first careful breath without starting to hack again. “I’ll try not to set you off like that again—oh. This remedy says that if you rub a baby’s gums with hare’s brains then it will make their teeth cut easier. I’ll remember that when you have a baby someday.”

“When that day comes,” Curry wheezed, “I’m starting to think I might have a fatherly obligation not to let you anywhere near the child.”

I tousled his hair agreeably. “That’s fair, maybe. I’m looking at a section here for general advice and it says here that provided Brothers and Sisters go to-gether and are not allowed to go with bad Children, it is better a great deal for Boys and Girls to be picking Blackberries at six pennies a quart than to be wearing out their Clothes in senseless Play.”

“Is that your problem? You went with bad children?”

“Went with you, didn’t I?—there’s your answer.” I resumed scritching my nails over his scalp. “The very first advice in the beauty section is just for me—it says, should one be so afflicted as to have red Hair it may be dyed black in this manner—take a pint of the liquor of pickled Herrings, half a pound of Lamp black, and two ounces of the rust of Iron. Mix, boil and Strain them, then rub the liquid well into the hair. Anybody’s guess if you still have any hair after that, I mean.”

Curry made an amused noise. “I’m sure Nan will help you pickle some herrings, if you want to rid yourself of that dreadful curse.”

“Want me to shut up so you can rest?” I asked.

But he shook his head. “Maybe just read something less funny.”

“Then I’ll tell you later how I’m to rid myself of freckles. I saw a good long section of verse somewhere back. I’ll go read that to you.”

“I like your freckles,” Curry said sleepily. “Don’t get rid of them.”

“I won’t. I don’t know where in all the hells to get my hands on Dragyns vitriol, anyway.” I turned to the part where I’d seen the verse and began to read. It turned out to be a lengthy yarn all about some lady pure of body and spirit, and the only point at all to the whole story was that she nobly elected to perish rather than have sex with a man who was determined to have her but not to marry her.

By the time I got to this point Curry was slumbering in relative peace, if a bit wheezily, so I left off and finished it on my own in silence, just to make sure there wasn’t some interesting twist where she decided maybe it was stupid to fatally poison herself over a scenario that must have multiple remedies so long as its participants could reconcile themselves to a slightly less melodramatic narrative. But there wasn’t any twist, and the lady took some poison called aconite and lingered over her dramatic **** across three stanzas that to me dragged a bit.

I was disappointed by the ending, because it seemed to me that if she was so resolved to die, she really ought to have poisoned the man along with her own self, so that he wouldn’t have any more opportunities to make other poor ladies choose between honorable poisoning and moral ruination. I lay there a while thinking this over and wishing Curry had heard the end part so later I could find out if he agreed with me that if the author was set on writing tragedy they should really have wound things up with a ****-suicide instead.

Earlier, I’d thought once Curry was asleep I’d go find myself a bit of something to eat, except now I was so tired that nothing about that plan felt appealing. I made myself get up, being careful not to jostle him, and wash my hands again, then took my chaunceyhorse quilt and lay down next to him.