Beth’s frown left her. “I’m sure you are right. I will have Thomas repair that.”
“Good idea,” Faith said as she held the door open for Beth. As she left, Faith stuck out her foot and rubbed out a little patch of pink chalk on the floor. Yesterday she’d seen Zoë wearing a ribbon in her hair just like the one that Beth had found in the tower room. That, combined with the chalk, told her that Zoë had been in there. But how? she wondered. She wouldn’t put it past that painter who was never out of Zoë’s sight to have stolen the key from Beth and used it. And what did they do once they were inside the tower? That didn’t take much guesswork.
As Faith followed Beth down the stairs, she vowed that as soon as they got back to the orangery, Faith was going to find Zoë and tell her to stay out of things that didn’t concern her.
She stuck the envelope of seeds inside her dress and went back through the forest behind Beth. This time, she thought the woods were the most beautiful place she’d ever seen, and she looked at the lush growth with new eyes. Was there anything in it that she could use?
They were almost to the gate when she stopped. “Beth, wait a minute.”
Faith had seen something in the forest that she didn’t like. She lifted her skirt to above her ankles and made her way through the damp undergrowth. She had seen a glimpse of red.
She stopped near a big oak tree and turned to see Beth just behind her. She nodded toward a stand of red-topped mushrooms. “Those are deadly,” she said. “And hallucinogenic, as well.”
“Halluci…?”
Faith wasn’t going to explain a drug trip to someone of Beth’s age. Who knew what she’d start? The drug age hundreds of years early? “I think they should be destroyed.”
“No one is allowed in here, but go ahead. It does not matter.”
Faith used her feet to knock over the big mushrooms, then grind them down. In her own time she wouldn’t have done it, but in this age she knew that people ate whatever grew. She had seen that they ate puffballs, something that modern people thought were poisonous.
“All right?” Beth asked.
She nodded and they started to walk out of the forest, but as they got to the gate, Beth stopped her. “I have something to ask you.”
Faith could tell that Beth was nervous about whatever she wanted to say.
“I greatly admire what you have done,” Beth said.
“It’s only what anyone would do,” Faith began.
“Yo
u know more than the doctor!”
Faith refrained from making a sarcastic remark at that. Amy had sent her a note saying that Tristan had taken care of the doctor and he wouldn’t be bothering her. “I know some different ways of working, that’s all,” Faith said at last.
“I want to learn from you,” Beth said. “I want you to teach me what you know. I know I have no true experience, but I have taken care of the tower since I was twelve. The only thing I have to do now is to sit for a portrait with Mr. Johns and he is…”
“Teaching Zoë,” Faith said diplomatically.
“That is just what Tristan said.” They looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Of course you may come to me,” Faith said. “You may stay all day and all night. I’ll teach you the tiny bit that I know and I’ll be glad for your company.”
“I am glad you came here,” Beth said. “Very, very glad.”
“So am I.” Faith slipped Beth’s arm through hers and they walked back to the orangery.
Nineteen
“If they find us in here,” Zoë said, “they’ll…What do they do for punishment in the eighteenth century?”
Russell didn’t look up from the canvas on his easel. “Sometimes you sound like you know nothing about your own century.”
“Didn’t I tell you that I come from the future? We have spaceships and lots of little green men.”
“Hmph!” he said, glancing up at her nude body as it was stretched out on the silk coverlet, the bushes in the tower behind her. “I can believe it. Would you please stop talking so I can paint?”