"Jedediah Foster! I told you to wear your overcoat this morning… and your scarf too! Silly man, what were you thinking?" Mary exclaimed.
Jed had arrived home a little later than expected and she had been waiting for him anxiously since night had fallen with all the sudden drama a Boston December could muster. She had been sitting in the front parlor with the lamps lit, trying to pay attention to her needlework but she had flung it aside in frustration after a half-hour and had leafed through Vorlesungen über Zahlentheorie aimlessly though the class number formula had been absorbing enough a few hours earlier; she had not even noticed Patty bringing her a fresh pot of tea until the curling steam tickled her with its heat and the rich, heady extravagance of cinnamon. While the fire burned in the grate and Mrs. Hutchins made all sorts of comforting, homely noises in the kitchen, Mary could not turn her usually orderly mind to follow the elegance of Dirichlet's proof in Chapter 5. She knew she should let Patty see to the front door, that the little maid had arranged her trailing white ribbons just so to impress Jedediah, but at ringing of the bell, Mary had leapt to her feet and nearly run to the door as if she were the housemaid and not the mistress of the house. She'd opened the heavy door swiftly, the cold momentarily stunning, even though she'd many winters' experience.
Jedediah stood on the front step, stamping his feet a little, his face slightly obscured by the clouds of his breath in the frigid air and the snowflakes that silvered his dark hair and beard, made a pale summer suit of his regular sober broadcloth. His cheeks and the tip of his nose with rosy with the cold but not the hand that held his black satchel. She had warned him this morning, had recognized the subtle change in the air that the coming snow made and he had nodded and smiled and she had thought this time, he might listen to her, but she had clearly been wrong.
"Do you mean to scold me on the doorstep, Molly, or may I come in at least?" he retorted wryly, but he shivered mightily then and some of the snow fell from his shoulders, the light, fragile flakes of a bitter night. Mary took his bag and then his hand, which was far too cold to be safe, and pulled him inside, calling "Patty, fetch a towel and Dr. Foster's dressing gown, the wool one, as quick as you can!"
"Molly, it's not something to be so bothered about, it's just a little snow," he said, trying to sound reassuring but he was undercut by the involuntary chatter of his teeth, the brief grimace he made as he tried to uncurl his clenched fingers which had held his black doctor's bag. The snow was melting in his hair and she had taken his wet suit jacket from him as soon as she'd shut the front door; he looked a little chastened but also she could see he was enjoying having her fuss about him and that relieved her a bit.
"Hush, Jed. Sometimes I think you haven't the sense God gave a goose—can't you remember anything of how you managed when you studied at Harvard, or when you were in Paris?" she said firmly, letting her worry become exasperation, her exasperation become a series of small, gentle touches, leading him to the armchair she dragged close to the grate despite his interruption,
"Molly, no, you'll hurt yourself," coupled with his cold hand laid briefly, carefully against her slightly rounded belly. The baby had quickened only a week or so ago and it still seemed impossible that they should be so blessed, but now the child was quiet within her and his father was the one who needed minding.
"I will not and there, it's done, now you sit right down and don't you move!" she declared and she thought he must have been cold and tired indeed, wanting some minding, for he simply sat where she pointed and didn't say anything as she walked over to retrieve his warming slippers, knelt to take his wet boots off and help him into the worked wool slippers. Patty had hurried—her artful ribbons were all jumbled and her cheeks were scarlet, but she'd brought two towels, the dressing gown and Mary's cashmere shawl and was given Jed's most approving smile and a "Just so, Patty, well done," when she held out her mistress's wrap first. How she blushed to be praised and how well Jed knew to distract them both!
"Please go ask Mrs. Hutchins to put on the kettle and perhaps she can heat a little of the consommé I had at lunch, Patty—Dr. Foster needs something hot right away, we'll wait on dinner… or perhaps, yes, once he's had a little something, you may bring his supper on a tray to our room," Mary said decisively and the housemaid made haste as decorously as she could, with more emphasis on speed than her manner, but Mary could not fault her, even as her boots made a martial tattoo on the polished hall floorboards.
"Molly, truly, sweetheart, I love you for it, but you needn't go to all this trouble," Jed said, tweaking her shawl, thawing out, she surmised, in many ways.
She gave him a pointedly dismissive look and then rubbed his damp head with a towel; she stopped when she felt both his hands around her disappearing waist, under the shawl's folds, felt his thumbs stroking the sides of her bodice, the new stays she was not accustomed to yet, and she let the towel's folds fall to the side of his head, like a monk's cowl. He looked at her, his dark curls tousled, his eyes fond and finally a little apologetic, the grey at his temples evident but not dispelling his entirely boyish appearance. She leaned over and dropped a kiss the tip of his nose, stroked her fingers along his bearded jaw.
"I won't have you taking such risks with yourself, love, you're not used to how the winters are here—I won't have you falling ill or injuring yourself with frostbite because you are being forgetful or because you think, somehow, that you are impervious to the weather. You'll drink up Mrs. Hutchins's soup and then off to bed. Your hands are still quite cold and you don't fool me at all, I can see you shivering… you walked all the way from the clinic, didn't you, you didn't even consider a hired landau?" Mary said, letting her concern color her tone. He heard it, as she had meant him to, and his eyes had a softness about them; she had made him understand. But he was still Jedediah Foster and softness was not all his gaze held.
"Yes, Molly. I will be more cautious and listen to my wise Bostonian Baroness, I won't make this same mistake again. I'll drink what you tell me to…and then you said, straight to bed, didn't you? I think I'll need your help to get warm through and… you're such a good wife, you probably have something effective in mind, don't you?" Jed replied, his voice innocent and acquiescent as he never was—a tone Captain McBurney would not believed him capable of and Dr. Hale would have narrowed his squinting eyes at, before trying to needle him into something more familiarly incensed. Mary bent down a little, let her cheek rest against his, and spoke into his ear,
"You wicked man, you're lucky I don't pack you off to bed with hot bricks and a dozen quilts and a mustard poultice! I suppose I can find some other way to help you," and then she slipped her own warm hand against his side, wriggled her hand beneath his linen shirt to lay her palm against the cool skin of his abdomen, stroked up through the curls scattered on his belly and chest, "I've a few ideas I imagine you'd prefer though if you leave off your overcoat again, I'll not be so generous a second time, unless it's with the hot water bottle and Dr. Harris's sassafras tonic. That snow started coming down and I couldn't even follow my proof, I was so worried about you- I thought you'd never listen when I told you to bundle up and I was right."
"Oh, I am sorry for that, but I think a "flask of tea, a book of verse—and thou," will do very well for me, though it seems I've gotten your dress a little damp as well…we'd both better get out of these wet clothes, don't you think?" he said, now frankly suggestive with a raised eyebrow and his own hand straying to the curve of her hip, seeking her bottom through her heavy skirt. She shifted her hip a little to tell him, not now, and he grinned and moved his hand back to relative propriety at her waist.
"That will do—I'd rather see only Jedediah tonight and you will give Patty an apoplectic fit if she finds us like this and then Dr. Foster will be needed," she said. "Come now, behave yourself a little longer and then you may misbehave all you like, you scoundrel… And here's Patty with your tea," she finished, taking the cup from the maid's hand and dismissing her with a nod, handing it to her husband who drank it down in one long swallow, watching for her satisfaction now as he would be sure to do the rest of the night.
"All done?" she asked, to ask and to be answered.
"Not quite, Molly," Jedediah said, as she had hoped he would promise.