Epilogue
Once he had become used to how the mechanism worked, balancing the flow of hot and cold water, he had come to very much appreciate the modern invention that was the shower, not least for its ease and immediacy. No more drawing and heating of repeated pails of water to fill a tub, one could simply turn a knob and have a cascade of hot water at one's immediate disposal.
He'd been most grateful for that immediacy upon returning to the cabin. The battle with the thing in the cellar had left him dirtied and ragged, the smell of dank earth still clinging to his torn shirt. His hair had pulled partly loose from the leather strip he used to contain it and seemed to be full of twigs and thorns. He'd been aware that he must have presented a most dishevelled picture.
And so he had lit a fire in the grate and made good use of the cabin's shower to first wash his shirt and his trousers, hanging them in front of the fire to dry whilst he then washed himself. The warm water had been delightful, washing away the grit and dirt of the cellar and soothing the chill that seemed to have settled into his muscles. He'd picked fragments of twigs and flecks of bark from his hair as he'd washed it and winced as he'd gingerly scrubbed clean the lines of bloodied scratches left by the creature's whip-like tendrils.
And now he sat quite contentedly in front of the roaring fire, in his now clean trousers and his coat - graciously relinquished by Miss Gilbert - methodically stitching the rips in his shirt. It was a soothing task, almost meditative, the firelight glinting on the needle as it dipped in and out of the fabric, pulling it together in a series of tiny, neat stitches. His hair hung loosely, still drying from the shower, as he bent over his task.
He pulled the last stitch tight and snapped off the thread, sitting back to admire his handiwork. It seemed 200 hundred years in a grave had dulled neither his skills nor his dexterity when it came to the soldier's skill at maintaining his uniform in the field. Satisfied with his work, he shrugged a little stiffly out of his coat and redressed himself in his clean and mended shirt.
Feeling altogether more presentable, he slipped his coat back on and carefully doused the fire. Miss Mills had asked him to meet her at the archives when he had, as she had put it, finished "doing his thing", by which he could only presume she meant rectifying the state of his attire. He tucked the strip of leather into his coat pocket as she shut the cabin door behind him; his hair would dry on the way.
Fin.