Written in My Own Heart's Blood (Outlander #8) - Diana Gabaldon Page 0,94

quite soon, and Mr. Bartram’s very acute observation about the impending demand for medicinals, I bought much more than I had originally intended, replenishing not only my usual stocks (including a pound of dried Chinese joint fir, just in case. What was I going to do with the bloody man?), but also a good quantity of Jesuit bark, elecampane, and even lobelia, plus the asafoetida and ginseng I’d promised Denny.

In the end, there was too much for my basket, and Miss Bartram said she would put it up into a package and have one of the assistant gardeners who lived in Philadelphia bring it into the city when he went home in the evening.

“Would you like to see the river path, before you go?” she asked me, with a quick glance skyward. “It’s not finished yet, of course, but we have some amazing things put in, and it is wonderfully cool at this time of day.”

“Oh, thank you. I really—wait. You wouldn’t have fresh arrowhead down there, would you?” I hadn’t thought to put that on my list, but if it was available . . .

“Oh, yes!” she cried, beaming. “Masses of it!” We were standing in the largest of the drying sheds, and the late-afternoon light falling through the boards striped the walls with bars of swimming gold, illuminating the constant rain of tiny pollen grains from the drying flowers. There was a scatter of tools on the table, and she plucked a wooden trowel and a stubby knife from the litter without hesitation. “Would you like to dig your own?”

I laughed with pleasure. The opportunity to grub around in the wet mud wasn’t an offer that most women would have made—especially to another woman dressed in pale-blue muslin. But Miss Bartram spoke my language. I hadn’t had my hands in the earth in months, and the mere suggestion made my fingers tingle.

THE RIVER PATH was lovely, edged with willow and silver birch that cast a flickering shade over banks of nasturtium and azalea and the floating masses of dark-green cress. I felt my blood pressure drop as we strolled, chatting of this and that.

“Do you mind if I ask you something about the Friends?” I asked. “I have a colleague who was read out of meeting—he and his sister—because he volunteered as a surgeon with the Continental army. Since you mentioned your father . . . I wondered, how important a thing is that? Belonging to a meeting, I mean?”

“Oh!” She laughed, rather to my surprise. “I imagine it depends upon the individual—everything does, really, as a Friend. My father, for instance: he was read out of meeting, for refusing to acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ, but he went right on going to meeting; it made no particular difference to him.”

“Oh.” That was rather reassuring. “What if—what is a Quaker marriage like? Would one have to belong to a meeting in order to get married?”

She thought that interesting and made low humming noises for a bit.

“Well, a marriage between Friends is . . . between the Friends marrying. No clergyman, I mean, and no specific prayer or service. The two Friends marry each other, rather than it being considered a sacrament administered by a priest or the like. But it does need to be done before witnesses—other Friends, you know,” she added, a small crease forming between her brows. “And I think that there might be considerable objection if the Friends involved—or one of them—had been formally expelled.”

“How interesting—thank you.” I wondered how this might affect Denzell and Dorothea; even more, how it might affect Rachel and Ian. “Can a Friend marry a, er, non-Friend?”

“Oh, yes, of course. Though I think they would be put out of meeting as a result,” she added dubiously. “But there might be special consideration for dire circumstances. The meeting would appoint a committee of clearness to look into the situation, I suppose.”

I hadn’t got so far as worrying about dire circumstances, but thanked her, and the conversation went back to plants.

She’d been right about the arrowhead: there were masses of it. She smiled happily at my amazement but then left me to my digging, assuring me that I might take some of the lotus and some Sweet Flag rhizomes, as well, if I liked. “And fresh cress, of course!” she added over her shoulder, waving a blithe hand at the water. “All you like!”

She’d thoughtfully brought along a burlap sack for me to kneel on; I spread it carefully, not to