The Healing Season. Ruth Axtell Morren

have been recently following a regimen of only fruit and vegetables on a performance day and tea laced with honey and lemon for my throat. I only dine after the show.”

      “You certainly don’t look as if you needed to follow such a strict regimen.” He offered her his pastry.

      “I shall only take a bite since it looks so tempting.” She broke off a corner of the warm pastry he held out to her.

      “Thank you, it’s delicious,” she told him after she’d swallowed it and daintily wiped her mouth with her lace-edged handkerchief. As she looked up at him, he was struck afresh by the color of her eyes. It was the clear gray of the mist hanging over the sea at dawn.

      He cleared his throat, too dazed by his reaction to her to formulate any more complicated response than “You’re welcome.”

      They stopped at another booth, this one selling all sorts of trinkets. After Jem had bought a pair of fans for the two ladies, he turned to present one to Mrs. Neville.

      “I c-can’t believe I’m really h-here walking with a famous actress. How do you do such amazing things on the stage, from pretending you—you’re a pirate to a princess—”

      She laughed as she took the fan and opened it with a flourish. “Haven’t you heard that ‘all the world’s a stage’? You live in one. Look around you. There are all kinds of dramas taking place right under your nose.

      “Take that couple for instance.” She motioned with her fan to a stout couple standing at the next booth. “You can tell by their gestures alone that he missed his target and now she is berating him for wasting his money and not getting her a prize.”

      “You’re right,” Jem told her in amazement. He burst out laughing when the colorfully dressed woman turned to the man and scolded him for his clumsiness. “How did you notice them?”

      She shrugged. “I take those things I see and use them on the stage—the irate wife, the distressed husband, the lost, frightened child.” She stopped talking and, fixing her eyes on Ian, stared hard at him for a few seconds.

      “Wot? Don’t you see the draggle-tailed duck in front o’ yous? Can’t you ’it the bleatin’ target? I didn’t come to the fair so you could lose all our brass. What kind of a big looby are you?” She turned to Jem and the actress with a nod. “Gor, if it’d been my first ’usband, Alf, never a better man, if ’e’d ha been ’ere, ’e’d ha’ knocked down a dozen ducks already.”

      Jem and the children were doubled over in laughter, and the younger actress was clapping her hands in glee. Ian couldn’t help but smile. He was as captivated as Jem by Mrs. Neville’s ability to capture the scene they’d witnessed only briefly at the next booth.

      It struck him that this beautiful woman was as close an observer of human drama as he was of a sick body in order to diagnose it properly.

      “Come, we’d better keep moving before they notice us,” she said, once more in her natural tone. She placed her hand in the crook of his elbow, and Ian looked down at the kid glove, wondering at how natural it felt to have it resting there.

      They walked along, following Jem and the children. Mrs. Neville’s young friend had attached herself to Jem, and Ian watched in amusement as Jem blushed and stammered his replies to her.

      A moment later Ian turned to an angry voice up ahead.

      “They take away the food from a man’s mouth. They make us fight for the king, then put us on the street when we come ’ome!” A dirty, disheveled man wearing an old army jacket, stood waving a crutch and shouting to the crowd. One foot ended in a filthy, wrapped stump.

      Ian felt Mrs. Neville’s hand tighten on his arm as she noticed the speaker. “Poor man,” she murmured.

      The speaker soon had a group gathered around him, raising their hands and shouting back in agreement.

      They stood watching him for a couple of minutes, but then the mass of people attracted by the angry veteran began pressing uncomfortably around them.

      “It sounds like a disgruntled soldier,” he answered briefly. “It could get ugly. People have been drinking.”

      Mrs. Neville looked worried. “Perhaps we should turn around. The children—”

      “Yes.” Ian raised his voice to get Jem’s attention. Unfortunately, the young man had been drawn to the excitement ahead, and Ian had to squeeze through the growing crowd to reach him.

      “Jem, hold up.”

      “Yes? What—oh, it’s you, Ian.”

      “I think we should leave this area.”

      By this time the voices had grown louder and angrier and people began jostling and pushing to get closer.

      A rock flew over the crowd and glass shattered. As if a signal to erupt, the crowd took up whatever was at hand and began throwing things. Men swung their canes around, unmindful of who stood in the way. Women flung their handbags and umbrellas, children screamed.

      In a matter of seconds, they were in the midst of a full-blown riot.

      Chapter Four

      The crowd took up rocks, clubs and sticks and directed the brunt of their violence at the booths and the shop windows around them.

      “We’ve got to get the children out of here!” Ian shouted to Jem. The young actress clung to the apprentice, her eyes screwed tight. “Follow me.”

      Jem nodded his head and grabbed one of the children with his free arm. Ian grabbed the other two, who were crying. Mrs. Neville took the girl from him and sheltered her under an arm.

      They fought against a wall of bodies. Ian picked up the child he had and swung him over his shoulder as he guided Mrs. Neville forward. Jem followed with the other actress, and the two muscled their way toward an alley.

      They managed to reach a small area behind a booth.

      “Jem, you take the children back to the dispensary. I’ll escort the ladies to their carriage.” He turned to them. “You have your carriage?” he asked Mrs. Neville.

      “Yes, but it’s quite a ways from here.” She looked behind her in worry. “I don’t think we can make it back.”

      In the few seconds they had been talking, the crowd had again surged forward. Angry men and women lunged at them, determined to break and smash everything around them. The children screamed, huddling into the adults’ bodies.

      “Take them away!” shouted Ian. “I’ve got to stay. There are bound to be injuries.”

      Jem nodded. “I’ll get them to safety,” he said, already making for the narrow alley.

      Ian attempted to herd the women toward Jem, but at that moment they were separated by a mass of bodies. He was thrown against a wooden structure and felt the wind knocked out of him. Searing pain shot through his lower back.

      When he looked up, he could no longer see Jem or the children.

      “Are you all right?” Mrs. Neville leaned over him, shouting through cupped hands.

      He nodded. “Where’s your friend?”

      “She’s with Jem. He’s gotten them out of the fray.”

      “You mustn’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.” As he spoke, he attempted to rise. She took his arm to help him up.

      He managed a few hobbling steps, ignoring the pain in his back. He put his arm around Mrs. Neville to shelter her as much as possible from the angry mob.

      They were swept along by the crowd. All he could do was hope to shield Mrs. Neville from flying objects. Rocks were hurled without regard as to whether they hit building or human.

      Inch by inch, Ian headed toward a doorway. When at last he reached it and pulled Mrs. Neville