Preston Child - The Fountain of Youth

Nina laughed awkwardly. “That’s not what I meant. I just thought you’d taken a sabbatical from bossy academics for at least the next week.”

Mrs. Patterson’s brow darkened with the mention of Clara’s confrontation earlier. “Can you believe that insolent little cow? I mean, I’m the Dean’s mother and she talks to me like that! I tell you, Nina, if I were not such a refined lady I would have walloped the disrespect right off her bloody mouth.”

Nina was amused by the elderly lady’s pride. Mrs. Patterson’s feisty nature reminded her of her own. After locking horns with the unbearable Dr. Christa Smith in front of the Dean today, Nina was delighted to have realized that she had, in fact, not lost the trait she thought she had relinquished when she’d become ill.

“Don’t let her get to you, Mrs. Patterson. Some women just have an illusion of who they are because of who they serve. Remember that,” Nina told her as they walked through the garden toward the cottages. Nina suddenly noticed a loose stone in the path in front of the old lady, but Mrs. Patterson was already right upon it, too late for Nina to pull her out of the way.

“Ooh, Mrs. Patterson, watch out!” was all Nina could manage.

To her amazement the old woman responded with lightning reflexes, quickly leaping to another stone on the side of the pathway and landing gracefully. “Good grief!” she exclaimed. “I could have broken my neck! Thank you for the warning. I’m going to have to let Humphreys know about that loose pebble and have him fix it before one of the students sue St. Vincent’s, hey?”

Nina stood still, gaping in astonishment at her.

“What’s the matter?” she asked Nina.

Nina was flabbergasted. “How did you do that?”

“Why, I jumped,” the amused old woman explained, quite aware that her abilities could stun, but enjoying the admiration nonetheless.

“I know you jumped. I saw that,” Nina said. “But how did you pull off that move?”

Mrs. Patterson smiled. “Och, I’ve always had great balance and coordination. Up until Daniel was conceived I’d been a national level gymnast. Competed in annual sports meets and even took part in the 1960 Olympics in Rome.”

“That’s amazing!” Nina raved. “Did you get the gold?”

“Nope. Was in second place until I broke my ankle in my final discipline,” Mrs. Patterson lamented.

“That sucks,” Nina replied sympathetically. “But to be able to say you were there, that you competed…that in itself is a feat not to be sniffed at.”

“Just like a real teacher would say,” Mrs. Patterson smiled sweetly at Nina. “I ended up working as an RN for most of my life, having a talent for the medical field that most people marveled at. Do you know how many days I wonder just what would have happened had I not sustained that stupid little injury?” Her face lit up for a moment at the thought of her triumph and then seemed to descend into a sad, bleak reminiscence. “Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder what could have been.”

“I know the feeling, Mrs. Patterson. But you know, sometimes you think losing what you thought your future was is devastating, until you realize what came in its place is so much more brilliant.”

“Spoken, again, like a true teacher,” the old woman said, smiling again.

Nina smiled in return, but there was a hint of lost ambition in her face. Afraid that the old lady would inquire about the lost opportunities of Nina’s life, she quickly directed the conversation to an unanswered question she had.

“Oh, incidentally, Mrs. Patterson,” she said with quick curiosity, “what does that inscription on the fountain say? I got ‘A’ and …‘Q’, you said?”

“Yes, yes, that was a ‘Q’, my dear. The etching says ‘Aqua Vitae’ and it was carved into the stone when the fountain was just fashioned,” she explained. “I think it has always been here in Hook, even before the town was here. When I moved here with my late husband in 1980, Daniel was only six years old, God bless him. And even then, it was already here.”

“So you don’t know who wrote that? ‘Aqua Vitae’ means ‘Water of Life,’ doesn’t it? Unless my Latin is off,” Nina said.

“That’s correct. Whoever etched those words into the cement knew the secret of the underground river that ran under this town in the Middle Ages,” Mrs. Patterson said.

“The Middle Ages? That far back?” Nina asked.

Mrs. Patterson surveyed their surroundings before replying in a hushed tone, “That far back, my dear.”

“How do you know that for sure?” Nina asked as they stepped up on her porch under the gathering clouds.

“There was a historian here, just like you, teaching on invitation — on retainer, about twenty-five years ago,” the old lady told Nina, pushing her in through the front door to make sure that she could complete her tale inside Nina’s cottage. “His name was Cotswald, I think. But he uncovered the underground river and why the fountain was called the Fountain of Youth, so to speak.”

Nina locked the door behind them as Hook grew darker from the coming rain. She put the kettle on and lit a cigarette after she showed her guest to her seat. The Dean’s mother continued as if she were relieving herself of a heavy psychological load to the ears of a therapist. Nina could tell that she’d been dying to tell someone about it.

“He’d occupied the same office as you are now, but back then it was a proper office and not an archive room, you see?”

“So, he was also invited? He didn’t apply for the position of lecturer?” Nina asked, feeling the nicotine rush through her dying cells and not giving a damn.

“He was,” Mrs. Patterson affirmed. “But his contract was cut short, I’m afraid. Naturally, after he discovered that the water in the fountain contained some sort of unexplainable elixir that stumped aging, he made the mistake of trying to claim the property by means of a lawsuit against St. Vincent’s. St. Vincent’s was then owned by my adoptive father, Professor Gregor Ebner. When my adoptive mother died, he buried himself in his academic career and expanded the programs here to branch out from historical studies to the sciences, giving a lot of students an opportunity to attend the college.” Mrs. Patterson smiled. “What a crazy old man! Apart from lacking a moustache, my father looked as scatter-brained and exceptional as Einstein…and he wasn’t far from being as smart, either.”

Nina smiled at the joy Mrs. Patterson exuded while reminiscing about her father. She didn’t want to pry into the orphan’s family heritage or ask too many questions, fearing that she may overstep the line. “He sounds like he was an energetic man. I can see clearly that he raised the likes of you, Mrs. Patterson.” She gave the subject some time so as not to seem rude for rushing the old woman to spill the beans on the historian and the water table. Tactfully, she linked the two subjects to urge the story along. “So what did your father do about the lawsuit? I hope he sent the historian packing!”

“Oh yes, I was telling you about that,” the elderly guest exclaimed, filling Nina with accomplishment. “He sued my father — some ancestral claim or something. I can’t readily remember, but my father won the case and the historian had to go back home with his tail between his legs. Serves him right, too!”

“Good,” Nina agreed only to win favor. “What did he reckon? How could he prove that the fountain was that old, then? I mean, if it really dated from the Middle Ages, it should have suffered more ruin than that?”

“No, it was beautifully preserved when my father bought the property,” Mrs. Patterson admitted. “You see, the font has not always been the center of a garden. It was, in fact, a well in the basement of a great Norman fortress built only two years after the Conquest by a housecarl named Edwin Something-or-other. So when my father bought this property the previous owner, a local developer and businessman, had already demolished the part of the fortress where the well was and turned it into a lavish courtyard to beautify the building and separate the main halls from the servants’ quarters.”