Doing No Harm, page 11
“Wait up there, lad.”
Douglas turned to see Mrs. Aintree making her deliberate way toward him. He waved a hand and waited, thinking of battles at sea and wounded men tumbling down the companionway to his overcrowded, overworked sick bay. That was one kind of medicine; this was another. Might as well do all the good he could here, before he found a better place to spend his days. I’ll perfect my bedside manner, where never I had needed such a luxury before, he thought with some amusement. I’ll experiment on the people of Edgar.
He nodded to Mrs. Aintree and decided to start with her. He offered her his arm, which she took with a blush. “You are kindness itself, Mrs. A,” he said. “I doubt Mrs. Tavish has ever worn anything with embroidered flowers.”
She pinked up further, probably amazed that a man would notice, and looked back. “It’s hard there,” she said.
“Not as hard as it was a week ago,” he told her. “Tommy is on the mend, and you have given him something to do. I will do what I can for you, and I think that is how things work on land.”
She chuckled at that. “Nobody has much say at sea, do they?”
“None at all,” he assured her. “Not those patients. Now these—I’ll have to coax some of them to come to me with their troubles.”
“No coaxing from me,” Mrs. Aintree said. She patted his hand for emphasis. “I can pay you, of course.”
“I have a better idea,” he told her, deciding there was no time like right now to see if he possessed even a spoonful of negotiation skill. He stopped, took both of her hands in his, and looked into her eyes. “Mrs. Aintree, would you consider paying me by opening your home to Tommy and his mam?”
She stared at him, open-mouthed. “Surely not.”
He thought she would say that, but he had time on his side. He started them both in motion again. “It was just an idea. You have a large home, and I imagine you enjoy the peace and quiet there.”
“I do,” she said with some emphasis, which set the feathers in her bonnet nodding.
“I was just thinking how convenient it would be to have Tommy there to milk morning and night. With a little advice from you, I suspect that Mrs. Tavish would keep your place tidy, while your arm is in a sling.”
“A sling?”
“Have to hold your hand still and not bump your fingers on anything,” he said. He shrugged. “Perhaps you will figure out how to do all your housework by yourself. Ah! Here we are at your place, Mrs. Aintree.” He gave her a little bow and she took her hand from his arm. “Thank you for all you have done for Mrs. Tavish.”
“It was just a nightgown,” she said. “Well, maybe a few other things.”
He tipped his hat to her. “I do like the good ladies of Edgar. Good afternoon to you now.”
Smiling to himself, he walked across the street toward his own house and surgery. He looked back before he opened the door, secretly pleased to see that Mrs. Aintree still stood there. He would have given a year’s retirement pay to know what she was thinking.
Chapter 15
Douglas Bowden had always taken pride in his medical education: two years at London Hospital, courtesy of one of his captains, followed by a year of ward-walking in Guy’s Hospital, and then surgery under fire at Trafalgar. He hadn’t thought he was a man given to pride, not the son of a cooper from Norfolk. Or maybe he was.
What he learned about medicine the next day equaled every hour, every anguish, every triumph, and every failure. And he learned it from little Flora MacLeod, six years old and small like the other Highland children, bearing a huge burden.
He began the day flat on his back, staring at the novelty of an overhead deck that did not move. There were no bells to summon him, no grabbing of his shoulder by the pharmacist mate with bad news, always bad news. No drummers beating to quarters. He let the day come, and with it came wrens and robins and the warbles of the morning lark. The tide was in, and with it the lapping of water against the bridge supports.
His bedchamber was long and narrow. The bedstead mentioned by Lady Telford was worth nothing except to be broken up for firewood. At first, he had toyed with the idea of screwing two hooks into opposite walls and just slinging a hammock. When Olive offered to sell him her parents’ bedstead and mattress, he hadn’t argued, mainly because he was acutely aware how little she made from her tearoom. She objected when he overpaid her, but he ignored her.
As it turned out, the bed was a capital idea. He could lie in the middle of it and touch each side of the mattress, which was better than scrunching into a hammock. There was one thing about a bed: there was room in it for someone else too. The idea of a wife had never been more than a luxury, and luxuries were always in short supply in the Royal Navy.
Hands behind his head, he contemplated the novelty of marriage, probably brought on even before the purchase of his bed. The acquisition of a house had opened the door on the idea. It swung wide last night when he was called to the home of the grocer, whose wife was in the middle of a labor going nowhere.
Douglas had no trouble reassuring the skeptical but desperate grocer of his obstetric abilities. He had delivered a moderate number of babies aboard ship, mainly the children of the rare captains whose wives refused to remain on shore or the less-exalted sons (and daughters) of the guns, delivered to drabs sneaked on board and discovered too late to return to shore before a lengthy voyage.
Red-faced and determined, Mrs. Grocer had surrendered without complaint to the embarrassing novelty of a man taking charge. He had the right tools: a small-enough hand and a reassuring manner. In a mere five minutes and two contractions, the grocer’s first child squinted, wailed, and saw the light of dawn.
“Same thing happened two years ago,” the grocer said as he wiped his tears and held his son. “No doctor then.”
Douglas left the three of them an hour later, satisfied and thinking that he could have banged on a drum and somersaulted out of the room and the parents wouldn’t have noticed, so deeply were they looking into each other’s eyes. Little Grocer Junior completed the tableau as he stared at both of them, wondering.
Once he had deep-sixed the idea of a wife, Douglas hadn’t considered children of his own, either, not until this morning. His medical satchel slung over his shoulder, he strolled home and crawled back in bed, content and discontent at the same time, wanting what he did not have. He came to no immediate conclusion, other than that he would postpone all matrimonial enterprise until he was permanently settled somewhere. He did know this—he wanted a wife as kind and cheerful as Olive Grant.
Over breakfast in the tearoom later, Douglas told Olive about Edgar’s newest citizen. He was too circumspect to say anything about his epiphany.
“You have no idea how they grieved two years ago,” she told him as she slid another cinnamon bun on his plate. “I’m glad you’re here, Douglas.”
It was praise simply said, delivered in that no-nonsense, honest tone that he had already come to expect from Olive Grant.
He arrived in Mrs. Aintree’s cow bier in time to pour the full milk pail into a deep pan and set it in a dark corner. Mrs. Aintree had already showed Tommy how to take off the cream from last night’s milking.
“She didn’t need to show me,” Tommy said as he expertly skimmed the settled cream. “Been doing this since I was four.” His eyes lost their lively gleam. “Da had cows in Sutherland.”
“How long have you lived here?” he asked, wondering just how many people in Edgar were victims of the Great Emptying.
“Two, maybe three years,” Tommy said with a shrug. “Men came with torches, fired our house, and drove off Da’s cows. We spent three nights in a graveyard until they drove us away from that too.”
He spoke in the matter-of-fact way of children made old too soon. Douglas felt his blood run in chunks. “How … how did you get here?”
“I don’t want to say no more.” And Tommy didn’t, turning his attention to teats already wiped clean. He sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his face, but he didn’t turn around.
After a few words with Mrs. Aintree about fixing a date for her surgery, since Tommy was so capable, Douglas walked back to his house, head down and hands stuffed in his pockets—his usual pose—wishing that Mrs. Aintree had agreed to take in Tommy and his mother, but not surprised that she hadn’t.
He didn’t see the little girl sitting by the stoop until he was practically on top of her. He stepped back, startled, and then crouched down beside her. “You’re early, little miss,” he told her. “Surgery hours don’t start until nine of the clock.”
When her brown eyes filled with tears, something told his heart that he was looking at another child of the Great Emptying. It wasn’t so much the tears as the desperation, easily as great as that on the grocer’s face last night— grown-up desperation on a child’s face.
“There’s no reason why we can’t start surgery hours right now,” he told her. “Where do you hurt?”
She shook her head and lifted the shawl end from the tartan she wore. Two dark eyes looked back at him, eyes filled with pain and pleading. One meow, then two, and the kitten lowered its head and tried to burrow deeper into the girl’s lap.
“I don’t doctor kittens,” he told the child, even as he wondered just what was wrong with the little thing. “Who are you?”
“Flora MacLeod,” she said, and his heart melted just a bit around the edges with the loveliness of her Highland brogue. He was beginning to tell the difference.
“Well, Flora, I really don’t …”
She did something then that melted his heart more. Careful with the kitten in her lap, she knelt in front of him, and looked at him with eyes as pleading as the kitten’s. She said nothing, only looked.
Silently, too, he lifted her back to the bench. “What’s wrong with your bonny little kitten?” he asked.
Carefully, so carefully, she pulled the shawl end away again and he saw the kitten’s mangled front paw. “I think it was a dog,” Flora whispered. “Gran tells me just to drown it in the river.” The tears spilled from her eyes now, and she cried without making a sound.
In his long and painful career in the Royal Navy, Douglas had seen silent sobbing like that among young refugees fleeing one army or another. When his Spanish was good enough, he asked a fleeing mother about it. “To make noise is often to die,” the woman had said. “We train them to suffer in silence.”
MacLeod. MacLeod. He already knew it was a Highlands name, because he had doctored MacLeods from the island of Skye, serving in the fleet. And a name like Flora told him one of the child’s not-so-distant ancestors had been a supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who had fled Scotland with Flora MacDonald’s help.
“Flora MacLeod, let’s see what I can do. Come in.”
He ushered his patient’s mistress into his surgery and spread out a towel on the table. “Lift it out and onto this,” he directed. He slid over a wooden box so Flora could at least see onto the table.
She stepped up and set down her bundle, her eyes serious. Gently, he lifted the kitten from the shawl to the towel, where it tried to burrow under the fabric. Flora ran her thumb and forefinger on the spot under each ear, which told Douglas that she knew cats and what pleased them.
While she was doing that, Douglas lifted the bloody paw with his own forefinger, observing the crunched bones. I can do this, he thought. I can take the foot off at the joint above the paw. A stitch or two and done.
“I’ll fix …” He lifted the kitten’s tail “… her.”
Why in the world did little Scottish girls have such beautiful, heartbreaking eyes? He knew what she was going to say.
“I hae nowt t’pay thee,” she whispered.
He looked into her pretty eyes, dismayed to see they were sunken. He saw how tight her skin was stretched across her face, and the fact that her dark hair looked brittle. He asked himself who was his patient and broke his own heart.
“Let’s worry about that later,” he said.
She shook her head. “We’ll worry ’bout it now,” she said and her head went up. He saw the pride in her face then, and it gave him heart. She was a game little girl. If he was so smart, he needed to think of something, and fast, because Flora was smart too. He could buy a little time, though, and kill two birds with that single proverbial stone.
“I do need to be paid, Flora, but right now, I need to take care of your kitten, and time’s a-wasting,” he said, reaching for a sheet of paper. “I’m going to send you across the street with a note for Miss Grant. Do you know who she is?”
Flora nodded. “The kind lady.”
Douglas felt his eyes tear up. Gadfreys but he was an easy mark. “The very one. Pay close attention: Your kitten needs some food, and soon. Sometimes that’s as important as surgery.” He started writing. “Take this to Miss Grant. She’ll know exactly what to do.”
“Because she takes care of wee kittens too?” Flora asked.
“Most certainly,” he said, perjuring himself without a qualm. “Now you do exactly what she tells you.” He reached in a dish on the counter next to his surgery table and took out two coins. “Two pence should do the job.”
“But I told thee I …”
“I’ll add it to your bill of receipt, Flora,” he told her and broke out the firm voice he hadn’t used since his Royal Navy days. “You have to do exactly what Miss Grant wants. Your kitten is depending on you.” And Scotland expects you to do your duty, he nearly added, knowing the late Lord Nelson would approve.
He finished the lengthy note, hoping at first that Olive could read his chicken scratch, and then confident she would know what to do, even if she couldn’t read the note. He wrapped the paper around the coins.
Eyes full of determination now, Flora took the money and hurried out the door, closing it quietly behind her, as her gran had probably taught her. He turned back to his other patient. “All right now. Better we do this while your mistress is across the street.”
He picked out his smallest capital knife and threaded a needle with catgut. Excuse that, he thought and chuckled. He put on his surgeon’s apron and stuck the threaded needle into a handy spot easily within reach. The kitten objected to the alcohol swab, but was too weak and hungry to struggle.
Douglas lit his lamp and pulled it close, then moved aside the box Flora had stood on. “I have got to stow away some boxes,” he told the cat. “Mrs. Fillion—you’d like her—sent me my trunk and other things I forgot I had.” He looked down at the box labeled “Shells” and wondered why he had collected so many from foreign beaches. He toed the box under the table.
Some pledgets of cotton completed his preparations. He poised the bistoury over the wounded paw, then moved it higher, seeking the joint. “All right now. If you scratch me, I’ll …” He chuckled again. “I’ll be scratched. Better than the time that powder monkey bit me. Here I am talking to cats. Take a deep breath and think of something pleasant like mice.”
Chapter 16
Flora, what a welcome surprise!” Olive Grant said as she opened the door. All she knew about the MacLeods came from Maeve, who was cutting up onions right now.
“You’ll never see them in here,” Maeve had told her. “They’re MacLeods from Skye and even prouder by half than the Sutherlanders.”
And yet here stood the smallest MacLeod, orphaned because her da had been one of the Highland soldiers who fought at New Orleans in America. Her mam had died of abuse that none of the others would talk about, as they were cleared out of their homes in the Highlands.
She had a sweet face and those round eyes that usually don’t linger long after infancy, except in the lucky few who keep them forever. Olive could not overlook the worry and the tight-lipped mouth that suggested Flora MacLeod was only just keeping a lid on her feelings.
Flora held out the folded note. “Two pence from the good doctor across the street and down a bit,” Olive said. “Let me take your shawl, my dear. Sit here, and I will see if Maeve has a biscuit.”
Flora should her head. “Gran said I was not to ask for anything.”
“You didn’t, did you? Here you are.”
The biscuit went down in a hurry, which told Olive worlds about the child before her and helped explain the portions of Douglas’s note that she couldn’t quite decipher. She read it again and understood just what kind of a sly man had taken up temporary residence in Edgar. She pocketed the note and gestured to the kitchen.
“Mr. Bowden attached the utmost importance to what we do, and it must be done right.” Olive poured a combined cup of water and milk into a saucepan and set it on the Rumford, luckily still fired up from breakfast. “We’ll let that boil.” She held out the note to Flora. “It says here that the oats must be of the right size and consistency or your kitten will not eat.”
“Her name is Pudding.” She sighed, forgetting herself. “Mostly because I wish had some.”
I wish you did too, Olive thought, and she turned away because there must have been a little soot from the Rumford lodged in her eye.
“There now. I will add some oats and stir.” Olive stirred, then requested that Flora pull over a stool and be ready to help.
Her eyes serious, Flora was soon stirring the oats round and round, and dabbing at the saliva at the corner of her mouth. Olive looked away again.
“There now. I believe we have it.” Olive took the pan from the cook top and uttered an exclamation. “Oh, dash it all! I wasn’t paying attention, Flora. Mr. Bowden most distinctly asked for fine-ground oats, and look what I have done.”
Flora looked and drew in a deep breath of the fragrant oats, her eyes closed in pleasure.
God forgive me when I complain that my lot in life is not easy, Olive thought as she watched the little girl. I am not an orphan from the Highlands.
She knew that Flora would not argue about what came next. Olive poured the gruel into a small bowl, sugared it well, and added cream. She stirred it as Flora watched her every motion and then set it on the table. She took Flora by the hand and sat her down in front of it.
