Doing No Harm, page 15
Mr. Dougall lifted the hatch in the counter and came out to face them. He touched Flora on the shoulder, and she looked around, her eyes dark and worried.
“We’ll take all you can make, Miss Flora MacLeod, you and Sally MacGregor. And mind you, we don’t need the profit. You can keep all five pence.”
Flora burst into tears, which meant that Mrs. Dougall followed suit. Douglas looked at Olive, who was biting her lip to keep back her emotions. He swallowed down his own, grateful that none of his former patients he had bullied unmercifully to take care and follow instructions were there to point at him and hoot.
Mr. Dougall put his arms around Flora. “Business ladies don’t cry. Dry your eyes now. Make me five more and bring them over tomorrow. We’ll see how they sell. No promises, mind.”
Flora dried her tears on her plaid shawl, so many sizes too large that it had to be Gran’s. She nodded and held out her hand to the innkeeper, just as she had held out her hand to Douglas.
Jamie Dougall had no proof against that, the same as Douglas, hours before. His lips quivered, but he shook hands with Flora MacLeod.
Chapter 20
That’s as close to a lee shore that I ever want to float,” Douglas told Olive as they left the Hare and Hound. “I swear I’m getting too old for this much drama.”
“You’ll be happy enough to push on in a few months and find a peaceful place that needs a surgeon, and that’s all?” Olive asked.
“Well, yes. I’ve had such a life. I have earned a peaceful practice,” he told her.
“You’ve only been here two weeks,” she said, which made him stare at her.
“It feels like three years since I snatched Tommy Tavish out of his mother’s arms,” he said. “Only two weeks? Olive, I’m just tired.”
She didn’t know Douglas Bowden well, but she doubted he meant to use such a petulant voice. “And you think I am not?” she wanted to say. Then to her embarrassment, she realized she had said precisely that. She opened her mouth again to apologize but then closed it. Edgar was her village. Its problems were her problems and she knew them well. She was wrong to think anyone else would care as much as she did, even a surgeon.
They stared at each other. She looked at every wrinkle around his tired eyes, and the tightness of his lips, and the way he carried his shoulders so high. This was a man so tightly wound that she had no words for that much exhaustion.
They stood in the street and she watched his eyes as he looked around, almost as though anticipating where the next crisis would begin, trying to identify it and buy himself a few more seconds to cushion himself against whatever the crisis might be. Was this what it meant to go to war? She could probably apologize from now to the twentieth century for living in a shabby village in Scotland that needed him so badly. Douglas Bowden had already given every last ounce of his strength to a country at war for a generation; he was done with misery. What right did she have to complicate his life when all he wanted was peace and quiet?
“I am so sorry,” she began, “so sorry. I … We needed you and we took from you without even asking. We won’t ask any more.”
She did something then so forward, right there on the street. She kissed his cheek, patted his shoulder, and gave him a little push toward his rented house.
“Go to bed, Mr. Bowden. If I could sing you a lullaby, I would.”
He smiled at that, so Olive knew she hadn’t completely fractured whatever sort of friendship this was.
“You left out the part about warm milk and biscuits,” he said, the ragged edge to his voice receding now. “Did you ever have those?”
“Once or twice. My mother was the kind sort.” She put her hands on her hips when he continued to stand there. “I mean it. Go to bed. Flora is going home to plan world domination, for all we know. Tommy is busy in Mrs. Aintree’s cattle bier. I will bring over some of your venison that you so kindly paid for, and see that Flora and Gran get some too.”
“The neighbors will talk, if you come bearing food.”
“Maeve will come with me. Seriously. Go on.” She turned on her heel and went into her tearoom, touching her metal chimes to set them in motion and make a little music that she suddenly needed. She closed the door behind her and didn’t look out the window until she was certain he had to be inside his own dwelling. And when she looked and found the street empty, she felt a little sad that he had done what she bade him do.
The noon meal was the big one, so Olive took her time with supper. Unable to resist a nibble at the crusty layer on the venison haunch, she cut off a corner, and then a little more, unable to remember something as delicious as meat, with potatoes and onions nestled shoulder to shoulder and treading broth thickened by a little flour.
Her few diners were wide-eyed with amazement. The fragrance must have traveled down the street because others came to the tearoom, people of modest means but still able to pay for their portions. The minister’s wife dropped by more of her exquisitely printed labels, sniffed the air, and stayed to eat.
“Poached deer?” the well-mannered lady asked, her eyes lively.
“No, I roasted it,” Olive teased back.
When the last customer left, after tipping his hat to her and hinting for venison sandwiches tomorrow with lots of sliced onions, Olive prepared a plate for Douglas Bowden. She saw no lights in the upstairs rooms, so she called Maeve away from the dishes.
“We’re taking food across the street,” she said. “When we’re done there, we’ll take some to the MacLeods.”
Douglas must have been watching for them, because he stood in his open doorway, his shirttail out, his neckcloth a distant memory somewhere. He took the food with thanks and set it on the table in the surgery waiting room, among a pile of books that appeared well-thumbed. What looked like strips of twine marked the pages.
“It’s oakum,” he said, following her gaze. “You know, the old rope that sailors unravel to use for plugging leaks.”
She didn’t, aware that she probably knew as little about ships as the bewildered crofters from the Duchess of Sutherland’s Highland holdings.
She looked at the book open on the table, with its diagrams of hands. “I haven’t tried to unfuse fingers,” he admitted. “I have no doubt I can do it, but it’s nice to consult the experts. I always study, no matter how many times I have done a procedure. Well, if time allows.”
“You’re supposed to relax, eat, and go to bed,” she reminded him as he sat down with no ceremony and started to eat, the book propped close by.
“Don’t you know it’s rag manners to order someone about in his own house?” he asked, his eyes tired still, but with humor lurking around his mouth. “You’re as troublesome as Napoleon.”
“I am a managing spinster,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, Flora has it right: you are a kind lady.”
Embarrassed, Olive glanced at Maeve, who appeared to be hugely enjoying this whole exchange. “And now we are going to see Flora and Gran. Maeve?”
Someone knocked on the door. When Douglas rose to answer it, Olive silently thanked her own wisdom in taking Maeve along on an errand that required no assistance. She didn’t need the person on the other side of the door to spread the sort of gossip that a village where nothing happens sometimes craved.
With relief, Olive saw Mrs. Aintree standing there, a small pitcher of milk in her hand. She gave it to Douglas. “For your dinner, Mr. Bowden.” The widow looked around. “Do you have a moment?”
“We were just leaving,” Olive said.
“No need, lass,” Mrs. Aintree said. “You should know this, too.”
“Tommy hasn’t been giving you troub …” Olive said at the same time as Douglas said, “Tommy’s leg is …”
Mrs. Aintree laughed. “Listen to the two of you.” She looked first at Olive. “No, my dear, Tommy is all I could ask for in a milker.” She turned to Douglas. “He keeps scratching those stitches.”
“It’s time they came out,” Douglas said. “Soon, I promise. What … what is it?”
Mrs. Aintree took a deep breath and looked toward the ceiling, as if shy to speak. “I have two empty rooms over my kitchen,” she said finally, and she spoke fast, as if trying to keep ahead of her own natural reserve, a commodity well-represented in Edgar. “No reason that Tommy and his mam can’t move in there. I can use her help, Mr. Bowden. I don’t know why I didn’t think I needed it.”
Olive watched with gratitude in her heart as Douglas Bowden’s shoulders relaxed. Two problems solved, Olive thought. The Tavishes will have a home, and Mrs. Aintree will have help with housework and cooking, following Mr. Bowden’s hand surgery.
“I haven’t mentioned it to Tommy yet,” the widow said. She looked at the surgeon now, the hard work over as she acknowledged her needs and let go of her bit of unnecessary pride. “I wanted you to know first.”
“He’ll be delighted,” Douglas said. “I know I am. Mrs. Aintree, I predict that Mrs. Tavish will be most grateful and ever so attentive in her duties, once you explain them carefully to her. All she wants is a place for her and her boy to live without fear.”
“There’s a bed in each room and lots of sheets and blankets,” Mrs. Aintree said. “I have so much. In fact, if you need some, you know, when winter comes …”
“I’ll be gone by then,” he told her. “But I thank you for the offer.”
“You really should just stay here,” Mrs. Aintree told him.
“He has other plans,” Olive said quietly. “We’re grateful he is here now.”
Mrs. Aintree nodded. “I’ll tell Tommy, and we’ll walk together to tell his mam.”
“Would you like me to come along?”
“No, laddie,” she said, her eyes kind. Olive wondered if Mrs. Aintree saw the exhaustion too. “It’s a woman’s job. Tommy is all the escort I need.”
When she left, Douglas let out his breath in a sigh of satisfaction. “I haven’t prayed in years, but I tell you, Olive, I was about to give it a try, before Mrs. Aintree knocked on my door!”
“Heaven forbid that you should be forced to summon deity,” Olive joked. “Did you forget I am a minister’s daughter?”
He shook his head. “I’m off my feet, my stomach is about to get full, a problem is solved, and I feel a glimpse of returning good humor. How simple is man.”
Another knock.
“We are busier tonight than Wellington after Waterloo,” Douglas said. “I’ll have to tell people to form a line to the left.”
Two people stood there. Olive had eyes for one, and from the way he reached forward, Douglas had eyes for the other.
She stepped aside while he gently reached for the good arm of Edgar’s cobbler. She sucked in her breath to see a bodkin driven straight through his wrist.
“What did you do, man?” Douglas asked, impressing Olive with the sudden calmness in his voice, and of all things, more than a hint of a smile.
She realized what she was seeing and wondered how the Royal Navy had ever let such a doctor actually retire. My stars, she thought, wondering if such things were taught in medical school. As soon as Douglas Bowden sees that some wretched wound isn’t going to be fatal, he has a remarkable facility for putting someone at ease.
Sure enough, the terror left the man’s face, even if the pain did not. “You’re looking at a clumsy fellow, Mr. Bowden. Can you fix me?”
“Without question, Mister … Mister …”
“McIntyre. What a poor excuse for a cobbler I am. I was going to stitch up a pair of boots. Got on a wooden box, a shaky wooden box let me add, to reach for my larger needles and the bodkins. I’d shake your hand but …”
The surgeon chuckled. “Some other time. Go right in there,” he said, opening the door to his surgery. “Let me help you. Just tell yourself it looks worse than it is.”
“Crivvens, but he is a cool one, is our surgeon,” the innkeeper’s wife said.
Our surgeon, Olive thought, touched to her heart’s core. I wish that were so. “He is. Since he is occupied, may I help?”
Mrs. Dougall silently held out three small dresses. Olive swallowed hard and took them in her arms.
“I said we had a daughter once,” Mrs. Dougall said, her voice so low that Olive could barely hear her. “You’ll find a good use for them: one for little Flora, and two for the MacGregor sisters.”
“Thank you,” Olive said, trying to be as cool as the surgeon, when she wanted to give the innkeep’s wife a great hug and then dance around the room with Maeve.
“I have others too, and a bonny cloak for winter,” Mrs. Dougall said. She hesitated and then cast aside her Scottish reticence much as Mrs. Aintree had done. “Some of us have not been as welcoming and kind as we could have been, have we?”
Olive had no trouble finding excuse for her fellow villagers. “We already slice a thin oatbread here in Edgar, Mrs. Dougall. Sometimes it’s hard to see how we can help others, when our own lot is skimpy.”
“That can change,” Mrs. Dougall said. “I think it must.” She left as quietly as she had come.
“Oh, Maeve, we had better get ourselves to the MacLeods,” Olive said.
“Will Gran see these dresses as charity?” Maeve asked.
“Happen she might, but I can be a bit of a martinet, if needs must,” Olive told her.
“Miss Grant? You?”
She turned around at the surgeon’s voice, to show off the dresses. “Yes! Don’t quiz me. So much for your peaceful evening. How is Mr. McIntyre’s wrist?”
He shrugged. “The scariest thing is the hematoma, which I will lance. Blood pools under the skin when things like this happen. Toss in a suture or two and Mr. McIntyre will be on his merry, and hopefully wiser, way. The venison will keep and I will eventually find my bed.” He fingered the fabric of one of the dresses she held. “This yellow one will look good on the impresario of Edgar, Miss Flora MacLeod herself.”
“My thought precisely. Come, Maeve.”
He put his hand on her arm and gave it a little shake. “Miss Grant, it appears I may have underestimated your village.”
Chapter 21
Douglas decided that the earth’s axis had somehow shifted under Edgar, and he was quite willing to give the credit to Flora MacLeod. He had mentioned that epiphany to Olive, who had looked at him a long time down her nose.
“I believe she must share the credit with you, Mr. Bowden,” she assured him the next morning when he stopped by to see Flora’s most recent crop of fancies. “The people of my village are already calling you their surgeon. I know! I know! You have no plans to stay.”
“I don’t,” he had said, trying to sound firm, but failing, in his critical estimation. “Thank you for understanding my own need for peace and quiet.”
“I understand perfectly, and they don’t need to know, sir,” she said. “You can vanish some night, once you have solved all of our problems.”
She was such a tease. They laughed together, and Olive even agreed to assist when he unfused Mrs. Aintree’s fingers.
“I can train you to be an excellent pharmacist mate,” he told her. “You can learn to handle any number of minor crises.”
The fishy look she gave him suggested that her heart wasn’t entirely taken up with medicine, as his obviously was, since he couldn’t even get through a Scottish village without stopping to heal its inhabitants and maybe walk on water.
He accepted the fact that he was an easy mark, which would have astounded his Royal Navy colleagues, who knew him only as a hard-eyed, single-minded surgeon lacking even a flyspeck of sentiment.
Fools, they have never met Flora MacLeod, Douglas decided as he walked across the street later for luncheon with Olive. The little girl had already burst into his house earlier that morning after the early coach had stopped at the Hart and Hound. She wore that yellow dress from an earlier decade, held in by a length of twine.
“Ah! Lovely!” he had said before she even had a chance to speak. “Twirl around.”
She did and then opened her fist to show him ten coins. “Mr. Bowden! Two charms to the same lady!”
“That’s what I thought might happen, Flora,” he told her. “Travelers want more than one to share with friends.”
He sent her on her way with little Pudding, who was bobbling about and disinclined to remain in the box where she had convalesced. “He needs that fine oatmeal several times a day,” was Douglas’s prescription. “Buy two pennies’ worth of oats at the greengrocer’s and feed Mama cat as well. I’ll be over in a few days to remove her sutures.”
Satisfied, he watched as Flora carefully picked up her kitten, wrapped her into a length of Gran’s shawl, and left at a more sedate pace. She looked back in the doorway and he gave her an inquiring glance.
“Mr. Bowden, you are good with kittens,” she said, her eyes kind. He looked for anxiety and distrust and saw none. He was no fool to think that Flora MacLeod would never have another nightmare or frightening turn, but he could not deny the gentle mantle of peace that had settled on her young shoulders. For now, he would count it as a blessing.
By the time he made the trip across the street to luncheon, Flora had found her way to Olive’s tearoom with the MacGregor sisters, who now had a dress apiece.
The smaller sister, introduced to him by Flora as Euna, stood on a table in the corner of the tearoom as Mrs. Campbell pinned the hem. “Euna and Sally MacGregor,” Flora said. “They will help make our little fancies. Miss Grant says we have formed a corporation.”
Douglas laughed. “You’ll have to declare a name, register it, and pay taxes to the crown.”
“We’re not paying the crown a single penny,” Flora assured him.
“I wouldn’t either,” Olive said. She sat hemming one of the dresses.
“A revolutionary,” Douglas warned. “Aux barricades!”
She shook her finger at him and returned to her hemming, looking as content as he had ever seen her. He looked round the tearoom, where Olive’s usual customers chatted quietly and ate what looked like venison sandwiches. And when was the last time anyone here ever had meat, he asked himself, pleased.
