The Irish Healer (18 page)

“So you’ve had no cases of the cholera, Peterson,” James repeated.

The man at his side, robustly officious in his doctor’s dark coat and trousers, jiggled a thick chin in affirmation. “As I’ve said, Edmunds, I had heard of the case near St. George’s, but that fellow had, shall we say, unclean habits. An older gentleman who was a bit of a drinker, and you know how that weakens the system.”

“Nothing here, though.” James took in the length of the hospital ward, the lines of spindly-legged beds on each side, the ward mistress moving among her charges like a dog overseeing the flock, a medical student accompanying her, notes in hand. A man groaned in his laudanum-induced sleep. Another was losing a battle with pleurisy, the burbling wheeze of his breath a telltale marker. The smell of vinegar, rising off the floorboards, failed to escape through any open windows, stagnated in the close air, and burned James’s nose.

“Not a single case. A fellow at the end down there,” the doctor paused to gesture with his head, “has acute diarrhea, but it’s not the Asiatic cholera. I know the difference.”

How could he sound so positive? Had any of them seen enough of this new breed of disease to be able to tell?

“I had a patient, a Mr. Fenton-Smith, die from what I believe was the cholera, but that must have been an isolated case as well. He has offices along Holborn. Always a little questionable over there.”

“Which makes me ever grateful to have a practice located near Hyde Park,” said Peterson smugly.

A patient at James’s right cried out, a twisting scream of agony, and he clutched his abdomen. The ward mistress hurried over to calm the man.

Peterson’s quick glance dismissed the fellow. “Kidney inflammation from the stones. Screams like that every ten minutes.”
He stopped and stared at James. “You’re not really bothered about this cholera nonsense, are you? A sporadic outbreak is to be expected, but we’re not dealing with an epidemic.”

“I would be more at ease if I had a clue how to cure it.”

“As I tell my students here, chalk mixture and opium ought to take care of the cholera. Simple enough.” He patted James’s arm. “I’ve got to be off—shouldn’t even be here on a Sunday. The wife is furious, but what’s to be done? Disease doesn’t respect the Lord’s Sabbath. You know, Edmunds, if flare-ups of the cholera bother you, be thankful you’re not a physician on the East Side. Take comfort in your little corner of lovely Belgravia. Speaking of which, if you change your mind about giving your practice over to Dr. Castleton, I would always be interested.”

Not likely to ever happen
 . . . “I shall keep that in mind.”

The other man winked. “See you out?”

Slapping his hat atop his head, James accompanied Peterson out of the hospital. He sucked in the outside air to clear his lungs of the smell of disease. He had learned what he’d come to find out—the cholera hadn’t reached the western parts of London, so far spreading only to those who had been exposed through poor habits or poor choices. There was nothing to worry about, just as he’d told Sophia.

“Fine day” Peterson glanced around at the passing traffic. “See? Everyone looking healthy, life proceeding as normal among the upright and the strong. Not logical to be concerned about the cholera. Not logical at all.”

“I know it isn’t logical.” James frowned. “But now to convince my gut.”

CHAPTER 16

Rachel was packing the doctor’s collection of botanical books when he strode into the library.

“Miss Dunne. Working on a Sunday?” He had just come in from outside, his hat and gloves clutched in his right hand. He ran his fingers through his hair to tame a few wayward locks. Which never worked for long. “It’s a day of rest for you.”

“I have taken too much time away from my tasks of late, Dr. Edmunds.” Rachel tidied the topmost books and forced herself not to stare at him, notice how handsome he looked in his deep green coat and buff trousers, his shoes polished to a gleam. “And since we leave for Finchingfield in the morning, I thought it best to finish this set of shelves and not have to worry over it while we are gone.”

His gaze scanned the bookshelves. Most of them were empty, dust tracing the outlines of departed books. “You’ve accomplished quite a lot. It seems to me you can take an hour away from your chores and visit the apple girl. If you still want to go, that is.”

“I do.” Truthfully, her mind had not been much on her work. Between worrying about Molly and the threat from the cholera, Rachel hadn’t been able to concentrate on Milne’s
Botanical Dictionary
or Dr. Stokes’s
Botanical Materia Medica
. She might not have even logged them properly.

“I do indeed wish to see how she is doing,” Rachel answered firmly.

“Good.” Dr. Edmunds slapped his hat against his thigh. “I’ll have Joe get the gig ready, and I’ll meet you out at the mews.”

Once he left, Rachel untied her apron and hurried to fetch her bonnet and shawl. She paused in front of the hallway mirror just long enough to check the condition of her hair.

He waited for her at the door in the garden wall that led into the mews-house.

“I’ve heard from the surgeon that her arm is setting well.” Dr. Edmunds ushered Rachel inside, the pungent sweet-musty odor of straw and oats and horse greeting her nose. They passed into the open mews beyond, where Joe waited with the gig. The mare nickered upon catching sight of the doctor, and Joe steadied her as Dr. Edmunds grasped Rachel’s elbow and helped her up.

The doctor climbed alongside and took the reins from Joe, led them down the mews alleyway, through the arch and then onto the streets. “The girl lives near the river south of here, in Chelsea. Too far to walk.”

They set off at a steady pace, the traffic thinning rapidly as the lovely boulevards and gleaming white terraced houses of Belgravia turned into more utilitarian roads and less grand buildings. They passed gardens and a hospital
grounds. Smokestacks from distilleries and manufactories punched the hazy skyline.

“They’re down this lane,” Dr. Edmunds said.

A hodgepodge of houses—crooked timbered buildings from a prior century, multistoried brick apartments thrown up with only a modicum of concern, a squat home with peeling stucco—jumbled together. Dr. Edmunds slowed the mare and hopped down, avoiding the overflowing gutter that ran down the middle of the street. The stench of sewage and the sulfurous gasses from the lead works by the river settled over the neighborhood, making Rachel press a fist to her nose. The smell had to be poisonous, and Rachel searched the people passing in the street to see any indication of disease on their faces.

The apple girl’s father opened the ground-floor door, his brawny arms swinging wide as he led them down a narrow hallway to a set of two connecting rooms at the rear. The entirety of their home. His family, which appeared to include four other children ranging in age from an infant to a ten-year-old boy with a twisted foot, were huddled over a lunch of boiled potatoes. The little apple seller was stretched out on the cleanest mattress they owned, her arm swathed tight in bandages, two narrow wood boards securing it straight.

“We did not mean to interrupt your lunch.” Dr. Edmunds’s eyes made a quick circuit of the space, noting the cots lined up along the walls and the stains on the floor covering. They showed no repugnance or condescending pity. Either he excelled at hiding his feelings, or he’d seen such poverty and want so many times before that it no longer shocked him. Certainly Rachel had, every day back in Carlow.

“Not an int’ruption at all, sir.” The man moved his children
aside with his foot to clear a path. They were clean-faced and bright-eyed, at least, and appeared reasonably well fed and curious about their visitors. The oldest stared, open-mouthed, at the gold watch fob dangling from Dr. Edmunds’s waistcoat pocket.

“Janey, the doctor’s a-come to see you.”

Dr. Edmunds’s crouched at Janey’s bedside. “How are you, Janey? Healing up?”

The girl nodded.

“Good.” He pointed out Rachel. “This is the lady who first came to your assistance, Miss Janey. Her name is Miss Dunne.”

Big eyes dark as damp earth fixed on Rachel’s face. Rachel clutched her shawl around her shoulders and stared back. She did not look like Mary Ferguson or any of the others. She did not . . .

“Say thankee, Janey girl,” her father prompted.

“Thankee, Miss Dunne.” Her voice was faint as a fledgling’s peep.

“You are most welcome. For what little I did,” Rachel answered.

The doctor peeled off his gloves and rested soft fingers on the girl’s tiny forehead. “No fever. Excellent.” He examined the girl’s unbroken arm, resting atop a paper-thin blanket, gingerly probing around her badly scraped elbow. “Skin isn’t hot. No apparent infection. In spite of all the blood the other day, her cuts were mostly superficial.”

How many times had Rachel seen her mother’s hands move with the same fluid motion, at once reassuring and assessing? Mother would look up at Rachel, observing carefully, and their gazes would connect in common understanding.

Just as Dr. Edmunds’s gaze did now His eyes locked and held hers, their gray depths fathomless.
Yes, Dr. Edmunds. I see that her skin is a healthy pink and dry, her eyes clear and attentive. Yes, I see that I managed to cause her no harm
.

“Did the surgeon apply a poultice of common comfrey to set the bone?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Rachel wished them back.

Dr. Edmunds’s eyebrows lifted. “How many herbal treatments have you studied, Miss Dunne? I have heard about your mother’s miraculous tonic. Are you keeping more secrets from me?”

He was teasing, but nonetheless, Rachel’s fingers tightened nervously on her shawl. “I . . . my brother broke his wrist once and the apothecary made up a poultice to heal the break. The bones knit perfectly clean. I merely recalled the treatment, doctor.”

Her answer satisfied him. “I suspect the surgeon didn’t use a poultice, Miss Dunne, but a correctly applied splint has never failed.” Dr. Edmunds stood and faced the father. “You are keeping her absolutely still, as the surgeon ordered? It’s critical that the bones in that arm are not jarred.”

“We’ve been a-tryin’. But Janey ’ere ’as to get back to peddlin’ soon, sir.” The man jerked a thumb in the direction of his children. “We’ve mouths to feed and the missus’s job at the lace works don’ bring in much. Not that I’m complainin’. ’Tis a good job an’ all.”

“If Janey goes back to her work prematurely, her arm might be permanently disfigured.”

The man fixed Dr. Edmunds with a hard look. “Then she’ll make a good beggar, won’ she?”

“I know you don’t mean that.” Dr. Edmunds fished
around in his coat pocket and pulled out a half crown. He dropped it into the fellow’s hand. “Another two weeks at least before you let Janey get up.”

“Thankee, guv.” The man pocketed the coin. “Well, Janey me girl, you’ve a ’oliday, it seems.”

“Yes, Da.” She sighed wearily, seemingly unhappy with the prospect of being a burden. Or being forced to lie about in a hot, damp room where the air stank of mold and factory smoke. Plying the streets of Belgravia must seem like heaven to Janey. She might be just as eager to return to her peddling as her father.

Rachel and the doctor left soon after. Dr. Edmunds stopped on the curb, halting to pull on his gloves. “Do you really believe a comfrey poultice heals bones?”

“Our apothecary has always claimed so.”

“Well, I’ve been wrong about such things before,” he said, a shadow of a memory darkening his expression. He shook it off. “I give five days before Janey is up and toting that basket of apples around again.”

“Three is more likely, Dr. Edmunds.” Rachel refastened her bonnet ribbons and climbed into the gig.

He looked up at her, his hand resting on the toe board as he leaned close. “So you see why I must give up my practice. It’s futile to keep trying when your patients won’t even do what’s right for them.”

“They are too poor to ponder the option of right versus harmful, sir.”

“Then why do I bother?”

His eyes filled with frustration and pain, the sight twisting emotions deep in her heart. He bothered because he felt as she did, felt the compulsion to help like the instinct
to catch a falling bit of crockery or to jump back from a thrown spark. Even though responding to the impulse too often brought only pain and disappointment.

“Because someone must?” she replied, aware of the ache the answer caused in her own chest.

“Not me, Miss Dunne.” With a snap of his wrist, Dr. Edmunds released the reins from the pole he had tied them to. “I’ve vowed to become the most successful gentleman farmer in Essex. And I shall, even if it kills me.”

“I’ve instructed Joe to send Janey’s surgeon a note, Miss Dunne, telling him about using a comfrey poultice.” A twitch endeavored to turn into a smile at the corners of Dr. Edmunds’s mouth.

Rachel paused on the pavement while Mrs. Mainprice and Peg climbed into the hired carriage that would take them to Finchingfield. “You have?”

“Indeed.”

How surprising. “I just hope she gives it long enough to work.”