The Irish Healer (24 page)

CHAPTER 21

The doctor is out, I said.”

Joe’s voice was clear, echoing up the staircase to reach Rachel in the library. He had been assigned to answering the door, in lieu of any maids left in the house, but hadn’t had time to master any of the manners that went with the job. Rachel could easily imagine the look of exasperation on his face right now, furious with whoever it was who declined to leave, and almost smiled. Almost.

Finishing the final entry in the ledger, Rachel straightened and wiped her hands across her apron. The last of the books, recorded and packed away. The room looked undressed, the massive walnut shelves empty of their volumes.

Footsteps marched up to the library, and Joe poked his head around the door. He’d been given a new outfit to go with his new role, and he rubbed his bare head as if his nervous fingers missed his old tattered cap, banished to the stable.

“Miss Dunne, are you busy?”

Her work in the library was completed, but Molly’s tasks . . . she still had those to do. She had been procrastinating with them. “I have just finished here, Joe.”

“Good, ’cause there’s a person,” he paused to roll his eyes as though the title “person” was a bit too noble for the creature, “who says she ’as to see Dr. E, an’ won’t listen when I tell ’er that ’e isn’t ’ere. Says she ’as to see ’im and won’t leave until ’e appears. Bloomin’ stupid woman. She came to the front door too! Bold as brass.”

“You need me to talk to her?”

“Mrs. M is busy meetin’ with the butcher to settle the bill, else I’d ’ave ’er give the woman the boot.”

Rachel untied her apron and went downstairs. A lanky woman, as tattered and stained as a rag left in the gutter, fidgeted on the threshold of the open front door. Joe had stopped her from coming inside; she appeared used to such treatment.

The woman’s eyes were dark and piercing and world-weary. Displeased as they confronted Rachel. “You ain’t no Dr. Edmunds.”

“The doctor is out, and I do not know when he will return. Joe here has already told you that.”

“’e has to come.”

“Is there something I can help you with?”

“You be a healer?” the woman asked suspiciously.

Not any longer
. “I might be able to assist if I know what the problem is. Dr. Edmunds directs some of his patients to Dr. Calvert—”

“I needs Dr. Edmunds. ’im only. Someone’s got to ’elp Moll, an’ seein’ as she used to work for ’im, afore . . . everythin’, I thought—”

Rachel caught the name and the tension that went with it. “Molly? You have come because of Molly?”

She nodded. “She wouldn’t like me to be ’ere, not one bit. But ’e’d help ’er. I knows ’e would. She’s terrible sick.”

Rachel’s insides clenched. Something had happened with the baby again, and this woman had either walked a great distance or spent her last penny to get here to plead for help. “The matrons at the institute Dr. Edmunds sent her to should be able to adequately care for her.”

“Moll left that stinkin’ hole. She didn’t like it there ’tall. She’s wiv me.” The woman heaved an exasperated sigh, her hands kneading together as if they sought to choke one another. “Are ye gonna come, then, or just keep yammerin’?”

Molly’s friend turned to leave, confident Rachel would follow.

“Miss . . . ma’am, I . . .” She could not keep tending to people.
Why does this continue to happen to me?
Today, however, there was no Dr. Edmunds to rescue her from tending Molly alone.

The woman stopped on the second step, noting Rachel’s hesitation.

“Are ye comin’ or not? Moll’s gonna die.” Her voice was sharp with impatience and fear. “Die, ye understan’ me?”

Rachel swallowed and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Molly would die without help. Might die anyway.

God—or somebody—help me
.

“Joe!” Rachel shouted. He was at her side so quickly she had to believe he’d been lurking close by. “I need to tend Molly at this woman’s house. I need the gig.”

“Cor, miss, the master’ll ’ave me ’ead for takin’ the gig
without ’is say-so. I don’ suppose you can afford a hackney” He lifted his brows hopefully.

“No, Joe. I cannot.”

“Well, I’ll take ya then. I guess.”

“I will meet you in back once I have collected some medicines.”

Joe glanced at the woman waiting by the door. “Come round back, miss . . . come round back, will ya? But not through the ’ouse. Cor.”

Rachel ran to Dr. Edmunds’s office. The door was open, but his medicine cabinet was locked. She couldn’t get to his bottle of fever mixture. She would have to make do with what she could find in the kitchen, which might not be adequate. In minutes she procured two bottles—one of spirit of niter and one of laudanum, borrowed from Mrs. Mainprice’s personal stores. Gratefully, the housekeeper had asked few questions as she’d handed the items over, too busy with the butcher to take much notice of Rachel’s request.

Rachel met Joe and Molly’s friend in the mews, the gig waiting and ready. Bottles safely tucked into her pocket, she climbed up alongside Joe. Her stomach roiled, but she would rather toss her luncheon of cold sliced beef and potatoes than turn back now like a craven coward.

“Hurry, Joe.”
Before I change my mind
.

Rachel realized, as the gig clattered down the bustling thoroughfare of Oxford Street, how little of London she had seen. Each passing yard brought buildings a bit wearier, a bit more forbidding. They had driven past the big park near the
house and the road that led to Mrs. Chapman’s school, clattered away from the prosperity of the neighborhoods that Joe referred to as Mayfair. Quicker than she expected, Oxford Street ended and they squeezed into a narrower road, a sensation much like coming out the bottom end of a funnel. The buildings closed around them and Joe slowed the gig. The tart stench of decaying vegetables—and worse—hung in the air. Rachel fisted her nose while nausea rolled anew.

“Yeah, the smell of St. Giles,” said Joe, his mouth twisting sourly. “Don’t breathe in too deep. The air’ll kill ya, it will. Drops ’em like flies around ’ere.”

Molly’s friend grunted, a noise of either affirmation or protest. It was difficult for Rachel to distinguish.

Joe brought the gig to a halt and the woman clambered down first. She sprinted toward a narrow archway spanning two buildings.

“Through ’ere,” she called back over her shoulder.

“Good luck there, miss,” said Joe as Rachel eased onto the slippery pavement.

“Do not tell me you are not coming with me,” Rachel said.

“I leave the gig and it’ll be gone in an instant.” He snapped his fingers to accentuate his point. “Sorry, miss. If you leave before it gets dark, you should be okay. I think.”

Small consolation, that.

“Tell Dr. Edmunds the moment he returns where I have gone, should I not get back before he does. Tell him . . .”
I need him to do the doctoring
. “Just tell him to come if I do not return soon.”

“Aye, miss. Be quick.”

“I doubt I can promise that. Thank you, Joe.”

Molly’s friend had disappeared. Lifting her skirts to keep them out of the filth clogging what passed for a gutter, Rachel hurried through the archway. It led into a courtyard. A man smoking a pipe leaned against a nearby doorpost, watching as she emerged. Decomposing matter filled corners, black mold grew up cracked plaster walls, and stained laundry hung from open windows. Two scrawny boys with dirty faces and tattered trousers halted their game of checkers and set down the bits of bone they used for playing pieces to stare. The air reeked of ordure, and bile choked Rachel’s throat. The poorest quarter of Carlow was better than this place.

“Have you seen a woman come through here?” Rachel asked the man.

His gaze scanned her, assessing like a backstreet shopkeeper whether the information might be worth some money. The clothing on her back might fetch a pound, which would be a month’s wages to a fellow like him.

Instinctively, Rachel clutched her arms about her. He finished his assessment and decided to take pity. She and her clothing were safe.

“Yep.” He pointed a thumb toward a doorway two houses away, his pipe clicking against his few teeth as he clamped down again.

She thanked him and hurried forward, picking her way around mangy dogs and piles of rubbish. Impossibly, the smell intensified the deeper she moved into the dreary space. She clapped a hand to her nose.

A thimble-sized girl with dirty hands huddled inside the open door, bundling watercress. Rachel smiled at her and lifted her skirts over the threshold, slick with old grime.

“’ere, miss.” Molly’s friend signaled from a room just to Rachel’s right. A sickly sweet scent, a mix of sweat and rot, drifted out. The woman jerked her head over toward the corner. “There’s Moll.”

Oh, you poor creature
. That this might become the last place Molly knew.

The space was nothing more than a single room. Light struggled to pierce the web-encrusted window, and the air was damp and moldy, pressing heavily on her lungs. The plaster had cracked and fallen, revealing the decomposing lath behind. A pallet had been shoved against the far wall, a ragged sheet tossed over a rope to act as a curtain. Molly was a huddled bundle beneath a threadbare sheet no longer white but sheer as muslin from years of use.

Her eyes, glitteringly bright, glowered at Rachel. “Why are you here?” she asked, her strength insufficient to voice the resentment clear in her gaze.

Why
was
she there? To serve more penance? “Your friend came looking for Dr. Edmunds to tend you, but he has been gone all day. I said I would come instead. Until he can come himself.”

The glare shifted to her friend, who had taken down a chair from the wall and set it adjacent the bed for Rachel to use. “You shouldn’t have sent for either of them.”

“Don’ be ungrateful now, Moll. She’s ’ere for free.” A meager offering.

“I am all you have for now,” Rachel said. “Please let me do what I can to help.”

Molly tried to hold onto her resentment, but she lacked the strength for it. The hatred retreated from her eyes, leaving behind only the fever and the fear.

Sitting, Rachel lifted Molly’s hand, felt along the girl’s wrist, hot as a warming pan. Molly’s pulse raced. “You should have stayed at the institute Dr. Edmunds sent you to.”

“I couldn’t listen to their lectures anymore. I’d rather die than stomach any more of their preachy jabbering.”

You might get your wish . . . Oh, Lord, can You not heal her?
Rachel rested Molly’s hand atop the sheet. He would not help either of them, two sinners. Poor creature. “Has the bleeding started again?”

Molly nodded. “It was bad a bit ago. I thought it’d stop, like the other day. But it didn’t.”

“Soaked seven rags, she did.” Molly’s friend stood against the wall at the head of the pallet. A hard veneer protected the woman’s emotions, but Rachel was confident the woman was frightened for her friend. She should be.

“Has the bleeding stopped now?” Rachel asked.

“Yes, but the cramping is bad. I’m so cold.”

Rachel drew out the bottle of spirit of niter and the laudanum. “I need a cup of the cleanest water you can find and more cool cloths,” she instructed Molly’s friend.

Molly shivered and closed her eyes. “I’m scared of going to hell. I’ve been trying to pray but I can’t seem to remember the proper words.” She sobbed, but no tears fell. The fever was slowly wringing every ounce of moisture from her body, leaking it through every pore, leaving none for sorrowing. “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”

Rachel brushed tendrils of the girl’s hair off her forehead.
Yes, Molly, you are, and I cannot stop it from happening
.

“I will not let you die, Molly,” Rachel said instead of the words pounding in her brain. Her mother had always insisted
that the patient must believe they could heal, even if Rachel did not. “Do you hear me? I will not let you die.”

Rachel raised her eyes to the peeling plaster of the ceiling while despair hollowed out her strength, draining it away like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass.

“God, do not do this again,” she muttered wearily. So weary.

Molly’s eyelids fluttered open. “What’s that?”

“Nothing, Molly.” Rachel patted the girl’s hand. “Nothing at all.”

Molly’s friend shuffled back into the room, cradling a mug in one hand and a torn bit of cloth in the other.

Rachel diluted the spirit of niter. “Help me lift Molly” Her friend gripped Molly’s shoulders to raise her up so she could drink. She lifted easily. Molly was light as a rag doll, a shadow of her former self, and just as limp. “This is for the fever.”

The girl spluttered, half the liquid dribbling down her chin. When she finished the spirit of niter and a portion of the laudanum, she settled back on the lumpy tick. Molly moaned and curled into a ball. Her cheeks were splotched unnaturally crimson, her breathing fast and shallow.

“Will she live?” her friend whispered, laying the dampened cloth over Molly’s forehead. The girl had fallen into a fitful sleep, insensible to the question.