The Irish Healer (5 page)

Rachel bobbed her head. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Woodbridge.”

“Yes,” replied his sister-in-law, refusing to return the courtesy to a mere employee.

“Molly, show Miss Dunne to her room,” Dr. Edmunds instructed the one Rachel had decided was a maid. “Miss Dunne, I presume you’d like to clean up and have something to eat. Probably rest, also. We’ll meet in the morning to discuss your duties here. Seven o’clock sharp in the library. Molly or Peg can tell you where that is.”

“Yes, Dr. Edmunds,” she said, nodding. Food, rest would be heavenly. Getting away from Mrs. Woodbridge’s disapproving stare would be even better.

Rachel followed the maid up the stairs, carpetbag gripped in her hand. Mrs. Woodbridge watched her depart, her gaze boring a hole in Rachel’s back.

“You’re not going to keep her, are you, James?” Mrs. Woodbridge asked, her voice carrying clearly, making Rachel sound like a stray mongrel Dr. Edmunds had picked up. “Her cousin obviously misled you about her worth. For a reason, I would warrant, that is not to the girl’s credit.”

Rachel couldn’t hear Dr. Edmunds’s response, though Molly’s concurring harrumph was more than sufficiently loud.

Cheeks flaring, Rachel gripped her carpetbag more firmly and climbed behind the maid. It appeared she would find no friends in this household. Well, she would only be there for a month at most, according to Claire’s note. She could make do.

“How long have you been in service to Dr. Edmunds, Molly?” Rachel asked, trying to be friendly.

“Almost three years,” Molly answered brusquely, her voice bouncing off the staircase paneling, snowy white as the flowers of a guelder rose. Her tone was just as frosty.

They reached the third-floor landing with its low ceiling. Molly threw open the nearest door. “Here is your room. Next to Peg and me.”

The maid stepped aside and Rachel entered. The space was tiny, hardly bigger than a privy, and spare of decoration save an old multicolored carpet cut down to fit the space and a creamware ewer and basin on a stand adjacent a chest of drawers. Beneath a dormer window, a narrow bed clung to the faded pink wall. Rachel dropped her carpetbag next to the door. The room was clean and private. She should not expect anything more.

“Dinner is in a half hour,” said Molly. “I guess you’re to eat with us tonight. Don’t know about what’s to happen after. Best not be late. Mrs. Mainprice won’t wait for you.”

“I will not be late. Thank you, Molly.”

Molly tossed her head and strode out, skirts swirling.

Rachel cast a longing look at the bed. How she wanted to drop onto the thin, rose-colored counterpane and rest. She had hardly slept on the cramped ship and weariness ached in her bones. But dinner was only thirty minutes away, and she needed to wash up and brush the stains from her gown. The staff’s attitude would not improve if she continued to look like she had been sleeping in a gutter somewhere.

After carefully hanging her straw bonnet on a wall hook and putting her meager things in the chest, she changed into her green-trimmed dress and washed as well as she could. She found the back stairs and started down them. Voices ricocheted up the narrow stairwell and reached her ears. Rachel slowed her steps. They were talking about her.

“You should’ve seen the master’s face when he came back with her. He wasn’t happy to have had to go fetch her. I could see his blood was up across the room!” Unmistakably Molly’s voice.

“Naw! Say yer foolin’.” The voice of another girl. Peg, perhaps. She followed her declaration by a whinnying giggle.

“I say, what do you expect from some Irish girl? They’re all the same,” Molly declared. “Can’t even figure out how to properly arrive at their place of employment.”

“Molly, cease your tongue.” An older-sounding woman this time, with a deep and commanding voice. “Miss Dunne is not some ‘Irish girl.’ From what I’ve heard, her father was a respectable shop owner and her mother is as English as you or I. And her cousins are the Harwoods.”

“Her mother might be English, but her hair’s as red as any Irishman’s!”

“As though that proves something. I’ve had quite enough of this talk. It is most unchristian of you, and poor Miss Dunne is your better.”

“My better?” Molly scoffed. Rachel’s heart plummeted. They would be enemies for certain. “She doesn’t know her place, I say, Mrs. Mainprice. Didn’t even curtsy to Mrs. Woodbridge, like would be proper. And she and Miss Harwood lied about her age. Joe was told he’d be meeting an old spinster lady, not someone barely my age! Even the master didn’t know” Molly paused. Maybe she leaned forward. Maybe she shook her finger to emphasize her point. “Why did they lie, I ask you? Trying to pretend she’s something she’s not, is what I think.”

Rachel’s pulse raced while she tried to convince her arm
to push open the kitchen door so she could deny that she and Claire had lied about anything.

“I think she’s hiding something,” Molly continued. “And I think Dr. Edmunds believes so too. I wouldn’t be surprised if the master dismisses her at once. Cheeky bit.”

“He’ll do no such thing,” stated Mrs. Mainprice. “We should welcome Miss Dunne and pray for her while she’s with us, is what we should be doing. Not gossiping.” A bowl or pot thudded onto a hard wood surface. “She’ll be down here soon, and I expect you both to be respectful and nice. Dr. Edmunds deserves a peaceful household, not a gaggle of staff members who fight with each other. For shame.”

“He shouldn’t have brought her, is all I’m saying.” Molly wasn’t finished arguing. “We could’ve helped him properly without anyone else’s help. Even with Miss Guimond gone, we could’ve taken care of everything ourselves.”

“Aye. I’m with Molly, Mrs. Mainprice,” said the girl with the piercing giggle. “For all we know, she’s like all the other Irish and’ll rob the ’ouse while we sleep.”

“Quiet, Peg. Don’t be silly.”

“Or worse. Mebbe she’ll kill us!”

Stillness followed Peg’s proclamation, while dread crept numbly along Rachel’s arms.

She could run back to her room and hide—and hence, starve—or stride into the kitchen to face them. Inconveniently, her stomach rumbled. She had huddled on the stair long enough.

Rachel pushed through the half-open kitchen door and stepped into the lions’ lair.

CHAPTER 5

Don’ think it’s the best news, sir,” said Joe, standing in the doorway of James’s office.

The tension in James’s neck, which had pinched like a vise since Sophia’s visit earlier that day, had no apparent chance of easing. He kneaded the knot with his fingertips. “No help from Dr. Harris, then?”

“Dunno for certain, sir. Can’t right read,” he answered with only the faintest hint of apology for his lack of education and handed over the message.

“I keep forgetting, Joe.”

“S’all right, sir. No need for me to read an’ all, I s’pose.”

James opened the note and held it up to the light of the desk lamp. Not good news. Dr. Harris had no attendant to recommend and certainly couldn’t spare his wife to assist. James crushed the letter in his hand. He had heard the same from every colleague he’d queried. He wasn’t surprised by their responses, though. It had taken him months to find Miss Guimond, with her special training, and she had come all the way from France.

“You don’t happen to know anything about tending to patients, do you?” James asked Joe. “It would only be for a short while.”

“Me tendin’ patients, sir?” Joe blinked. “No, sir. I mean, I can’t even stand the sight of me own blood! One time I was passin’ a bloke on the street who’d cu’ his foot on a broken bit of pavemen’ and I nearly lost me breakfas’ right . . . I mean, no sir.”

A colorful description that requires no further embellishment
, James thought. Frankly, he might be able to do without a medical attendant. Already the number of patients he saw was diminishing. So long as there wasn’t some sort of outbreak in town, he could handle the load on his own. It would still be best, though, to have someone to greet those patients who came to the house for consultations, someone with more refinement than Joe. Someone with courage and a calm manner.

Should I do this, Lord?

It seemed imprudent to entrust Miss Dunne with more responsibilities, especially with the welfare of his patients. She might turn out, as Sophia had uncharitably suggested, to be a liar. Or worse. But Miss Harwood had assured him she was well educated, and he could tell by her speech that was true. She also carried herself with a certain grace his patients would find reassuring, enough perhaps to overlook her obvious Irish heritage. Maybe it was time to take a risk or two. After all, she was already here, the proverbial bird in the hand . . .

Joe cleared his throat, reminding James of his presence.

“Joe, tell Miss Dunne I would like to see her in the dining room. In about fifteen minutes.”

“Aye, sir,” Joe replied, tugging the wayward shock of hair hanging across his forehead before hurrying off.

Rising from his chair, James swept the crumpled letter into the top desk drawer and closed it tight. He needed to dress for dinner. Miss Dunne would be there.

The kitchen was three times larger than the one in Rachel’s home, so daunting it stopped her in her tracks. Mouthwatering smells assaulted—thyme and mustard and sizzling meat. Copper pots and pans, polished colanders and shiny utensils shimmered in the light from the massive fireplace. And silence, thick as cold porridge, filled every single corner. Seated at the oak table centered on the flags, Molly’s face flared the red of a rowan berry The gangly armed maidservant at her side—most likely Peg—dropped her fork onto her pewter plate with a clink. Her face, awkwardly narrow, turned just as pink as Molly’s.

The lions had lost their roar. Rachel felt only a moment’s fleeting victory She knew she would pay for embarrassing them by barging in like this, catching them at their gossipy worst.

A stout woman bustled around the table when it became obvious no one else would budge. She took Rachel’s hands in her own. They were rough but cool and strong. Thick, slate-colored hair was scraped away from her round face and held tight beneath a cap. Her eyes were warmly brown as a spaniel’s and just as observant.

“Welcome, Miss Dunne. I am Mrs. Mainprice, the housekeeper and cook.” She was the woman with the deep, rich voice. She smiled sincerely as she held onto Rachel’s hands.

Rachel liked her immediately. “I am most pleased to meet you,” she said to Mrs. Mainprice. “I am sorry if I am late for dinner. I hurried down as quickly as I could.”

“You’re not late at all. Who could expect you to be any earlier when you’ve just arrived all the way from Ireland this very afternoon?”

Rachel imagined Molly and Peg expected exactly such a thing.

Mrs. Mainprice patted her hand and guided her to a bench pulled up at the table. “Just sit here across from the girls. You already know Molly. And this is Peg. She helps me in the kitchen and the scullery. Molly is responsible for the rest of the house, though this isn’t a grand household and we all do what jobs as are needed.”

Rachel greeted the maids. Molly and Peg were forced to politely bob their heads in return.

“You’re just in time for prayer.” Satisfied that some sort of peace had been achieved, Mrs. Mainprice took a seat at the foot of the table, picked up a Bible, and began to read. “O give thanks unto the L
ORD
, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. Let the redeemed of the L
ORD
say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy; and gathered them out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the L
ORD
in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses.”

Rachel stared at her hands, clutched in her lap, while enmity rose off Molly and Peg like waves of heat from simmering coals. Just because Rachel was Irish. Or could they
read the trials of her past like printed words on a pamphlet? Clearly, the Lord had not delivered her from her distress.

Mrs. Mainprice set the Bible away. “Eat now, everyone, before the meat gets cold. I didn’t spend all afternoon roasting that beef to have you gawp at it. And I have a sauce to prepare for the master’s dinner, so no dawdling.”

Rachel was certain the roast and the beans and the dense bread were wonderful. It may have been water, for all she could taste any of the food.

“Must ’ave been awful difficult comin’ all the way to England and leavin’ your family and friends,” said Peg between mouthfuls. “Miss Dunne,” she added as an afterthought.

Rachel decided she was not trying to be friendly Nosy, was more like it. “It was.”

“Just like it was hard for you to leave Shropshire, Peg,” said Mrs. Mainprice.

“That waren’t so ’ard, Mrs. M! My pa was a mean one, ’e was. I’m ’appy as a lark to be away from ’im!” She turned her eyes to Rachel. “Was that ’ow it was for you? Runnin’ away from yer pa?”

“No. Just in need of work. My family has encountered difficult times, and employment is not easy to come by in Ireland,” Rachel replied, holding Peg’s gaze, trying not to let the worry for her family show in her eyes. Had Mother’s customers begun to return, now that Rachel was gone from Carlow? Would there be meat in the stew pot for the twins and Nathaniel? “There are five of us to feed and clothe, and we hoped I could make more money in England to support everyone.”