The Irish Healer (8 page)

“Why not go ahead and tend to the garden yourself?” Rachel asked. “I doubt anyone would stop you.”

“I’m the boy, Miss Dunne. I know my place and my place knows me. I don’ aspire to better than what I got.”

“Is it so wrong to aspire to greater? I always wanted . . .” Rachel stopped before she voiced her wants. Any dreams she’d once owned had died in a cramped and filthy room back in Carlow.

“Wanted what, miss?” Joe asked, sawing away at a dead branch.

At one time she’d intended to write a book on everything she had learned about herbs and medicines and nursing. Too many women had to rely on word-of-mouth and unreliable recipes handed down by family members. A straightforward book written in plain words would be helpful to many. But no one would seek to purchase medicinal recipes written by someone accused of killing a patient. Unless they anticipated such a treatise would teach them about poisons.

“Nothing, Joe. I have had to put my lofty dreams away in favor of a more practical reality. I came to England to find a position as a teacher.”
I shall be good at it, and teaching will not require nursing skills
. “To me, there is no work more fulfilling than helping children.”

“Teacher, eh? That sounds right good, miss. I’ve never ’ad learnin’ meself.”

“Maybe I could tutor you a little while I am here.”

“Naw. Books an’ all scare me.” Joe grunted as the saw blade stuck in the branch.

“But a gardener who can read would be very valuable. It would make it easier to reach your dream, Joe.” Her dream might be dead, but his needn’t be.

“Me mum always said not to give up until God shows us our end an’ they’re shovelin’ dirt on top our coffins.” Joe worked the blade back and forth on the branch, trying to free it. He glanced over at Rachel. “But look what good dreamin’ done for ’er. Died of the pox.” He suddenly groaned and let fly a curse as the blade whipped loose, throwing him off balance. Arms wheeling, he fell from the ladder and thudded to the ground. The saw skidded across the gravel.

“Joe!” Rachel ran over to him, crouched down. His cap had flown off and she felt along the back of his skull, her hands moving with long practice that required no thought.

He winced as her finger found a lump. “It’s nothin’.”

“Does anything hurt? Your head? Your legs? Back?”

“No. It’s nothin’.”

He tried to sit up, but Rachel pressed him back onto the ground. “It is not nothing. You have a bump on your head and you cut your arm with the saw. Press your hand to the wound and lie still. Do not move.” She gave him a shove on the shoulder to keep him down. If he had broken or strained anything, movement would only aggravate the injury. “I will fetch something for the cut.”

The office door was locked tight, and Dr. Edmunds had not
entrusted her with the key. Rachel rushed down to the empty kitchen. Mrs. Mainprice had mentioned she kept headache powders. Maybe she would have other medicines as well.

Rachel located the housekeeper’s supplies. After a few moments of searching, Rachel found dried cuttings of the mushroom known as agaric of oak but no sticking plaster. The agaric would quench the bleeding. Her binding would have to seal the wound shut.

Snatching up a clean rag from a pile lying next to the sink, then dipping a mug into the pitcher of fresh water standing nearby, she hurried back out to the garden. Joe had followed her directions and remained stretched out on the ground. However, he looked peevish.

“Ya know what yer doin’?” Joe eyed her as she tore the rag into two halves.

“Lie still. I am going to wash your wound then apply agaric of oak to it. The bleeding should stop. I will have to tie a rag around your arm until sticking plaster can be obtained to keep the wound closed.”

She worked quickly, carefully, probing the wound for any gravel or dirt stuck within, picking out what she could and pouring the clean water over the cut. Thankfully, the saw had not penetrated far. A deeper cut would require more serious medicine than what she had brought.

“Mrs. M would say God’s watchin’ over me, to ’ave you on ’and to patch me up. I coulda been out ’ere screamin’ for ’elp till I bled to death. That’s what I get for not goin’ to services.”

God. Him again. “I do not know that my presence in the garden was any blessing at all.” Crushing the dried mushroom, she pushed it into the wound and wrapped the cloth around his arm, sealing it shut. “It’s my fault the blade
slipped and you fell. I distracted you with my silly conversation about aspirations.”

“Naw. Don’t be blamin’ yerself, miss.”

But she did. Of course, she did.

Finishing up, Rachel helped Joe lean against the tree trunk. She settled back on her heels. And nearly collapsed onto the rocky path when she realized what she’d just done. Poor Joe. Had she cleaned the wound well enough? The cut might get infected; she had seen shallower wounds fester and blacken, resulting in amputations. Without his arm, Joe would be useless as a servant . . .

Rachel lurched toward the bench and pulled herself onto the seat while she gulped air and fought lightheadedness.
Breathe in. Breathe out. Do not faint
.

Startled, Joe sat up. “The cut’s not that bad, is it, miss?”

“I do not believe so.”

“Good! Cause as green as you look, I’da thought my arm were gonna fall clean off.” His eyes widened. “’ey, wait now. Where’d you learn to doctor like this?”

He’d taken longer than she had expected to ask the question. “I learned bits here and there about herbs and tending. Mostly from my mother. Things any woman might know.”

“Not jus’ bits an’ not jus’ any woman, miss.”

Standing on legs as wobbly as a newborn colt’s, Rachel snatched the damp rag and mug off the ground. She needed to get away before he asked any other questions and she had to come up with more answers. “I need to get back to my work now, Joe. Rest there until you feel stronger.”

“But, miss!”

She hurried toward the house. Dr. Edmunds was destined to hear how his new assistant, who had claimed to have no
knowledge of medical things, who had nearly fainted in his office, had known how to tend Joe’s wound. There would be more questions and more prevarications from her, adding to the stack growing like a refuse pile.

Oh, Rachel, your soul is going to be black as a charred pot bottom before all is said and done
.

She suppressed the voice, reached for the rear door latch, and stepped into the cool darkness, away from Joe’s quizzical gaze.

On the Monday after Miss Dunne had been too unwell to attend church services, James wandered down the hallway toward the library, a bundle of patient notes he had been consulting tucked in his hand. He needed to discuss with Miss Dunne how he wanted the paperwork handled for this particular patient—a crotchety old gentleman who his father had tended before handing him off to James. He paused before entering the library. How many times precisely had he found an excuse to come up here today? The first occasion, he’d come to check that she had fully recovered from yesterday’s headache. The next had been to relay some information on when the packing crates would arrive. Another had been to review her progress on her first full day of working in his library. So that made two . . . no, three times.

Three times?
Surely I’m too busy to keep finding reasons to talk with her
.

After all, he was not the sort of man who was normally intrigued by women he barely knew Especially those who worked for him.

James peered into the library. Miss Dunne leaned over the ledger spread across his desk, a curling tendril of coppery hair come loose from her chignon to fall along her chin, and chewed her bottom lip as she concentrated on her entries. Who was she really? he wondered. She was well educated, her voice betraying only a trace of her Irish heritage, and she held herself as if she were used to possessing authority and being respected. But her clothes were worn, the material shiny in spots where it had rubbed against surfaces, the hems of her two dresses taken down more than once. Poor and Irish, Sophia would say with a disdainful sneer. Words that went together like
cold
and
winter
. Or
patent medicine
and
unreliable
.

Miss Dunne backed away from the desk, retreating to the far bookshelves, and James inched closer to the doorway not to lose sight of her. She was humming quietly, some Irish country tune perhaps. She must miss home; he suspected she had never been away before.

She brushed back the loose strand of hair, tucking it behind her ear. Her fingers were long and elegant, and she kept them meticulously clean. A habit James had as well, vitally necessary when treating disease every day. An unusual habit for someone in her situation, though.

“Sir?” Molly’s voice jerked him back from the doorway. Her eyes narrowed as they glanced between him and what she could see of the library. “Is there something you’re needing, sir?”

“I was going to instruct Miss Dunne on a patient’s files,” he explained, waving the papers as proof even though he didn’t have to provide any reason to his house-maid for loitering outside his library.

“Are you wanting me to help with your patients today?” she asked hopefully.

“No. Miss Dunne will help if I need any assistance. You may continue with your chores up here.” He nodded at the dirty bed linens bundled in her arms.

Her expression went rigid. “Yes, sir.”

Briskly, James turned on his heel and headed for the stairs, his forgotten papers dangling from his hand.

CHAPTER 8

I’m feelin’ right well, I am, miss,” said Joe, sitting atop Dr. Edmunds’s desk in the library, scuffing its polished surface with the backside of his woolen breeches. He grinned at Rachel, one of his wide grins that filled his face and showed the gap in his teeth. “Healin’ up clean.” He tapped his linen sleeve at the spot where he had cut his arm.

Two days had passed since he had fallen from the tree. If the wound had not become infected in that amount of time, the risk that it might had passed.

“I am very glad to hear that, Joe.” Books cradled in the crook of her left arm, Rachel retreated down the ladder that ran on a brass rail atop the bookshelf. “You haven’t said anything to Dr. Edmunds about cutting your arm, have you?”

“Cor, no! I’d never get to be his ’ead gardener if ’e thought I were clumsy!”

“You are not clumsy. Anyone can have an accident.” She
dropped the books onto the desk, slid the ledger nearer, and inked her pen. “I was merely thinking it might be best not to worry him, that’s all.”

Rachel glanced at Joe. Nothing in his demeanor indicated he guessed Rachel’s real concern. If Joe never said anything to Dr. Edmunds about his wound, then Dr. Edmunds would never think to ask Rachel about her readiness to tend it. And she wouldn’t have to tell the truth.

“’e’s so busy, miss, I doubt ’e’d notice if me arm ’ad been sawn clean off!”

“He is not quite that oblivious, Joe,” she said, though his observation seemed apt. Dr. Edmunds had been busy, burying himself in his paperwork and patients. Although she had noticed him in the hallway outside the library more than once of late, and he had been in to see her quite often.

“Some days ’e is obli . . . obluvi . . . em, awful daft,” said Joe. “Jus’ glad to know I’ve got someone else to go to if I needs medical ’elp. You’re a right good ’ealer.”

Rachel shook her head at him as if his compliment was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. “Mrs. Mainprice’s skill with a sticking plaster has more to do with your healing than my initial feeble efforts.” The housekeeper had tended to Joe’s wound after returning from services on Sunday, asking nothing about Rachel’s treatment or her knowledge. An ally. Rachel needed one.

“Aw, Miss Dunne, yer always puttin’ yerself down,” Joe chided.

“Your high regard for me is unwarranted.”

“Not at all.”

He winked at her the way her brother might do, making
Rachel smile. Making her heart twinge over how much she would miss Joe when he left for Finchingfield.

“You’ve a visitor,” announced Molly from the doorway, casting a pall. She frowned first at Rachel then at Joe, likely thinking how she would have to repolish the desk later. “Miss Harwood.”

Her cousin Claire had come at last to meet her. “Please show her in here, Molly.”

“I wouldn’t make it a habit to have visitors in the master’s library, Miss Dunne. Next time, you might want to use the Blue Room.”

“I shall keep your suggestion in mind.”

Molly lifted an arrow-straight eyebrow, sniffed, and went to retrieve Claire.

Joe hopped down from the desk. “Best be goin’ then. Work waits for no man!”

He scampered off, a whistled tune drifting behind him.

Rachel removed her apron and tidied her hair. She wished she had time to make herself presentable. Instead, her first impression would be made in a rehemmed frock with frayed trim, her hair coming free of its pins.

Molly reappeared, leading a slightly built woman dressed in the height of fashion—gray silk sprigged with violet, a cream pelerine and matching wide-brimmed bonnet trimmed in violet lace. Her features were even and might be called pleasant rather than pretty. Eyes the shade of cocoa assessed with intelligence and sympathy, and Rachel realized she knew next to nothing about her cousin. Least of all why she had agreed to help.