The Surgeon's Lady (6 page)

“Aye, we’re a pair,” she agreed. “Lt. Brittle, I will stay here, now that there is no one to watch this crew of miscreants, rascals and layabouts.”

The men laughed, as she had hoped they would. “You’re a game’un,” someone called.

“Mind your manners, lads,” Lt. Brittle said quickly, but there was no sting in his rebuke. “Lady Taunton, that’s too much to ask, but I’ll not deny we need you now.” He touched the strip of adhesive that had been draped around his neck as he ran upstairs, carrying Matthew. “There’s a man one floor down who is probably wondering when I am going to close up his arm. He can wait a moment more. I’ll show you what you need, Lady Taunton. Come along.”

In the hall, he startled her by grasping her shoulder in an enormous hug, and then releasing her almost before she knew what had happened. It heartened her more than anything she could remember.

He opened a door and handed her sheets, towels and a nightshirt. “I’ll hold Davey while you strip the bed and remake it, then we’ll get him into this.” He pulled out an apron. “Put this on first.”

“I’m afraid to touch him, for fear he will bleed again,” she told him, as she tied the apron strings around her twice.

“But you’re not afraid to wash him?”

“I’m not. I did that enough for my husband. I can manage, as long as you wipe around Davey’s neck. That does terrify me.”

“Fair enough.”

She hesitated. He seemed to know what she was thinking; maybe he was thinking it himself.

“You’re wondering how much longer Davey Dabney can live.”

Laura nodded. He leaned against the linen press and kept his voice low.

“I don’t know. I wish I did. I want to try two new things tomorrow.” He ushered her out of the room. “I discovered a long time ago that doing the same thing over and over usually gets the same results.”

While Lt. Brittle held his patient in his arms, Laura changed the sheets. The orderly brought warm water, and began to wash Davey Dabney. When he stopped to help two of the other patients from their beds to the washroom for calls of nature, Laura took his place, sponging off the sailor and listening to the surgeon’s conversation. She wasn’t sure if it was designed to put his patient at ease, or her.

“Davey’s a foretopman,” he said, while she dabbed at the man’s thin legs and wondered how someone so pale could live. “I tried climbing the rigging once, Davey, and never got past the mainsail. Davey?”

Laura stopped drying his leg. “He’s asleep,” she whispered.

“Good.”

Davey woke when she lowered the nightshirt carefully over his head, but closed his eyes again as she angled his arms into the sleeves. Lt. Brittle put him back in his bed, situating the pillows behind his head so he was nearly upright. He stood a moment longer over the patient, staring at his neck wound.

“Galen counseled we should do no harm, and some interpret that to mean do nothing,” he said, more to himself than to her. “I disagree, but I am always left to wonder how much I can do before it turns into harm.” He turned to her. “I’m a churl to ask this, but would you stay here for the rest of the day? It may even be after dark. As useless as Maude was, I’m shorthanded now. I can leave an orderly to work both wards. Am I straining a friendship?”

“I had no other pressing engagements this afternoon,” she assured him.

He left, after telling her precisely what needed to be done until supper at the end of the first dog watch. The orderly made himself busy in the room, tidying up the invalids, helping others to the washroom or with a urinal. When he was busy, she filled in with the same duties, maintaining a detached air to keep from causing any embarrassment.

Supper was simple enough: a thin broth for a few of the more fit patients, Matthew among them, and a pale gruel the orderly called “panada,” which looked like watery milk with lumps of bread floating in it.
How can anyone regain any strength eating this?
she asked herself, as she spooned the gruel down patients who could not help themselves.
My chef at Taunton would be aghast.

After more trips to the washroom, the men began to settle down for the night. She sat beside Matthew, trying
to draw him into conversation as the shadows lengthened and Lt. Brittle did not return. She decided Matthew was shy, and why not? With the exception of Nana and Gran, he probably never spoke much to females.

She looked around her. Some of the men slept. She was familiar with that kind of exhaustion because she had seen it often enough on her husband’s face: too tired to do much except doze, and store up enough energy for the next day.

Others were awake, looking as though they wanted to converse with her, but tongue-tied like Matthew, kept silent by their subservience, these men who had so much talent to work a ship, but who might have lived on the moon, for all that she and they shared the same world. She thought of Maude, a woman with no hope ahead of her. She glanced at Davey. She decided she would not feel so sorry for herself.

She didn’t mind sitting in the dark, when the sun finally left the sky. The orderly lit the lamp on the table where Maude used to sit, and put a smaller lamp there, too, like the one Philemon Brittle had used when he checked on Nana Worthy.

“I usually see what I can do on the deck below,” the orderly said. “If you need anything, just go to the stairwell and sing out.”

She didn’t want to just sit there. She went from bed to bed, making sure everyone was covered. Before he left, the orderly had given sleeping draughts to those who were prescribed for it. She sat beside Matthew again, putting her hand against his forehead, which was cool now.

“It hurts, miss, in a strange way,” he whispered. “It’s like I can feel my fingers, and they’re stuck with pins.”

“We’ll have to ask Lt. Brittle about that,” she said.

“Aye, mum.”

She thought he would sleep then. He closed his eyes. She started to release her grip, but he tightened his hand on hers.

“Mum, what am I going to do for the rest of my life?”

I am asking myself that same thing,
she thought. She sat there until he slept.

L
aura dozed, exhausted from a day that had begun early in Torquay, and showed no signs of ending. She thought of Taunton, with servants everywhere. There was no one in B Ward except herself and the occasional orderly.

She asked herself how she could possibly help the men lying around her. She sat by Matthew, stupefied with exhaustion, wondering why she had ever told Nana she would check on the little powder monkey.

Someone was crying. She thought it was Davey Dabney at first, and who could blame him, but it was Tommy, the seaman with one leg gone, in the next bed. She extricated herself from Matthew’s slack grasp and went first to the water basin. She squeezed out a cloth, went to his bed and wiped his face.

“There, now. Can you sleep?”

“The pain’s bad, miss.” His voice was tight, that of a proud man trying not to cry.

“I haven’t authority to give you anything, but I’ll tell Lt. Brittle when he returns.”

He seemed to understand. She wiped his face again, then held his hand, because there was nothing else she could do. She thought she should close the window, now that the sun was gone, but the sounds outside gave her comfort. Below in the quadrangle, she heard men walking, and farther away, laughter.

“Would you like to be at sea?” she asked, then kicked herself because his sea days were probably over, and she was only reminding him.

He didn’t take it that way, to her relief. “Aye, mum. Much rather. I never feel comfortable-like on land.”

His voice was drowsy now, without the tension, and all she had done was wipe his face and hold his hand. When he slept finally, she felt the tiniest spark of satisfaction. She did not release his hand. Whether he knew it or not, and how could he, he was giving her comfort, too.

She was nearly asleep herself when she felt a hand on her shoulder. When she started, the pressure increased and kept her silent because she knew who it was. Lt. Brittle bent down to whisper in her ear.

“I’m sorry I am so late. Ward Block Three is also my bailiwick, and there are burn cases from an explosion.” He squatted by her stool. “The night orderly is coming now. Let me take your valise and walk you to my house.”

“Oh, but…”

“The Mulberry’s too far, and are you as tired as I am? I’ve sent word for my housekeeper to prepare a bath for you, and dinner’s probably ready.”

“I’m sorry to put you to trouble,” she whispered.

“I rather think you were the one put to trouble today.”

Standing by the door, she watched him as he went to
every bed, looking, touching, covering, and in one case, kneeling in conversation that ended in low laughter. She remembered the amputee, who slept now, and told him about the man’s pain. Lt. Brittle nodded and wrote a note for the orderly, prescribing laudanum, should the man wake before morning.

He carried her valise down the stairs and she followed, still stiff from sitting. On the colonnade, he offered her his arm and she took it. As she walked at his side, she found herself appreciating his height, which made their strides equal. With every step she took, she felt more tired than before. Even then, she knew she could not accept his offer.

“I should find a hotel,” she said, as they came to another building in the quadrangle.

“No need. I occupy the end of this building. I have a dragon for a housekeeper and cook. As soon as I leave you here, I’m going back to Block Three. I’ll be back in an hour to eat—I know it’s late, but that’s my life—and then it’s back to Three for the night. You won’t be in any way compromised.”

That was blunt enough. Embarrassed, she glanced at him, and found him looking at her with an expression entirely matter-of-fact.

“You must think I am an idiot,” she said. “My concerns are so puny and your responsibilities so huge.”

“I think nothing of the kind,” he said briskly. “Credit Niall McTavish at Edinburgh University, Lady Taunton. I happened to be paying attention when he said…” He paused on the walk, struck a pose, and continued in a Scottish accent that made her smile. “‘Lads, everrryone’s consairns are parrramount and it is evarrr thus.’ I believe him.”

“Verrrra well,” she told him, and he chuckled.

By now he was opening the door to the end apartment. “Here is that dragon I was telling you about,” Lt. Brittle said cheerfully, as a woman just slightly shorter than he was entered the room. “Aunt Walters, this is Lady Taunton, our guest for the night. Aunt Walters is also my father’s older sister, and was never afraid to pound me when I deserved it.” Lt. Brittle set down her valise and left the room.

“Dragon, is it?” Mrs. Walters said as she picked up Laura’s valise. “He always was a cheeky boy and I can still pound him. Come along, my dear. I have a bath ready for you, and I intend to wash your clothing. I hear you were pitchforked into physicking.”

There didn’t seem to be any point in arguing. Despite her bone weariness, Laura couldn’t imagine arguing with Mrs. Walters. There also wasn’t any point in arguing when Aunt Walters scrubbed her back and washed her hair, as she sobbed in the tub.

“He bled and bled. I didn’t know what else to do,” Laura said when she could speak.

“What you did worked,” the woman reminded her. She picked up the sponge and rubbed Laura’s back. “Hippocrates and his stupid oath! Those Greeks! I’d pit an English-woman against them any day. You did what you could and without flinching.”

“I’m crying now,” Laura argued.

“The crisis is past so you’re allowed to cry all you want. You did what you could,” Aunt Walters repeated.

I did,
Laura thought, as she let Aunt Walters help her from the tub and wrap her in a towel that was blessedly warm. The woman left her to dress, taking the bloody clothes with her. “I think your petticoat is unsalvageable,”
she said. “Come down when you’re dressed, Lady Taunton. My nephew is coming in a few minutes for supper.”

Lt. Brittle was sitting at the dining table when she came downstairs, her hair wet but pinned up on her head. He stood up when she entered the room and pulled out her chair for her. He had removed his surgeon’s apron, thank goodness.

The food was plain and ordinary, but every morsel was delicious. She hadn’t eaten since tea and toast hours ago in Torquay, and hoped she didn’t look like a famished pensioner as she downed sausages and mashed turnips, then sat back, satisfied.

“I don’t know when I’ve been so hungry.” She glanced at the clock. “My word, it is nine o’clock. I suppose I will be awake all night, after that feast.”

“I doubt it.”

“I do not,” she contradicted. “When I close my eyes, I know I will see Davey Dabney.”

He nodded, but offered no platitudes that would only have made her uncomfortable. Instead, “Was today the worst day of your life, Lady Taunton?”

His question startled her, but she thought about it in a different light. “No, sir, it was not,” she said finally, “not by a long chalk.”

She was telling the truth. He didn’t say anything, but something seemed to snap within her. Maybe it was the sympathy in his eyes.

“It wasn’t when my husband died. I shall be honest. I was grateful when that happened.” The words seemed to spill out of her. She put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, what you must think,” she murmured.

“Go on,” he coaxed.

“He had suffered, and I was glad that ended. I will not leave the ill untended.”

“I know,” he interjected, but quietly, so she would not be too distracted to continue.

“All my husband wanted was a son. He reckoned it was his late wife’s fault that he was not a father. He was determined to get a child off me.”

How can I be saying this?
she thought in horror, but could not make herself stop. “After months and months, he gave up. There never was a woman more relieved than I.”

“Understandable,” was the surgeon’s only comment.

She was looking into his eyes now, for some reason beyond her knowledge, not afraid to speak to this kind man of her trouble.
Do they teach that in Edinburgh?
She asked herself.
I think not.

“Those were not my worst days.” To continue required a deep breath, and she took several.
I am gulping like a goldfish,
she thought. She was hardly aware of the surgeon holding her hand now. She didn’t even know when he first touched her, but there she was, clinging to him.

“It was the day my father…” She couldn’t help herself; she practically spat out the word. “My Father told me what I had to do to repay him for my education. Nana has probably told your mother, so perhaps you know already.”

“She only mentioned her own circumstances.”

“Then you know Nana left Bath because she would not let our father sell her to the highest bidder to pay off his creditors.”

Lt. Brittle nodded.

“I was the older sister who succumbed. I was almost eighteen and I didn’t know what to do.”

Her words seemed to hang in the air like a noxious fog. “That was my worst day, sir. I had no advocate and no resources of my own.” She sighed. “Nana is five years younger than I. At the time, I had no idea she was my sister. If I had known, I would have told her.” Her voice broke. “I could have warned her!”

He continued the thought. “And she would have sent you straight through to Plymouth and Gran.”

Laura nodded. “If I had known…” she repeated, when she could speak. She couldn’t look at him now. She released his hand. “But I did not, and there the matter will ever remain. I should never have told you.”

“It will go nowhere,” he replied, and took her hand again. “You really have had worse days than Davey Dabney. If you consider the matter, I doubt you are afraid of anything now.”

She had never thought of it in that light. “As to that, I am not so brave. It took me three months to get up the courage to respond to Nana’s invitation to visit.”

“But you did.”

“I did, didn’t I?”

She sat back, exhausted, and Lt. Brittle released her hand. He opened his mouth to speak, but the doorbell jangled. He rose quickly, and was gone a long time. Not sure if she was exhausted more from the events of the day, or her avalanche of words, Laura felt her eyelids begin to droop.
I should get up and walk around,
she told herself, but that suddenly sounded like too much exertion. She heard Aunt Walters in the kitchen.
I should help,
she thought, as she moved aside her plate.
I will do that after I rest my arms just a moment. Just five minutes.

She woke hours later in a dark bedroom, with only the vaguest recollection of someone carrying her upstairs and depositing her on this bed, which was comfortable beyond belief. She was dressed only in her shift, and someone had taken the trouble to put a towel under her head and spread her damp hair across the pillow. She hoped it was Mrs. Walters, but Laura also had the distinct impression someone had taken her pulse.
Dear me,
she thought, as she turned onto her side and closed her eyes again.
I wonder if he takes a person’s pulse when she lies down as a matter of course. If he ever marries, he will be the despair of his wife.

When Laura woke again, she smelled bacon. After a quick wash, she put on her remaining dress and petticoat and brushed her hair. She knotted it on top of her head in a style so casual she was almost embarrassed, but she suspected this was not a household that stood on much ceremony. Besides, there was that aroma of bacon.

Following her nose, she found the breakfast room with no trouble, a sunny spot with windows wide-open. She stood outside the room, wondering whether after all she had said last night, she should be embarrassed to even look at the surgeon, much less eat with him. The bacon won out, finally.

Lt. Brittle, looking worn-out, had already helped himself from the sideboard. He waved his fork in that direction.

“Thought I’d pop ’round for breakfast,” he told her. “If I’m lucky, maybe a nap.”

She grazed across the sideboard, gathering food until her plate felt heavy. “I should be embarrassed at the amount of food I am eating,” she told him as she sat down. He had pulled out her chair from where he sat, but did not rise,
which made her feel completely at home. She knew it was proper for a gentleman to always rise for a lady. Indeed, her husband had always done that, even at the breakfast table. Lt. Brittle’s complete lack of pretension struck her as more natural. More than that, nothing about him indicated he thought any less of her for yesterday’s confession.

He reached behind him and speared another rasher of bacon from the sideboard. “Excuse my manners. I never waste a movement at meals because I never know when I’ll be interrupted. And I never know when I’ll eat again.”

It sounded perfectly logical to her, and she told him so. He returned her comment with a raise of his eyebrows and kept eating. After another piece of toast and more tea, he sat back. In seconds, he was asleep, sitting upright.

Amused, and not a little touched, she continued eating, careful not to clink her fork against the plate. Wondering how long he would sleep that way, she glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. Five minutes, then five more.

Fifteen minutes after he had closed his eyes, Lt. Brittle opened them, blinked a few times, and looked around. “That was pleasant,” he said, not in the least embarrassed. “I hope I did not snore or drool.”

“You did mutter the secret formula for curing lice and ringworm,” she said with a straight face.

“Lady Taunton, you are a wit! If I should, in future, reveal a cure for malaria during that nap I laughingly call slumber, do write it down. We shall make our fortune.”

His remark touched her, because he was implying a future.
I wonder if he even knows what he just hinted,
Laura asked herself as she wiped her mouth and sat back. It was ridiculous, of course, but comforting.

She hoped he would not leap up now and leave. To her delight, he poured himself another cup of tea, and after an inquiring look, poured another for her, too. He leaned forward and drank it, resting his elbows on the table. Miss Pym would have cringed at his manners, but Laura found herself amazingly stirred by the intimacy of his casual ways.