Doing No Harm (24 page)

He dipped gauze in a sweet-smelling solution he had concocted during a rare bit of calm near Australia one year, and bound Mrs. Aintree’s fingers.

“That smell!” Olive gasped.

He glanced at Olive, her distress made manifest as she sniffed the fragrance he had always enjoyed. She swallowed several times, so he grabbed a basin. She snatched it, turned away, and heaved.

“I like that fragrance.”

“You are a lunatic,” she declared and turned away again.

He knew this was no time to laugh, but he couldn’t help a little smile. Maybe he was relieved to know that the kind lady had her moments too.

He sat Olive down on the stool he had occupied, holding her hair back as she heaved again.

Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You expected better.”

“You did what I needed.” He fingered her lovely hair, wondering how she kept it so soft. He turned his attention to his patient, whose eyes were wide open and watching him with something close to amusement, despite the pain he knew she was suffering.

“Mrs. Aintree, welcome back,” he told her.

With her good hand, she gestured him closer. “Thank you for my fingers. In just a few weeks, and you can be on your way,” she whispered.

“On my—”

“Aye, lad,” Mrs. Aintree said. She closed her eyes against the pain, but her voice grew stronger. “You found a job and home for Tommy and his mam; little Flora has her South Seas Fancies, and I have fingers.”

“I wouldn’t be so hasty,” he said. “Your hand will bear watching, yet a little while.”

“She is right, Mr. Bowden,” Olive said, as she stuffed pins back in her hair. “We’ve tried you sore enough and you have been so kind.”

“Don’t hurry me!” he protested.

“I would never,” said the kind lady. “Would we, Mrs. Aintree?”

“Heaven forbid! A man ought to know what he needs, and so you have told us a time or two.”

“I have, haven’t I?”

Chapter 22

A
fter placing Mrs. Aintree’s
arm in a sling, Douglas carried the little lady across the street as a host of villagers watched and offered advice, something he was beginning to recognize as the Scottish way. The kitchen was full of food, reminding him how hungry he was.

Brighid Dougall presided over the already weighted down table in the kitchen, with able assistance from Flora MacLeod and the MacGregor sisters. He stood still a moment with Mrs. Aintree in his arms, watching Flora. He bore too cumbersome an armful to drop to his knees in appreciation for what he saw: Flora was not focused on the food.
You’re not hungry
, he thought as gratitude filled his heart, even in those dusty corners that never showed up in medical textbook illustrations.

“You have a houseful of friends, Mrs. Aintree,” he told the widow in his arms.

She turned her face into his chest and sighed. “Get rid of them,” she whispered. “Turn Mrs. Tavish loose on them.”

A few quiet words to Rhona Tavish, and a few quiet words of her own was all it took. By the time he laid Mrs. Aintree down on her bed, silence prevailed. He sat on the bed, satisfied that the little splint firmly bandaged on top and underneath her now-separated fingers would stop any movement. He checked the barely visible, V-shaped bit of wood at the base of the two fingers, there to ensure they would remain separate.

He had done all he could. What remained was to dose her with just enough laudanum to put her asleep and keep her that way, then find a comfortable chair and begin his night’s watch.

He began his vigil and ended it five minutes later, when Rhona Tavish informed him that she and Tommy could watch as well as he could. He objected and she ignored him, reminding him forcefully that Rhona Tavish was the first person he met in Edgar as she ran into the road holding out her bleeding son.

“You have done quite enough for one day,” she informed him. “Up tha’ gets, ridire.”

There she stood, a veritable Boudicca—capable and determined. He knew he could argue, but what would be the point?

“Mrs. Tavish, if I argued with you, would you just reply in Gaelic and pretend not to know any English?”

She grinned at that. A word to Tommy, and the two of them tugged him upright and ushered him out the door.

“If anything—and I mean anything—concerns you, send Tommy,” Douglas said. He indicated the laudanum on the table and the small silver cup beside the bottle. “If she starts to moan and toss her head about, pour laudanum to that lowest marked level and give it to her.”

“Aye, Mr. Bowden,” she said, and sat down in the chair from which he had been evicted. “Tommy, show him our little home over the kitchen. Good night, Mr. Bowden.”

And that was that. Douglas followed Tommy to the kitchen, snatching up a slice of shortbread from among the many neighborly offerings still on the table. Treat in hand, he followed the boy up steep steps, marveling how well he managed his crutches.

A small landing boasted two doors. Tommy opened the near one and held it grandly open, pride everywhere on his face. Douglas saw a room with a table, two chairs and a bed. He knew the wind had picked up outside, but the windows in Mrs. Aintree’s house did not chatter and shiver like his grudgingly rented domicile. He saw a rug on the floor and heat registers, where the little rooms could receive warmth from the kitchen below.

The next room was much like the first. Everywhere he saw calm and order, a far better prescription for what ailed the Tavishes than anything he could suggest. The winds could blow and the rain pelt, but Rhona and Tommy Tavish were safe here. Silently Douglas thanked the Deity he mostly neglected.

“My own room,” Tommy said simply. “And t’aud widow doesn’t mind Duke. I’ve seen her feed him scraps, even though she swears she wouldna.” His head went up, and Douglas saw the pride of the Highlanders, battered and pummeled to be sure, but still alive and on fire within. “She tells me that anytime I want something from the kitchen, I needn’t bother to ask permission.”

“I hope you will be careful on your crutches and take your own rest,” Douglas said, even though he knew Tommy would do precisely as he felt best.

“Aye, sir,” Tommy said promptly, “although I have wondered lately—I hear noises by the cattle bier. When I go downstairs …” He shrugged.

“I can inform the constable.”

“Nay, sir!” Tommy assured him, the fear back in his eyes. “Not him.”

Douglas clapped his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave him a little shake, understanding that look, and the one like it in Flora MacLeod’s face a few days ago. “No constable.”

In the kitchen, he took a larger piece of the shortbread and let himself out the door. He stood a moment leaning his arms on the fence, watching Mrs. Aintree’s cow chew cud with an expression of indifference. “I could sit and watch you all night,” he said, then looked around to make certain no one had heard him.

He rolled his eyes when he heard a smothered laugh.

“Olive Grant, go to bed,” he said, without looking to see where she stood. He knew that voice. “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked when she said nothing.

“I was just curious to know how long it would take Rhona Tavish to run you out of Mrs. Aintree’s bed chamber.”

“You make that sound highly salacious,” he commented, starting across the street to his house.
I have a bed in there
, he thought, tired down to his toes.
It is calling my name
.

“Brighid Dougall wanted to wager on the matter, but I don’t wager,” she said. She cleared her throat. “There is a slight matter.”

Why did words like that make his heart start to race and his breath come faster? He had thought his days of sudden alarm were done. Apparently not, if something as innocuous as “a slight matter” was enough to set every nerve on edge.

“Uh, what?” he asked, groaning inwardly at how stupid he sounded. Stupid tired, more like.

“I told Lady Telford that your house was haunted, so you could get a better deal,” she reminded him.

What was she up to? “You are a rascal.”

“Take a look over there in the shed,” she said, lowering her voice. “A good look.”

He looked, straining his eyes to see into the midnight gloom, compounded by that dratted light mist that seemed to be Edgar’s lot in life and geography. He looked, squinted, and saw the flickering light.

“Should I wake up the constable?” she whispered.

No, let’s allow the poor fool to get his rest, he wanted to say, but he didn’t. Olive Grant probably meant well. “Not if it’s ghosts,” was the best he could come up with.

“Aren’t you concerned?” she asked.

He wasn’t. “Mostly I am tired, Olive Grant, kind lady,” he teased. “Let’s take a look.”

He walked across the street to the stone shed close to the bridge and behind his house that Lady Telford had assured him was his property too, for the next two months. The way the bank slanted, he wouldn’t have noticed the light.

He opened the door and his life changed again.

Joe Tavish stared back at him, his eyes dark with misery. Olive sucked in her breath and prudently stayed behind Douglas. The man held the stare for an uncomfortable, silent time, then sighed and returned his attention to what looked like a small pile of black oats. By the light of that single flickering candle, Douglas watched in horror and then in deep compassion as the silent man finished stirring something dark and sludgy around in a hole he appeared to have dug into the dirt floor of the shed. He had no bowl or spoon, only a dirt hole.

“Throw me out when I’m done,” Joe Tavish muttered, his voice rusty, as though he had not spoken to anyone in a long time. He dipped his hand in the nasty mess and ate. He gagged, but he did not stop.

Remembering his last beating, Douglas hesitated. He watched Joe’s dirty hand as it shook, traveling the short distance from the hole to his mouth. “I could probably push him over with one finger now,” he whispered to Olive. “Olive?”

We are two easy marks
, he thought, listening to Olive sniff. He reached behind him and took her hand.

“Go get him some food,” he said, loud enough for Joe Tavish to hear.

Joe’s shaggy head went up. Even in the gloom of the shed, Douglas saw that same expression of pride that he had seen only minutes before on his son Tommy’s face.

“No charity,” he spit out.

“Ya bowfing, dighted dug!” Olive burst out. She scrambled out from behind Douglas before he could stop her and grabbed the front of the startled man’s shirt. She gave him a good shake as Douglas stared, open-mouthed. “Aye, it’s charity! Did no one ever tell you hardheaded Highlanders that charity is the pure love of Christ?” She gave him another shake for good measure, then shook her finger at him. “You’re going to eat what I serve you if I have to push your face in it! I’ll thrash you myself if you give me grief!” She leaped up and ran from the shed.

I should do something
, Douglas thought, shocked, until it dawned on his fuddled, sleep-deprived mind, that Olive Grant’s brand of Christianity had trouble suffering fools gladly.
I will keep my mouth shut
, Douglas decided, not certain if he was more appalled or more entertained by the surprising sight of the kind lady pushed past her limit. He knew he never wanted to cross her.

Joe stared at the open door. He put down the mess and just sat there. Douglas looked closer and swallowed when he realized what the dark mess was. Tommy had probably heard his own father bleeding Mrs. Aintree’s cow, the last resort of a desperate man.

He took a deep breath, which wasn’t so wise, considering that the man reeked. He reminded himself that he had spent a quarter of a century working in dark, stinking ships. Was he that big a milky boy?

He considered what he could say to a man reduced to the lowest common denominator, someone on the brink of starvation, someone who had not had a good day in several years. Shame washed over him and he knew what to say.

“I owe you an apology, Joe, for striking you,” he said. “Forgive me, please.”

Tavish raised dark eyes to his, held his gaze briefly, and lowered his head. “I’m the one what gave you the black eye and maybe a bad rib,” he muttered.

“I started it,” Douglas insisted.