The Fire's Center (15 page)

"Thank you, Dr. Woulfe. Really, you’ve been so kind."

Just then Lucien frowned. "What is all this Dr. Woulfe nonsense, just when you were starting to call me Lucien with such grace and ease?"

"Well, it wouldn’t really be proper in front of anyone else, now would it?"

He glanced around once more. "So far as I can see, there are only two people in this room. But yes, I suppose you are right, on more formal visits, I imagine it would be appropriate.

"Oh, speaking of formal visits, I’ve invited my brother Quentin around to tea at four, and I hope you'll join us," Lucien requested.

She stared at him in surprise. "Wouldn’t you prefer to be alone with him?"

"We have some small matters of business to discuss, boring financial details which I must confess don’t interest me very much. There's nothing private we need to say to one another. In fact, some of the money matters concern the clinic, so I'd like you to hear what is being said."

"All right then, I’ll be there."

"Will you come help me with my letters, or are you too tired?" Lucien asked, shooting her a concerned glance.

"No, I’m fine. Letters it is."

Riona accompanied him down to the study on the second floor, a large room facing west with a huge mahogany desk in the centre, some small bookshelves on either side of the fire place, and several tables, sofas and chairs.

There was also a large globe standing on one corner of the room, and a large pair of double doors swung open to give access to an impressive library. The book shelves stretched from floor to ceiling on four sides of the room, uninterrupted save for a space for the fireplace, and one for the window.

Riona marvelled at both rooms briefly before Lucien seated her at the desk in the study with a supply of pens, papers and ink. Then he began pacing around the room while he dictated replies to the pile of correspondence he had leafed through at dinner.

Many of the letters dealt with specific case referrals, which Riona found of great interest. Others dealt with his financial incomings and outgoings, and ideas for the clinics from the various committee members, who certainly seemed to be at loggerheads over how it should be run.

"For heaven’s sake, we're meant to be opening at the end of next week, and we still haven’t got any doctors hired yet," Lucien sighed in exasperation, as he leafed through the letters once more to make sure he hadn’t missed one.

"Rather than people trying to do their part in isolation from the others, why don’t you have a meeting once a week, and centrally assign them their jobs?" Riona suggested.

"That’s an excellent idea, but rather than in a stuffy office somewhere, we can invite them here, for luncheon say, Sunday? And you shall not only play gracious hostess, but take the minutes. As soon as we at last agree on which candidates to shortlist, we could then begin interviewing doctors on Monday."

"Very well, Lucien. I shall do my best," Riona assented, even though she was daunted by the task.

But she was the last person in the world who wanted to put a damper on the clinic enterprise, not after all she had seen on her way down from Donegal.

She immediately wrote copies of the letter of invitation to the sixteen men on the committee as Lucien instructed.

"With myself as the seventeenth person, that makes eighteen of us for dinner. Even if they all don’t attend, provided we have nine altogether, including myself, we can formulate some decisions and act upon them.

"I only need three men on the interview panel, myself amongst them, so at the bottom of Edward Sturton’s and Stewart Benn’s letters, can you please ask them if they would be available to interview on Monday, with Ernest Norton in reserve in case one or the other of them can’t make it? At least I am fairly sure that we are reasonably like-minded, and won’t end up in any protracted negotiations as to whom we should select. They are all good judges of character, and Edward does have some knowledge of medicine himself."

Riona nodded and wrote the letters in a clear, round hand, with a rapidity which astonished Lucien.

"Beautiful, everyone of them, and completed in half the time it would have taken me to dash them off." Suddenly he grinned. "And with my writing, no one would have been able to read them anyway."

"This dinner, then, for anywhere from ten to eighteen people. What shall Mrs. Kinsella make? We will have to organise something soon if we are to be ready in time," Riona reminded him.

"I think there are some of my mother’s old recipe books here," he pointed at the bottom bookshelf. "Would you like to have a look and tell me what you think?"

"A roast would be good, lamb or beef perhaps, if they all like them?"

He nodded. "Both."

While Lucien leafed through some statements from his bank, Riona glanced through the books rapidly. Having done this sort of thing before, she knew exactly what to feed a squad of hungry men, but also wanted to impress them at the same time.

Within minutes, Riona had drawn up an impressive menu, and again Lucien marvelled at how quickly Riona arranged everything, even down to the correct wines to have with each course.

"Mrs. Woodham taught me a little of what she knew before she died," Riona explained shyly when Lucien praised her knowledge in the highest terms.

"I can see having you as a secretary and helper is going to make my life a great deal easier."

He now offered her an empty pocketbook. "You can carry that around with you, to make notes at meetings and so on. Here is a small inkpot, and some pens, and you can carry them in this small Morocco leather pouch," he said handing her the items one by one.

"And now I want you to come with me to check through my medical bag. I always need to make sure the drug bottles are kept filled, and that I re-order drugs for the bottles on the shelves here in my consulting rooms, and at the clinic, is that clear?"

She nodded, and felt elated that he was trusting her with so important a task.

"I usually put in an order once a month, and I haven’t done it yet because I’ve been away. Do you think once a month is too infrequent? I could make it fortnightly."

"I think with the new clinic, fortnightly would be better, Lucien," Riona agreed.

She headed a page at the back of her new little book ‘Drugs, March 1847,’ and waited patiently while Lucien perused the letters she had written just to make an occasional addition of his own, before saying, "They’re fine now. Seal them please, and I shall give them to the boy to take round."

Riona did as she was instructed, while Lucien went through the shelves, pulling down some of his more basic medical textbooks, and a list of drugs and their properties he wanted her to begin learning. If she was to be his apothecary, she needed to train quickly.

Riona finished with the letters, and moved over to where Lucien was standing. There she spotted a book on herbs identical to the one her mother had had.

"I’ll take this as well, if I may, Lucien," Riona asked timidly, with a touch of homesickness.

"Yes of course, Riona, take whatever you like. Here, this can be your little reading corner by the fire. The servants always have a blaze going in here, and downstairs in my medical rooms. But I warn you, I'm still going to give you a bone test every so often just to keep you on your toes, so don’t be reading to many potboilers," he quipped.

Riona retorted by naming all the bones in the foot.

Lucien tickled her ribs playfully until they were both breathless. Then, as if recollecting himself, he sobered, and brought her downstairs to view his small waiting room and consulting room.

The windows faced west, and his desk and chair were placed squarely in front of them. To the right of the desk was the medical cabinet, and to the left the small dressing room partitioned off from the rest of the room.

A set of brightly polished oak sliding doors led to his medical study, with a skeleton in one corner, more bookshelves, a small desk and chair, and a day bed in the far corner by the window, made up with small scroll pillows and covered with a brightly decorated red and blue throw. There was also a small leather sofa, and a worktable.

"This is where I do most of my tests and experiments," he indicated proudly, and then showed her his microscope, which she marvelled at.

"But come, Quentin will be here soon and we have much to do," Lucien instructed, leading Riona back into the consulting room, where he opened his black medical bag, and asked her to refill the bottles to familiarise herself with the contents of each of them.

As she worked, he told her some of the properties of each drug, and she eagerly seized on each new piece of information, and tried to retain it.

Just as they were finishing, there was a tap at the door.

"If you please, sir, Mr. Quentin Woulfe is here to see you," the maid informed him.

"We’re just about finished in here, Niamh, but you might as well show Quentin in while I tidy away, " Lucien requested as Riona continued to fill the bottles.

Riona frowned at one label. "I can’t read this one, Lucien."

Lucien stooped to help her read it. "Ye gods, my handwriting is bad, isn’t it?" he laughed down at her jovially. "It says valerian."

"Thank you," she said, making a face at him before storing it away.

"When I have time I’ll have to make up some neater labels," Riona teased.

Unbeknownst to them, this whole exchange had been witnessed by Quentin, who stood in the doorway wondering if he had come to the wrong house.

There was a
woman
in his brother’s consulting rooms, filling the medicine bottles and laughing and joking, calling Lucien by his first name.

And not just any woman, but the most breathtaking beauty he had ever laid eyes on, with auburn hair the colour of an autumn sunset, and the bluest eyes he had ever seen, which sparkled like sapphires as she smiled up at Lucien, who towered over her tiny form by at least a foot.

She was warmly and modestly dressed in a plain winter weight woollen gown, but her tiny waist and high bosom were alluring to say the least.

But what was this rare jewel doing with Lucien’s medicine bottles, and why on earth was he giving her instructions?

"Oh dear, I forgot to give those letters to the boy, didn’t I, and the menu for cook for Sunday," Riona suddenly exclaimed, pulling them out of her writing case.

"Here, Riona, give them to me, while you finish those," Lucien instructed.

He looked up to see his flabbergasted brother standing in the doorway at last. "Ah, there you are, Quentin."