The Surgeon's Lady (10 page)

“Weren’t we all disappointed. What a pack of fools,” he said out loud as he set his shoe on the floor and took off the other one. He arranged them carefully as he arranged all his clothing, making sure everything was ready to leap into, if someone should call him in the middle of the night. It happened often enough, and he was used to it.

At twelve he had gone to sea, and soon found that his place in the world was the orlop deck, where the wounded were.
And here I am,
he thought, as his eyes closed.
It’s the devil of a life.

Brittle woke in time to escort Laura to the gate of Stonehouse, where the post chaise waited. It was raining, thank goodness, so he had every excuse to pull her close under his umbrella.

“I shouldn’t be delighted that it’s raining, but I am,” she told him. “My dress is so ruined the coachman will think I have murdered an old widow named Lady Taunton and am running away in her post chaise. A cloak will cover a multitude of stains.”

Ah, the females,
he thought. “What will happen when your dresser at Taunton sees it?”

“It doesn’t bear thinking on,” she replied, moving closer to him. “I believe I am more afraid of her than I am of Sir David Carew.”

“She’s a dragon?”

“Most decidedly.”

“Well organized?”

“Beyond belief.”

“Stonehouse’s head matron needs an assistant.”

“You might be onto something,” she said. “Peters—her name is Amanda Peters—would amaze your head matron.”

The coachman got down off his box, directing the postboy to open the door.

“I’ll deliver your wife safe and sound by noon.”

My wife,
he thought, and made no effort to correct the man. Neither did Laura, which gratified him.
One of us has
to move,
he thought, as they both stood there in the shelter of his umbrella.

The coachman acted, taking the umbrella from him, but still holding it over them both. “Give her a kiss, so we can get your lady on the way. Time’s money.”

She’ll either slap my chops or kiss me back,
Philemon thought as he took Laura in his arms and did what he had wanted to do since Torquay.

She certainly didn’t slap him. After the smallest hesitation, she stepped into his embrace and held him firmly across the back, looked him in the eyes, then closed them and let him kiss her.

It was a kiss that lingered. After a deep breath, he kissed her again, and then one more time for good measure. Even then, there didn’t seem to be a good reason to let go of her, even if time was money, and horses—what little a seaman knew of horses—didn’t much like to stand.

Neither did coachmen, apparently. “Jaysus, Mary and Joseph, I promise to bring her back,” the man said, amused, as he tried to hand over the umbrella again.

The bell at the jetty began to clang then, and they both stepped away from each other.

“I can stay and help,” she said.

“No. You’ll help more by getting me a chef,” he replied as he grabbed his umbrella. With a wave of his hand, Philemon ran for the landing. There was so much more he wanted to say, but the bell was ringing.

Laura arrived in Taunton before noon. When she wasn’t thinking about kissing the surgeon, she found herself fretting about what horrors Philemon had found at the
landing jetty. She thought about Davey Dabney, too pale and not thriving on that low diet, and Matthew with his questions about the future, and all the other inmates of Ward B—the scoundrels mixed in with the saints—who occupied her mind and heart now.

Philemon would probably never believe her if she told him she had never been kissed before, but it was true. Her husband had made her role amply clear, and it did not involve kissing. She was to spread her legs dutifully and give him every opportunity to get a child. The shame of it made her close her eyes, as she remembered his efforts that went on until she was sore and in tears.

She knew he derived some pleasure from his futile exercise, because he would cry out sometimes, and gasp and breathe heavier and heavier. There were a few—a precious few—occasions when she felt some deep spark and wanted him to continue. She never asked for such a favor, partly because by then he had rolled off her and was on his way out the door without a backward glance, and partly because she didn’t know if those tantalizing glimpses of pleasure meant she was a woman no better than her mother.

There was no one to ask. She had kept her thoughts to herself and did her best to provide Sir James with what he wanted. And yet, her glimpse of Oliver Worthy kneeling in front of Nana and resting his good ear against her belly while Nana kissed his head, made Laura think there was much she was missing.

“You can ask Nana,” she told herself, as she watched the rain. “Nana will tell you.”

She found she did not dread the drive to Taunton. There
was nothing in the estate now to cause her pain. Because they had been informed by her earlier letter to Pierre Gagon, the servants were ready for her, opening the door as soon as the postboy helped her from the chaise, clucking over her, taking the bandbox, practically lifting her up the broad steps to the entrance. Even Pierre came up from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a towel and assuring her luncheon would be served directly.

Peters, her dresser, took her in hand. Frowning as usual, she unhooked the frog closing Laura’s cloak. Before she could warn the woman, Peters was staring at the ruin of her dress, the wreck of several long hours at the landing jetty, surrounded by dirty, wounded seamen and Marines.

She surprised herself again by feeling no fear of her dresser. “Peters, they bring the wounded to the jetty from the ships in the harbors. I…I held one burned man until he died. Human carbon is hard to remove from fabric, I have discovered.”

Peters burst into tears. Laura stared at her, openmouthed. She touched her dresser’s arm, something she had never dared to do. “Peters, I didn’t mean to disturb you. Any of you,” she said, looking around at the other shocked servants.

True to her nature, Peters recovered quickly. “My nephew died in the retreat from Corunna,” she said quietly.

“I had no idea,” Laura said. “No idea.”

That seemed to put the starch back into the dresser. “Why would you? Sir James was on his deathbed.”

Would you have told me even if that hadn’t been the case
? Laura asked herself.
Of course you would not, because you are here to serve.
She looked around at her servants.
I never knew you,
she thought.

She had no time to waste, and summoned them to the sitting room when luncheon was over. The room was utterly silent as she told them of Torquay, her sister, Stonehouse, Davey Dabney, the men of Block Four and the jetty. She minced no words.

“I have decided to work as a hospital matron,” she said. “I wrote to Pierre and asked him to accompany me. His receipts for Sir James are precisely what the men in hospital need to restore them to health.” She smiled at her chef. “He has agreed.”

She let that news sink in. “That is all, really. I wanted you to know. Life will go on here at Taunton as usual. You may go now.”

No one moved. Her servants looked at each other, but they remained in place. Her housekeeper, a doughty woman almost as implacable as Peters, spoke first, as was her right, in household order.

“Begging your pardon, mum, but I’m coming, too,” Mrs. Ormes said. She looked around, defying anyone to contradict her. “I’d be the last person to say you don’t know much about the state of linens and how to make servants mind, but I could do that while you spend time with the sailors.”

“Provided they are not smelly and disorderly,” Peters said. “We can’t have that.”

Laura laughed. “Peters, you will always protect me, won’t you?” She leaned forward, not disguising the intensity she felt. “These men are giving their all in the service of our country. I doubt we can ever repay the debt.”

“I’m in,” Mrs. Ormes said, holding her head high.

“I’m coming, too,” Peters said, militant again.

“As it turns out, Peters, Lt. Brittle did mention there was
an opening for assistant head matron. Of course, you won’t make as much salary as I pay you now.”

Peters looked down her long nose at Laura. “I could do this for Corporal William Peters, couldn’t I? Something useful in his memory.” Her voice trembled, but she regained her composure without losing a beat.

“Very useful. Can you leave tomorrow with Pierre?” She looked at her housekeeper. “Mrs. Ormes, I welcome your help, too, and will continue paying your salary at Stonehouse, because you would still be working for me.”

Philemon returned home late that night, bone weary and desolate because Laura would not be there, awake or asleep. He ate the meal Aunt Walters had left for him on the table, then went upstairs to the room Laura had lately occupied. He took off his shoes and lay down, hopeful that his aunt had not taken the time to launder the sheets or pillowcase, because her fragrance might linger.

It wasn’t any particular scent, just a pleasant, womanly odor that his keen nose had no trouble identifying, especially not in the world of men he inhabited. Drat it, anyway. Aunt Walters had already changed the bedding. He trudged to his own room.

He lay there wanting Laura Taunton with a longing almost painful. He was professional enough and good enough to know that he would never abandon his patients to run after her. For the first time, though, he wanted to.

He had called time of death on three patients this night alone, and it bothered him because he had no one to talk to. Captain Brackett was useful, but Owen had buried his wife today. Owen was the one needing to talk.

The worst death was the amputee in the bed next to Davey Dabney. He had seemed well enough earlier, but there was no mistaking the angry streaks around his stump, and the lethargic, sunken look in his eyes.

He was under no illusion that Laura’s presence could have kept Tom Severn’s gangrene away, but it would have made it more bearable. As it was, he had sat by Tom’s bed and told him he could take off the rest of his leg up to the hip joint, but he could not guarantee success. “I can do it,” he told the seaman bluntly, “but would you survive it?” In the end, Tom decided to let go of life. He didn’t complain, except to tell Philemon, “Wish that pretty lady was here to hold me hand.”

He let Philemon hold his hand instead—a poor substitute—and had the kindness to die just before the orderly pounded upstairs with another crisis. A quick look at his watch, a scribble on the chart, a hand to close Tom’s eyes, a flick to the sheet, then on to another crisis.

He knew he had to sleep, even as he wanted to think about Laura, and what she was doing to him.
Ask me anything about anatomy,
he thought.
I could probably educate the average female about her own body. Do you need a potion? I can formulate one. How do I court you? That involves time, and I have none.

O
ne day after seeing off her chef, housekeeper, dresser and several maids, Laura found herself in the sitting room of Miss Pym’s Female Academy in Bath, a place she liked even less than the jetty. She wanted to pace the floor, but her pride wouldn’t risk the chance of Pym catching her at it.

It wasn’t too late to leave the building. Her post chaise waited, ready to return her to Stonehouse. Although she had received the letter in March that set off this whole adventure, she had not seen Miss Pym since her marriage to Sir James.

She heard footsteps and tensed herself. For a moment, she wished Philemon Brittle were sitting beside her. She craved the sight of his comforting bulk and the unalterable fact that he would never fail her. How she knew that, she could not tell. It was enough that she knew it.

Here was Miss Pym, looking older and more gray. Laura didn’t want to look into the woman’s eyes, but she did, and was shaken by something she had never seen there before: uncertainty.

They curtsied and went through the preliminaries that
civilized ladies must perform, down to the tea and cakes brought into the room, even though it was too early for cake and Laura had no desire to drink tea with this vile woman. “Miss Pym, I am here for one reason. I want to know who my mother was. That is all.”

She could have felt some triumph at the way Pym’s mouth dropped open and her eyes widened in total surprise. For luscious seconds, Pym looked like the least-mannered girl in her school, and not the unflappable headmistress she claimed to be.

“My God, why?” Pym exclaimed, apparently without a moment’s thought to how cruel it sounded. But that was Pym.

Laura fixed her with a gaze that she hoped was repellent enough to peel paint. “I want to know,” she repeated, giving each word weight and heft.

Pym took a moment to recover. If Laura had been a vindictive woman, she would have rejoiced. As it was, she began to feel sorry for her. That feeling lasted until Pym spoke.

“It was Sophie Something. No one to be proud of, Lady Taunton,” Pym said, trying to regain her toplofty manner.

“She was my mother!”

Laura hadn’t meant it to sound so anguished. Again, she wished Philemon were there. She took a deep breath and calmed herself with the knowledge that, in a sense, he was. So were Nana and Oliver. She may have been sitting in that room by herself with no visible allies, but this time she knew there were people who cared about her. She wasn’t alone, and the knowledge gave her power.

“Tell me more, Pym, or I will write a letter to every parent whose daughter is in this place and have you shut down so fast you will feel the breeze.” Laura was trembling
inside, but one look at the headmistress’s face told her Pym believed her.

It was Pym’s turn to pace the carpet. “She was an actress, or claimed to be. Thought she was the next Sarah Siddons. Fool.” Pym stopped. “I’ll grant you she was beautiful. You look so much like her, right down to that little mole by your eye.”

“What happened to her?” Laura asked, thinking about an ambitious girl tangled in her father’s web.
He probably made her all sorts of promises,
she thought.
Men do that.

“I think she would have found an alley abortionist, except she was too poor even for that. Your grandfather was still alive. When he got wind of his son’s indiscretion, he took charge and made her promise to bear you, and provided her a sanctuary until she did. If it helps, I remember the scolding he gave my dear brother,” Pym said drily.

Nana had told her of the previous Lord Ratliffe’s reformation to Methodism, and his years spending the family fortune in establishing an orphanage for by-blows, and a school for Pym, his own illegitimate daughter, to manage.

“She left me in an orphanage?”

“She wanted nothing to do with you or my brother again.” Pym shrugged. “I can understand why she would want nothing more to do with William, but you were such a pretty infant. Ah, well. She returned to London. Your father had the prudence to avoid her, but he did say she managed a shabby career on the fringes of theatre. You came here when you were six years old, and you know the rest.”

She did. “Where is my mother today?” She clutched the arm of the chair so tight that she heard the wood protest, but Pym was pacing again, and didn’t seem to notice.

“She died two years ago. Someone found her in a rented room in Spitalfields. William saw to her burial.”

“How kind of him.”

“Yes, I thought…”

Pym stopped when she realized Laura’s tone was sarcastic. She stood directly in front of Laura. “He could have done nothing, and she would have been dumped into a pit and covered with lime.”

“I want to see my sister, Polly Brandon, before I leave. I’ll be outside.”

Pym was all solicitousness. “You may wait in here, Lady Taunton.”

“I would rather die than stay in this building one more second.”

The air was much nicer outside. She took a deep breath, enjoying the fragrance of roses in the garden in front of the school. She thought of the hours she and the other girls had tended roses as part of their duties. In fact, she had first met Nana Massie there, newly come from Plymouth and so homesick that she looked up with tears in her eyes at every seagull that flew around Queen Charlotte Square. As one of the older scholars, she had shown Nana how to strip the dead leaves and avoid the thorns.
If only I had known she was my sister,
Laura thought.
What a waste.

“Lady Taunton?”

She looked up from her contemplation of the roses. There was Polly Brandon, her other half sister, standing at the top of the steps. She smiled at her, returning her curtsy.

“Would you walk with me to the square?”

In another moment they were seated on one of the stone benches. “I believe you know who I am. Nana told you.”

Polly nodded. “She did, Lady Taunton.”

Laura put her hand on the girl’s arm, and was gratified when Polly took her hand and held it. “It’s just Laura. Polly, I know Oliver is paying your tuition now and making things comfortable for you, but you don’t have to stay here.”

“He and Nana told me that, too.” She hesitated. “Sister, I like it here well enough, and you can tell by looking that our father never troubled to have a miniature made of me. I was quite safe.”

All Laura saw was a pretty girl, one wearing spectacles, to be sure, but still a pretty girl with auburn hair like her own and Nana’s, and an air of real intelligence. She was taller than Nana, and plump in the way of young girls about to turn into young ladies. She could see no reason why Polly Brandon wouldn’t break hearts someday. She also had an idea.

“Polly,
I
would like to send a miniaturist to you,” she said. “I can think of nothing nicer than to have your likeness to sit on my desk, and I know Nana would think it a wonderful Christmas gift, too. Would you mind?”

Then their arms were around each other, Laura not holding back her tears, and Polly patting her on the back, soothing her with that same generosity of heart Nana possessed.
Maybe we are more alike than anyone could have imagined, and from such a father,
Laura thought.

“I’d like that above anything,” Polly assured her, when she could speak. “I will also petition such a present from my sisters.” She had mischief in her eyes. “In Nana’s case, I think I will have her defer until our niece or nephew is in the picture, too. Maybe even Oliver, if he will stay in port long enough. Theirs will be more than a miniature!” Her
face turned serious again and she tightened her grip on Laura. “We came so close to never knowing.”

“Don’t think about that,” Laura murmured. “Nana is my heroine.”

“Mine, too. Will you write me?”

“Once a week, without fail.”

Arm in arm, they walked back across the street, hugged each other again, then Polly went up the steps to the Female Academy. “Time for Latin,” she said, with a wave of her hand, and then a kiss into the air with it.

Laura took another deep breath as more of the weight of the years fell off her shoulders.

Laura arrived at Stonehouse after dark, debated briefly whether to go to Block Four or Philemon’s house first. The surgeon’s house won with surprising ease, but she justified her choice by reminding herself that Aunt Walters had promised to have those dresses ready for her. Besides, it was only eight o’clock; Philemon was probably just getting his second wind. She wouldn’t know where to find him.

To her surprise, he opened the door just as she raised her hand to knock. From the looks of him, he had been on a rapid walk from the back of the house and was ready to hurtle himself down the steps. Instead of knocking her down, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her inside.

She gasped, then laughed as he picked her up, whirled her around, then set her down, as if suddenly reminding himself that sometimes an ordinary “how de do” would suffice.

Somehow, her bonnet had been tipped sideways by his
exuberance, so she set it straight on her head. “I was only gone four days, and not two weeks.”

She must not have had her bonnet set precisely, because he adjusted it, standing close enough for her to notice the stains on his shirtsleeves.

“You need to wash that shirt,” she scolded.

“You sound like Aunt Walters,” he replied cheerfully. “No time. Two amputations this afternoon, and then I had to deliver a baby in the laundry.”

“The laundry?” she asked. He still stood so close, which bothered her not at all.

He wrapped his finger around one of the ribbons that tied her bonnet. “Those poor women work up to the last moment. Still, it was a welcome change from the usual butcher’s bill.”

“Is there anything you
don’t
do?”

“I leave pulling teeth to my mates. I hate using that dental key.” He shuddered elaborately, then pulled her close into his arms, as if he wanted to put an end to a silly conversation as much as she did.

He didn’t try to kiss her. He just held her, and it was precisely what she craved. It made her brave enough to say into his questionable shirt, “I went to Bath to ask Miss Pym who my mother was.”

“What did you find out?”

Safe in his arms, she told him. “She was just a foolish girl and a willing mark to be preyed upon by someone like my father.”

Since they were much the same height, it was so easy to put her arms under his and hold him tight across his back. She knew he was a muscular man because she had
seen him lift patients with comparative ease, but he was holding her so gently. “How is it you know what I need?” she asked quietly, not meaning to say that out loud, but suddenly wanting to know.

“Call it practice,” he said. “Only loobies think doctors just tend the body.”

He was taking prodigious good care of her body, one hand rubbing the back of her neck and the other slightly south of her waist. He pushed her closer to him and she didn’t mind.

She turned her face toward him then, looking him right in the eyes. She knew he would have kissed her, but the clock in the sitting room started to chime and he stepped back, his face red now and his hands on her shoulders.

“I’m late,” he said, and it sounded like an apology. As if to make up for it, he kissed her cheek. “Come with me. You have to see what’s happening on Block Four.”

She let him take her by the hand and hurry her across the quadrangle and up the front steps. “I have to take a quick look on C Ward, then we’ll check out the miracle downstairs. Laura, you are a nonpareil. Will you take notes?”

“What, on my nonpareilness?” she teased, taking the pad and pencil he handed her.

He introduced her as Mrs. Taunton, the new matron of Block Four. His statement elicited a hooray from two of the men who appeared to be rapidly on the mend. Philemon gave them a long stare and the noise stopped.

True to his nature, he softened his discipline quickly. “If ye salty dogs will treat her kinder than your own mums, she might find the time to read to you and overlook your general nastiness.”

The men in the beds laughed.

“She’s going to ward walk with me mornings,” he told them. “Mrs. Taunton has already seen it all, so none of you can possibly surprise her. She’s also only slightly less brave than Lord Nelson himself, so ye need have no fears.”

Laura felt her eyes begin to well up, but she willed the tears away. She marveled again at Philemon Brittle’s innate ability to gently nudge out the best in her.
I am not that brave,
she thought,
but now I want to be.

They went from bed to bed, Philemon observing patients, chatting with those who were up to it, taking his time with pulses, putting his ear to chests to listen to the message inside, checking bandages, and sitting silently with one sailor with bandaged eyes, holding his hands for a long time.

“He was too close to an exploding cannon and he can’t hear, either,” he told her when he stood up, still holding the man’s hand. “I want you to do this as often as you can.” He looked down at his patient. “They don’t teach this in medical school. More’s the pity.”

Still he stood there, then gestured her closer, and handed his patient off to her. She held his hand gently; as she watched him, he smiled.

“Trust the Navy to know a good thing,” Philemon said, his voice low. “Laura, when you came to Nana’s house and she hugged you, I had the feeling that was the first friendly touch in a long time.”

His lips were close to her ear because she knew he didn’t want the other patients to hear him. She leaned closer. “Is twenty-six years long enough? No one had ever hugged me before. I supposed it’s not recommended in orphanages, and heaven knows Miss Pym would never consider it.”

He winced as though she had sworn at him. “Dear God, what a waste,” he murmured. “You have some catching up to do.”

At the foot of each bed, he wrote on the chart hanging there, then gave her whispered instructions. They both quickly realized another advantage to her height. It was an easy matter to speak right into her ear, without seeming obvious in a roomful of patients.

They walked the ward, then continued to B, where she looked immediately for Matthew. He was sitting on a seaman’s bed, playing backgammon. He must have sensed her presence, because he turned around before she spoke, his face all smiles, and held up his bandaged arm. “Getting better, mum.”