The Surgeon's Lady (14 page)

“I would say you don’t know much about impressing ladies.”

He was relieved with her lighthearted answer. She kept her palm against his, and he felt her hand begin to tremble slightly.

“I want to probe Gunner Small. I have to try, because he is dying and I cannot bear it.”

He lowered his hand, looking at the tears sliding down her cheeks.

“Perhaps I can feel something in there you cannot. And if I can, perhaps I can reach just a half inch farther with a probe and retrieve it.”

“And if you cannot?” It seemed heartless to say, but she had to know what defeat might feel like. Heaven knew, he had experience with that.

“I will at least know we have tried everything we know to do.”

“You’ll have to work as fast as you can.”

He was all business now, even as he sat naked by the person he loved most in the world. “Wait for me downstairs.”

“No. Let us not give Sir David anything to look for if he’s watching out of some window! Dreadful man. I will meet you on D Ward.”

By the time he got to the ward, the orderly had already placed a screen around Small’s bed. Laura had put his instruments in hot water. She stood there, looking down at the gunner in what was an imitation of his own stance before beginning surgery, whether she realized it or not.

“Give us all the light you can,” Philemon told the orderly.

“Might you wait until morning?” the orderly asked, as he took the lamp from his own desk.

“We cannot.” He took the orderly by the arm. “If word gets out that Mrs. Taunton has been assisting me, we will be in trouble.” He glanced down at the gunner and listened for a moment to his labored breathing. “As it is, we may already be too late.”

“Aye, sir, I understand.”

While the orderly went in search of more light, Philemon took his longest probe from the water, dried it, and set it on a clean cloth. He took her hand.

“What am I feeling for?”

“I have no idea,” he replied honestly. “Could be a piece of bone from someone else’s body—he was standing next to the second lieutenant. More than likely it’s cloth from his own shirt.”

“Like Junius Craighead?”

He nodded. “The ball’s trajectory goes down. I’ve been thinking about this. You might want to stand on the other
side of him and lean over him. I never did that, but it might be a better angle.”

She put her lips next to the gunner’s ear. “Alex, we’re going to try one more time. I’ll do my best not to hurt you.”

“I don’t think he can hear you,” Philemon said, touched by her concern.

The gunner muttered something and his eyelids flickered. “Well, I’m proved wrong,” Philemon said. “Laura, you’d wake the dead.”

Her eyes were troubled. “I never want to do that.”

While the orderly was setting up the lights, Philemon removed the bandage and pad, sniffing it. “No putrefaction yet, that I can tell,” he murmured. “I’ll take off the adhesive and widen the entry as much as I dare. Let me syringe out what I can of the exudations.”

He worked quickly as Laura watched, her lips tight. He could tell she was nerving herself. When he finished—the gunner barely groaned—and the area behind the screen was as light as possible, Laura walked to the other side of the bed.

“Roll him on his side,” she requested, and he obeyed, steadying the gunner.

“Just ease your finger down.”

“He’s resisting,” she muttered. Perspiration was already springing up on her forehead; he wiped it with his apron. She leaned farther over and pressed harder. Gunner Small groaned out loud and Philemon saw her tears. Then he noticed the gunner’s shoulders relaxing.

“Blessed syncope, my dearest,” Philemon said. “He’s unconscious. Work fast. Wiggle your finger around. Press in harder.”

“Nothing,” she gasped. “It’s such a jumble in there.”

“Try your middle one,” he ordered.

“Roll him back.”

She wiped her hand on her apron and eased in the other finger, bearing down as hard as she dared, leaning over the gunner. He watched her face, noting her frustration, then held his breath as her expression changed.

“I feel something.”

“Can you tell what it is?”

“I don’t…little strands of metal and more fabric.”

He knew what it was. “It’s part of that lieutenant’s epaulet. Can you snag any of it?”

She took her finger out and held out her hand. He slapped a probe in it. Slowly she drew out the probe, then swore in exasperation.

“I had it, but I dropped it.”

He took the probe from her, retrieving the metal where she had dropped it, farther along the bullet’s abdominal path. Without even a word necessary between them, they worked for several minutes, Laura angling out the scraps as far as she could, then letting him take them out the rest of the way, because of his experience in retrieval. In less than five minutes, they had a small pile of metal shards and slimy cloth.

Then she was through. “I can’t feel anything else except—oh my goodness—his intestines?”

When she removed her bloody hand, he put his nose right at the wound’s opening. “No bowel smell. It could be our gunner is luckier than Junius Craighead.”

Laura eyed the miniscule pile of detritus. “How will we know?”

“If he lives.”

Wordlessly, they washed their hands in the same basin. She must have looked as spent as she felt, because Philemon dried her hands for her, then untied her apron. She could barely hold her arms out in front for him to remove it.

“Why do I feel so exhausted?” she asked. “What we did went quickly.”

“I never understand it, either,” he replied as he removed his apron and tossed both aprons in the corner of the washroom. They started down the stairs. “No teacher of mine could ever explain it.” He tugged her down to sit with him on the bottom step. “Don’t laugh, but maybe it has something to do with playing God.” He glanced at her.

“I’m not laughing,” she assured him. “Please go on.”

He nudged her with his shoulder, maybe trying to lighten his own mood. “There’s something almost, well, spiritual about holding a life in your hand.”

He took her hand in his, turned it over, kissed the palm then put it back in her lap. “How did the Lord do it in six days, Laura? No wonder he took Sunday off. I wish we could.”

It was good to laugh and go the rest of the way downstairs by herself, because she didn’t feel alone.

P
hilemon had said he would sit beside Gunner Small for the rest of the night. Laura walked slowly down the stairs, wanting nothing more than to go to sleep until the war was over.

Since her encounter with Billy, she never approached the kitchen late at night without a quickening of breath. She looked around; no one was in sight. She opened the door, knowing there was less reason for silence than usual. Mrs. Ormes and Pierre had returned to Taunton for what Philemon nicknamed a “punitive expedition” against the linen presses and kitchen there. The place in Block Four was practically hers, if she discounted Lillian, the scullery maid.

Laura did not light her lamp because the moon shone brightly enough through the bars on the window. She left her clothing in a pile and crawled into bed in her chemise, her eyes on her pillow. She thought worrying over Gunner Small might keep her awake, but she knew he was in good hands with Philemon.

Laura pillowed her cheek on her hand.
I need to explain
to Philemon why I have been so remote,
she thought.
He probably thinks I am angry at him, and nothing is further from the truth.
She sighed, knowing she would have to explain how Billy frightened her, and reminded her of Sir James, and that would never do. She knew it was time to say something. “Tomorrow,” she murmured, “if the damned jetty bell will be silent.”

She slept, but not long. She wasn’t sure what woke her. She had not pulled the draperies, and the moon shone into her room, but it wasn’t the first time she had forgotten. It was something more. She listened. Someone else was in the room.

She wanted to scream, but she knew only the scullery maid would hear, and she was only eight. Suddenly, a hand snaked under the covers and grabbed her ankle. Terrified, she screamed and jerked back, as Billy rose from the floor by her bed and pinioned her to the mattress.

How could an invalid be that strong? She struggled, trying to kick him with her free foot, but in a second he was kneeling on her legs, trapping her. She tried to push him off, going through every nightmare imaginable, reliving moments she thought she had forgotten, so frightened that she feared her bowels would turn to liquid.

Her struggles only caused her chemise to ride up to her waist. Billy looked down as she thrashed. “You’ve made this so easy, mum. Do you give the bumpkin surgeon such a hard time, or is that what he likes?”

“Damn you,” she managed to say, before he slapped her, then leaned closer and pressed his arm across her shoulder and throat, making her light-headed, and at the same time, giving her fingers nothing to grasp.

“Open wide, mum,” he said, then laughed. “Not yer mouth, you stupid cow! We can do that later, if ye prefer.”

She sobbed and pleaded, not even sure that she was saying words, in her agony to get away. Horrified, she stared as he fumbled with the buttons on his trousers, kneeing her legs farther apart as she fought to keep them together. He raised his arm to slap her again. She closed her eyes, turning away from the blow she knew was coming, and the nightmare to follow.

Before he finished with his buttons, something heavy clanged against Billy’s skull. He catapulted off the bed, leaving her free to leap away from the bed.

“Lillian!” she cried, knowing it couldn’t be anyone else, but horrified because the scullery maid was in as great danger as she. Lillian stood in the doorway, her eyes huge. Confused, Laura looked around, then grabbed Lillian to push her away. Billy tried to rise, as Davey Dabney, breathing hard, clubbed him again with the pan.

“Davey, you’ll hurt yourself!” she shrieked. “Lillian, run to D Ward and get Lt. Brittle!”

Lillian darted away. Laura pried Davey’s fingers from the pan and put her arm under his good shoulder, pulling him into the servants’ hall. She sat him down and ran to the knife drawer, where she yanked out one of Pierre’s wickedest tools. She handed it to him, then grabbed another knife for herself. Her hand shook so badly that she set it down, thinking herself more menace than help.

“Mrs. Taunton, are you all right?” Davey’s voice, with its rusty whisper, was the most wonderful sound she had heard.

She nodded as she stared at the open door to her room,
wondering when Billy would rise. “Davey, you’re my hero for ever and ever.”

“I owed you, mum,” he said simply.

She came around the table toward him, trying to see his neck in the gloom. She touched it, dreading to feel blood, but there was nothing except adhesive under her fingers. “Oh, Thank God! Let’s get you…”

His face grim, Philemon ran into the servants’ hall, gripping one of his capital knives like a seaman boarding an enemy vessel. Matthew was right behind, and all the ambulatory men on B Ward. She sat down, relieved, then suddenly conscious of her torn chemise. Her right eye was already closed and her cheekbone was starting to throb.

True to his training, Philemon looked first at Davey, calm and composed, his hand in Laura’s.

“I’m fine, sir. Just tired.”

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Philemon said, not even trying to mask his emotions. He ran his hand over Laura’s arm. “Anything broken?”

She shook her head. “Will I get a black eye?”

“You have one now.” He fingered her cheekbone, wincing when she winced. “Anything else?”

She shook her head again. “No, thanks to Davey. Philemon, it was Billy from the second floor.” Her breath started to come in short gasps. “He tried to…”

“I know,” Philemon said, looking around. “Where is he?”

“I bashed him with a pan Lillian handed me,” the foretopman said. “
She’s
your hero, Mrs. Taunton. She was ready to clobber him.” He blew out the breath in his cheeks. “No telling what he would have done to her, too.”

Laura glanced at the scullery maid, who blushed and slipped farther into the shadows.

“I suppose I had better look at him,” Philemon said, not even hiding his reluctance. His glance took in the other patients crowded in the room. “Two of you who can walk the farthest, rouse the Marine guard. Matthew, I think that’s you and Delaney. Don’t rush if you feel light-headed.”

He went into her bedroom, coming out a few minutes later with a blanket, which he draped around her bare shoulders. “You don’t need to go in there.”

“I couldn’t.”

He rested his hand on her shoulder, while he quietly instructed the men to go back to their beds. “Slow on the stairs, lads,” he said. “I’ll be up to check on you soon.” He shook his head in disbelief. “What a puny phrase ‘thank you’ is.”

Davey Dabney sat still. “Beg pardon sir, but I’m not leaving until that villain is in the brig.”

“Not the brig,” Laura said.

“The brig,” Philemon repeated. “I’ll recommend he be flogged around the fleet and I’ll start it.”

“He’ll die!”

“If he’s lucky,” he said, tightlipped. His expression changed. “Davey, how did you know?”

“It was something Billy said a month ago on his ward. One of the men in my reading class told Matt and he told me. Just threats, but we started watching out for Mrs. Taunton. Seems he’s been coming down here and just standing in the shadows. We just sat on the stairs.”

“No wonder you’re so tired,” she murmured, ashamed she had not said something a month ago. “Philemon, it’s my fault.”

He shook his head wearily. “Don’t take the sins of the world on your shoulders.”

When Matt and Delaney came into the room, helped by two Marines, Philemon jerked his head to indicate her room. One came out immediately.

“Lieutenant, he doesn’t look so good.”

“No, he doesn’t,” Philemon said drily. “I might wander over to the brig later for a look. Or I might not, depending on how I feel.”

Laura tugged on his arm. “You can’t mean that!”

“I most sincerely do. I doubt Hippocrates would argue.” He followed the Marine into her bedroom. “Take him under his arms and by his legs, men.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” one Marine said, making no attempt to hide his doubt.

“Turn your head, Mrs. Taunton. He’s not a pretty sight.”

When the Marines left with their prisoner, Philemon put his arms on Delaney and Matt’s shoulders. “Help Davey to his bed. Tell the orderly to watch him closely. I hope you didn’t do yourself any damage, Davey.”

“I’d do it again, sir,” was the quiet reply.

“I know you would.” He watched them leave the room, then called after the powder monkey. “Matthew, tell the orderly on D Ward to sit with the gunner, then come back down and make yourself comfortable here until morning. I’m taking Mrs. Taunton to my quarters, but I won’t have Lillian left alone. Can you do all that?”

“Aye, aye, sir!” Laura heard the pride in Matt’s voice.

When the room was quiet, he just sat there for the longest time. Laura’s heart sank.
I have been so foolish,
she thought, berating herself.

“I’m sorry, Phil.”

“Stop apologizing for what’s not your fault,” he snapped.

She could see he was instantly sorry for his outburst. He held out his hand. “Let’s go home, Laura. You’re not going to stay here.”

“I must. How can I earn my twenty-five pounds?” she asked, trying to lighten the oppression in the room.

“It’s over. The Marines will make their report and it will go directly to Sir David Carew, as it should. It’s the last excuse he needs to sack you. I don’t think he’ll find out about how you saved a life tonight. I wish he could know, because you’re easily as talented as my mates.”

“But we were right to try.”

“Aye. Trouble is, men like Sir David don’t think large.” He sighed. “Maybe no one does.”

When Matt returned, Philemon made sure Lillian was tucked in her bed off the scullery. He took Laura’s pillow and made Matt comfortable in the chair where Mrs. Ormes usually sat.

He wrapped the blanket tighter around her, and walked her to his quarters, his arm at her waist. He took her directly upstairs and into the bedroom she had occupied before she moved to the ward block. He went into his room briefly and returned with a nightshirt. He slid her chemise down and she dutifully stepped into his nightshirt, acres too large.

He pulled the coverlets back. “Get in.”

She did as he said. He went slowly down the stairs and returned with warm water in a basin. Sitting on her bed, he dabbed at her cheekbone, then told her to lie down so he could place a compress over her eye. When he finished, he stood up, but she tugged him down. “Don’t leave me.”

She could tell he was surprised. “Are you certain?”

He took off his shoes when she nodded. “We did this before, didn’t we? That was the nicest sleep I ever had.”

“I’m tired of being alone. I’m tired of being afraid,” she said, as he slid in beside her and lay on his back, gathering her close to his heart. “May I talk to you?”

“As a doctor?” She could almost hear him thinking, hesitating. “As someone who loves you?”

It was her turn to pause, wanting to put her arm around his neck, afraid to.

“Talk to me as someone who loves you,” he whispered. “I’ve watched my parents through the years, and I know how a good man acts. Da wasn’t always at sea.”

That was all she needed. She put her arms around his neck and cried until his shirt was soggy. He did nothing more than hold her close.

“Why am I crying?” she asked, when she could speak.

“Well, for starters…Damn that man!”

“Which one?” she asked, and he pulled her closer.

“You’ve seen so much in the past few months,” he said, when he could trust his voice. “It overwhelms me, and I’ve been at this business for nearly twenty years. It’s not just Billy, is it? Maybe you’re crying because people are valuing you as the excellent woman you are, and you don’t quite believe them.” He put his finger to her lips when she started to protest. “It’s true, Laura. We all know it, but until you believe it, it won’t matter.”

She nestled closer and he obligingly pulled her into the hollow of his shoulder. “I know it is childish to wish something away, but I wish none of this had ever happened.”

“So do I.” He propped himself up on his elbow, the
better to see her. “There is something impressive in all this, Laura. Let me point it out to you as both your doctor and as Philemon Brittle. In all the hell that men have put you through, no one ravaged your goodness or your character. They wounded you, but there was no fatal blow.” He kissed her. “I’ll stay with you until you’re asleep, but then I have to go back to Building Four.”

She closed her eyes. There was something else she had to say, and in the dark with her eyes closed, she might find the courage. “I know I have been distracted in the past month, and I know you have been wondering if it is because you told me you loved me.”

He nodded, then kissed the top of her head. “Philemon might think so, but Surgeon Brittle suspects there is more involved.”

“The surgeon’s right. You haven’t proposed to me yet, but if you do and I say yes and marry you, I’m not sure I have enough courage to…be much of a wife,” she finished in a rush.

He kissed her head again. She strained to hear any hesitation in his voice when he finally spoke, but there was none, not even to ears listening for it. “What irony. Time either kills or heals. If we surgeons can get to the problem soon enough, time heals. If we can’t, it kills. As for you, dearest, you’re on the mend. I know it, but it remains for you to discover it. As a husband, I’m ready to give you all my love, but only on your time. Marry me, Laura. We have time.”

It was her turn to prop herself up and really look at the man next to her. “I should say yes, shouldn’t I?”

“I think so, considering that I love you and have a suspicion that you love me.”

“I do.” She touched his face, pleased with the way he automatically kissed her hand. “You’re telling me the truth?”

“Dearest, I only lie to hospital administrators, and only when it’s for their own good.”

“Then I say yes,” she said, and kissed him. “Or aye, aye.”