The Healing Season (3 page)

“Yes, every broken limb has been set, every wound bandaged.”

As the carriage lumbered forward, she asked him, “Do you have such a roomful of patients every day?”

He smiled slightly. “No. Sometimes there are more.” He grinned at the horrified look in her eyes. “I’m only partially speaking in jest. The dispensary is only open four days a week. On the other days I do rounds at St. Thomas’s Hospital a few streets down and hold an anatomy lecture
for students there. I also tend the sick at the mission we’re heading for. Then there are the days I pay house calls.”

“When do you rest?”

“I honor the Lord’s Day, unless I’m called for an emergency.”

She nodded and looked out her window. Had he satisfied her interest with his answers and was she now back to thoughts of her own world?

What would occupy such a woman’s thoughts? He found himself unable to draw his eyes away from her. For one thing, she had an exquisite profile. Her small-brimmed bonnet gave him an ample view. Her curls were sun-burnished wheat. Her forehead was high, her nose slim and only slightly uptilted, her lips like two soft cushions, her chin a smooth curve encased in a ruffled white collar.

But her most striking feature was those eyes. Pale silver rimmed by long, thick lashes a shade darker than her hair.

This afternoon she was dressed in a dark blue jacket and white skirt, which looked very fashionable to his untrained eyes. He frowned, trying to remember if she had worn the same outfit earlier in the day. But he couldn’t recall. It had been something dark, but he couldn’t remember the shade. He’d been too dazzled by the shade of her eyes to notice much of anything else.

Chiding himself for acting like a schoolboy, he tore his attention away from her and examined the interior
of the coach. It had a comfortable, velvet-upholstered cabin, which looked too clean and new to be a hired vehicle. To keep such a carriage in London, with its pair of horses, was quite expensive.

He wondered how a mere actress could afford its upkeep. He glanced at her again, remembering Jem’s high praises. She must indeed be a successful actress to be outfitted so well. Still, he doubted. He knew actresses usually had some titled gentleman setting them up in style.

But she went by
Mrs.
Neville.

“Your husband, is he an actor as well?” he found himself asking.

She turned to him. “There is no Mr. Neville,” she replied, her pale eyes looking soft and innocent in the light.

“I’m sorry,” he answered immediately, assuming she was widowed.

She smiled, leaving him spellbound. The elegant beauty was now transformed into a lovely young girl. “You think I am a widow? I repeat, there is no, nor ever was, a Mr. Neville. It’s merely a stage name.”

It was his turn to be surprised. “You mean it’s not your real name?” She must think him an unsophisticated country bumpkin.

She laughed a tinkling laugh. “I just liked the sound of Mrs. Eleanor Neville. It adds a sort of dignity, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I suppose it does,” he answered slowly, trying to adjust his notions of her. Curiosity got the better of him. “What was your…er…name before?”

The friendly look was gone, in its place cool disdain. “My previous name is of no account. It has been long dead and forgotten.”

He felt the skin of his face burn and knew a telltale flush must be spreading across his cheeks, but Mrs. Neville had already turned back to her window. Despite her rebuke, he felt more intrigued than ever. Why would a person ever change her name? Was it a commonplace practice among theatrical people?

It was a long carriage ride, across the Thames and through the congested streets of the City. He spoke no more to her, preferring to concentrate his thoughts on the rest of the evening. He would probably stop at his uncle’s apothecary shop to drop off several prescriptions and pick up the ones he’d had Jem leave earlier in the day. He needed to check on a few patients. That brought his thoughts back to the young woman who’d nearly killed herself.

“Did you have a chance to look in on—er—Miss Simms again, Mrs. Neville?”

Mrs. Neville.
He couldn’t get used to the name anymore. It made her sound matronly, completely at odds with the young ingenue looking at him.

“Yes, I stopped to see Betsy before I came to collect
you. She had awakened. I fed her some broth and gave her the powder you left. She was still very weak although she didn’t seem feverish.”

He nodded, glad the danger was passing. “I’ll go around tonight.”

“She’s very scared,” Mrs. Neville added.

“She might well be. She almost killed herself.”

“She doesn’t think she had any other choice. If she’d been discovered in a family way, she would have lost her position. If that had happened, she’d have lost her room. She would have ended up in the street. What would she have done with a child then?”

Ian was well familiar with the scenario. He saw it played out countless times a day.

He began to feel a grudging admiration for the young actress. She had not abandoned her friend and was now going to some lengths to assure her full recuperation. He continued to observe her as the carriage trod the cobblestone streets. Beneath Mrs. Neville’s fashionable appearance, there lay a woman very much aware of the grimmer realities of life.

The carriage drew up at the Methodist mission. Eleanor looked around her suspiciously as Mr. Russell helped her alight. The streets had grown narrower and smellier. She clutched her handkerchief to her nose as the doctor led her toward the entrance of the mission.

It at least had a welcoming appearance. A lamp stood at the door and the stoop was swept clean. They entered without knocking.

Eleanor breathed in the warm air before once more putting her handkerchief to her face, this time to mask the smell of cooked cabbage and lye soap.

Mr. Russell poked his head into a room and finding no one led her farther down the corridor.

“Good afternoon, Doctor,” an older woman called out cheerfully as she emerged from another room. “We weren’t expecting you today. What can I do for you?”

“Is Miss Breton in at the moment?”

“No, I’m sorry, sir, she had to step out.”

“Who is in the infirmary?”

“Mrs. Smith.”

“I shall go in and speak with her, then. Thank you.”

Eleanor noticed the woman eyeing her as they walked by and entered a long room filled with beds. Every one was occupied, she noticed, and they all held children. She’d never seen a children’s hospital before. She looked curiously at each bed as Mr. Russell led her toward a woman at the far end.

After brief introductions, she listened as the surgeon explained to the woman their need for a nurse. Eleanor only half paid attention, her interest drawn to the children in the room. A little girl in a nearby bed smiled at her, and she couldn’t help smiling back. Slowly, she
inched her way toward her. The child’s dark hair and eyes reminded her of her own Sarah.

“Are you feeling poorly?” she asked the girl softly.

The child nodded. “I was, but now I’m feeling much better. Nurse tells me I must stay in bed a while longer, though.”

“Yes, you must get stronger.” The child was so thin it was a wonder her illness hadn’t done her in.

A young boy beside her called for her attention, and before long Eleanor found herself visiting each bed whose occupant was awake.

Mr. Russell approached her. “We’re very fortunate. There is a lady who is available to spend part of the day with Miss Simms. We can go to her house now and make arrangements if you have time. She lives not far from here.”

“Very well. Let’s be off.” She turned to the children around her and smiled. “I want to see you all well the next time I visit. If you promise, I’ll bring you a treat.”

“We promise!” they all chorused back.

A
fter they’d visited the nurse, Mrs. Neville dropped Ian off, at his request, near London Bridge.

“Good night, Mr. Russell,” she said, holding out her hand. “Thank you for accompanying me.”

“You needn’t thank me. It’s part of my job,” he replied, hesitating only a fraction of a second before taking her hand in his.

He felt a moment of union as her gloved hand slipped into his. For some reason, he was loath to let it go immediately. Repudiating the feeling, he disengaged his hand from hers. “Good night, Mrs. Neville.”

Without another word, he opened the carriage door and descended into the dark street.

He quickly crossed the parapeted bridge, giving not a backward glance as he heard the rumble of the chaise continue on its way.

He breathed in the mild September air in an effort to get the image of Mrs. Neville out of his mind. He had lived through too much and seen too much to let one pretty female face stir him.

Entering the neighborhood of Southwark, he walked the short distance to St. Thomas’s Hospital. The new building was little more than a century old, a beautiful neoclassical design fronting Borough High Street. Instead of taking this main entrance, Ian continued on to the corner and turned down St. Thomas’s Street toward the small church that formed part of the hospital’s southern wall.

His uncle had been recently appointed the hospital’s chief apothecary, and Ian was sure he would still be found in his herb garret under the church’s roof.

Ian climbed the narrow circular stairs leading to the church’s attic. The spicy aroma of drying herbs permeated the passageway. “Anybody here?” he called out when he reached a landing.

“I’m in the back.” Jem’s voice came from a side partition.

Ian poked his head through the curtained doorway and found Jem washing bottles. “Uncle Oliver in the garret?”

The younger man grinned. “Yes, he is.”

Ian climbed the last section to the raftered attic that served as his uncle’s workshop. Sheaves of herbs hung from the roof. Bottles and jars lined the shelves set against the naked brick walls. One section held a
cupboard full of small square drawers. A desiccated crocodile was suspended from the ceiling.

His uncle was hunched over a large glass globe that sat upon a squat brick kiln. As its contents bubbled and steam collected on the globe’s interior surface, a slow drip ran down its narrow glass neck into a china bowl at the other end.

“Good evening, Uncle Oliver.” Ian set down his medical case and leaned his elbows against the long, thick table that bisected the room.

His uncle twisted his gray head around. “Ah, good evening, Ian. Come for the prescriptions?” He resumed his watch on the distilling herbs as Ian replied, “Yes. I caught a ride across town.”

“Is that so? How fortunate. Who was coming all this way at this hour? Someone coming to Guy’s or St. Thomas’s for an evening lecture?”

“No, just a—” He paused, at a loss to describe Mrs. Neville. “Friend of a patient’s” sounded too complicated. “A lady—” Was an actress a lady? He doubted it. “Someone in need of hiring a nurse. I took her to the mission to see if they could recommend someone.”

“A lady? A young lady, an old lady?” His uncle stood and gave the bellows a few puffs to increase the flames of the fire in the kiln before turning away from the alembic and approaching the opposite side of the table.

“Give your uncle who rarely stirs nowadays from this
garret a bit of color and detail to events outside the wards of St. Thomas’s.”

Ian smiled at his uncle’s description of his life. “A young lady,” he answered carefully, turning to fiddle with the brass scales in front of him.

“Well, I’m relieved she wasn’t an old crone. Did you have a lively time?” Uncle Oliver went to the end of the table and brought forward some stoppered bottles.

Ian took the bottles from him. Digitalis against dropsy; essence of pennyroyal for hysteria; tincture of rhubarb as a purgative; crushed lavender flowers to use in a poultice; some comfrey powder to ease inflammation.

“I don’t think one can describe a visit to the mission’s infirmary as ‘lively,’” he began, then stopped himself as he remembered the smiles and laughter of the children in the few moments Mrs. Neville had entertained them. “Have you ever heard of Eleanor Neville?”

“The actress?”

Ian looked in surprise that even his semisecluded uncle knew the actress’s name. “I thought you knew nothing of the goings-on of the outside world.”

Uncle Oliver smiled. “I do read the papers. I hear she’s a hit in the latest comedy at the Royal Circus.”

Ian began placing the bottles into his medical case.

“The Royal Circus,” his uncle repeated with a fond smile, taking a seat on a high stool across from Ian. “My parents used to take me there as a boy when it was an
amphitheater. It rivaled Astley’s equestrian acts. It’s not too far from here, on Surrey. Haven’t you ever been?”

“No,” Ian replied shortly. His uncle well knew he never went to the theater. He had little time for acrobats and tumblers.

His uncle rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Now they put on melodramas and musical operas—
burlettas,
I think they call them. It was renamed the Surrey for a while under Elliston. Then Dibdin took over its management a few years ago and gave it back its original name.”

“You sound quite the expert on the theatrical world.”

“Oh, no, although I do enjoy a good comedy or drama now and then.” His uncle gave him a keen look under his graying brows. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to get out and enjoy some entertainment from time to time. You’ll kill yourself working and found you’ve hardly made a dent in humanity’s suffering.”

“I’ll tell that to the queue of patients waiting for me at the dispensary the next time.”

Uncle Oliver chuckled. “Just send them over to me. Jem and I will fix them up.”

“Most of them can’t afford the hospital’s fee.”

“So, tell me more of Eleanor Neville. I imagine she is young and pretty.”

Ian shut his case and set it on the floor. “Yes, you could describe her as young and pretty.”

His uncle folded his hands in front of him and leaned
toward Ian as if prepared for a lengthy discourse. “You are making me envious. To meet a renowned actress who is both young and pretty. What did the two of you find to talk about?”

Ian frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I can’t imagine your telling her about your latest dissection, much less the doctrines of Methodism. And I feel you wouldn’t want to hear too much about what goes on in the theater world.”

“So, you think I have no conversation?” He took up the black marble mortar and pestle and began pounding at the chamomile flowers his uncle had left in it.

“Not at all. I’m just curious how you spent your afternoon with Miss Neville.”

“She introduced herself as
Mrs.
Neville, but she explained later that she wasn’t married, that it was merely a stage name.” His pounding slowed as he thought about it again.

“Unmarried, eh? It gets more and more interesting. You know, Ian, I’ve told you before, you need to find yourself some female companionship. It’s time you were married and settled in a real home and not just some rooms next door to your dispensary.”

Ian couldn’t help laughing. “When did we get from meeting an actress to settling down?”

His uncle didn’t return the smile. “Perhaps when it’s
the only young woman I’ve heard you mention in I don’t know how long. I’m grasping at the proverbial straw.”

“Well, you can let it go. I met Mrs. Neville purely by chance and, I assure you, I’m unlikely to see her again, except in the course of my work, if our—er—mutual patient takes a turn for the worse.” Ian began explaining the events that had led up to their meeting, in an effort to divert his uncle’s attention from Mrs. Neville.

After Ian finished describing the night’s struggle to save Miss Simms, his uncle got up from the stool and rummaged in his various drawers and Albarello jars, mixing together a variety of dried herbs. He came back with a small sack for Ian.

“Mix an infusion of this and have her drink it as often as possible throughout the course of the day. It should help with the bleeding.”

Ian took it and put it with the other prescriptions. “Thank you.”

“Speaking of your life,” his uncle continued. “I’ve been thinking of talking with the board here at St. Thomas’s. They could use another instructor in pathology. Why don’t you curtail some of your patient load and take on additional teaching work? It would leave you more time for research.”

Ian rubbed his temples. It was a familiar suggestion. “I am satisfied with my work as it is, as
you
well know.”

“You would ultimately help more people if you
could continue working in the laboratory and at the dissection table.”

Ian walked away from his uncle and stopped at the small dormer window overlooking the courtyard of the great hospital. He munched on a cardamom seed he took from the bag in his pocket as he watched a few students crisscrossing the courtyard’s length on their way to an evening lecture.

It didn’t help that his uncle knew Ian almost better than he knew himself. Uncle Oliver had become like a second father to Ian, when as a lad of thirteen Ian had begun his apprenticeship under him. Except for the war years and his time spent walking the wards at La Charité in Paris, Ian had been primarily under his uncle’s tutelage since he’d left home.

He turned back to Uncle Oliver. “I must be going. I still have to look in on the young woman before calling it a day.”

His uncle, as usual, knew when it was time to end a conversation. The two bid each other good night, and Ian descended the stairs. With a final wave to Jem, who was sweeping the floor before leaving for the evening, Ian exited the apothecary shop.

When he reached the main road, he saw the mist rising on the river in the distance.

He turned in the opposite direction and continued walking but soon his steps slowed. If he turned down
any one of the narrow streets on his right, they’d take him to Maid Lane. It would be less than a mile to New Surrey Street. There Mrs. Eleanor Neville was probably preparing to step onto the stage. He pictured the lights and raucous crowds. He imagined her cultured voice raised above the audience.

Giving his head a swift shake to dispel the images, he picked up his pace and headed on his way.

Life was full enough as it was. He had no need to go looking for trouble.

When Eleanor finally left her dressing room that night, exhausted yet exhilarated after her performance, she walked toward the rear entrance of the theater where she knew her carriage awaited her. She gave her coachman instructions to stop at Betsy’s before going home.

She was afraid the landlady wouldn’t open, but after several minutes, someone finally heeded her coachman’s loud knocking.

“It’s late to be paying calls,” the woman snapped.

“I’m looking in on my friend.”

“That Betsy Simms? She ought to be thrown in the magdalen! This ain’t no house of ill repute.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Eleanor replied acidly, walking past the slovenly woman, who barely made room for her. She quickly climbed the foul-smelling, narrow stairs
and opened Betsy’s door without knocking. She found her friend awake.

“How are you feeling?” Eleanor asked softly, crouching by the bed.

“As if I’d been run over by a dray,” she answered weakly.

“You might as well have been. Thank goodness that surgeon was nearby and came as soon as he was called. I had no idea what to do.”

“He stopped by a little while ago.”

“Did he?” A warm flood of gratitude rose in her that he’d kept his word.

Betsy gave a faint nod. “He said I was doing all right but that I needed to rest for several days. He told me how foolish I’d been.” Tears started to well up in her eyes.

Eleanor pressed her lips together. Why couldn’t his lecture have waited a few more days, at least until Betsy was a bit stronger? “Don’t pay him any heed. He was just concerned about you.”

“I tried to explain, but he didn’t let me tire myself.” She took a few seconds to gather her flagging strength. “He…told me you had already explained everything to him.”

“That’s right.” Eleanor rose from her cramped position. “Now, don’t concern yourself with any of that right now. Just think about getting well again.” As she spoke
she brought a glass of water she found by Betsy’s bed. “Here, take a sip of this and then get back to sleep.”

She cupped her hand under Betsy’s head to raise it. The girl obediently took a few sips and then sagged against the pillow.

Eleanor set the glass on the bedside table and straightened. “I shall be off, then. A nurse is coming tomorrow, did Mr. Russell tell you that?”

Betsy nodded. “He was very kind.”

Eleanor smoothed the bedcovers and adjusted the pillow beneath Betsy’s head.

“What else could I have done?” Betsy asked. “I couldn’t have the baby. The theater wouldn’t have kept me on if they’d known—”

“Shh. Don’t think about that now.” Eleanor patted the girl’s hand.

“But how do you manage it? Haven’t you ever found yourself in such a situation?”

Eleanor hesitated, not wanting to upset Betsy further. But when she saw that the girl would not be quieted, she finally said, “Once…when I was very young—even younger than you.”

“What did you do?”

“It doesn’t matter now. It was long ago. What I learned since then is to be very careful. You mustn’t let this happen to you again.”

“But what do you do? You saw what happened. None of those potions did any good.”

“You must prevent it from happening. You must be very careful with the kind of man you take up with. It’s up to him. You must insist he take the necessary precautions.”

“What kind of precautions?”

Eleanor looked at the pale young woman in pity. She had so much to learn. “You needn’t concern yourself about that now. You have a long recovery ahead of you. But once you’re well, we’ll talk again. Because if you don’t learn to be careful, you’d better stay away from men.”