The Irish Healer, page 7
“He might, if he knew” Claire leaned forward and gathered Rachel’s hands in her own. “I do not care what you did in Carlow, Rachel. All that matters is that you are here now, and I can help you find a new future. God didn’t provide me with this opportunity to heal old wounds simply to have me walk away.”
What an interesting way to view her troubles, thought Rachel. As an opportunity from God.
“You will not regret helping me, Claire. I promise you.”
“I trust not.” She squeezed Rachel’s fingers, a signal of her resolve, then released her grip. Opening her reticule, Claire extracted a folded slip of paper from within and handed it to Rachel. “I have arranged an appointment for you already, with the mistress of a school near St. Martin’s Lane. On Friday morning. It is a place I work at often as a volunteer. You might find a position as a teacher there, though they’ll not pay you much. Twenty pounds per annum might be all you could expect to start out, especially without a certificate.”
Rachel unfolded the paper and a few coins fell onto the carpet. She picked them up and held them out. “I cannot accept money from you.”
“Do you have any funds for an emergency? No, I thought not. It’s only a few shillings, anyway.” Claire shoved Rachel’s hand away. “I’m going to send over a dress for you to wear, if you don’t mind. First impressions are critical.”
Blushing, Rachel wrapped the note around the coins and tucked the entirety into her pocket. “Thank you for the dress.” She wouldn’t argue about the necessity for one. “And the money. I pray I do not need it, but I will keep it safe in case I do.”
“And I shall keep your secret safe. A woman’s future depends upon maintaining the purest of reputations.”
“Mine has a rather large blot.”
“We’ll work hard to erase it. With God’s grace, we shall.” Claire stood. “This will have to be a short visit, Rachel. I don’t want to be late to Lady Anthistle’s. She’s providing a large sum of money to a foundation I’m thinking of starting.”
“Your own foundation . . . how marvelous.” More evidence of Claire’s charity. Pride bit hard. How far I have fallen that I’ve come to need it.
Rachel escorted her cousin into the hallway.
“I’ll come by to fetch you on Friday, Rachel. Send a message to the address on that piece of paper if Dr. Edmunds will not release you to make the appointment.” Claire deposited a quick kiss on Rachel’s cheek. “I know you’ll succeed. I will make certain you succeed.”
They exchanged fond farewells, and Rachel closed the door behind her.
As she turned away, she spied a flash of black merino disappearing around the first-floor landing. Molly, she thought with a pinch in her chest. The maid had been listening at the door.
“Where is Molly this morning, Joe?” Rachel asked as she held the kitchen door open for him.
Joe struggled through with a small crate piled high with chipped plates, bound for the charity wagon waiting on the curb outside. “She’s gone off to the grocer’s to stock up for dinner this evenin’. Why d’you ask, miss?”
Rachel trailed him up the staircase, a box of old kitchen linens in her hands. “Oh, just wondering if she’s said anything about . . . anything.”
Joe glanced over his shoulder at her. “Does she ’ave somethin’ in particular to say?”
I hope not. “I was just wondering if she ever talks to you about me.”
He rolled his eyes. “If Moll ’ad somethin’ to say about you, miss, she’d tell the entire ’ouse, not just me.”
They passed Peg on her knees in the hallway, a scrub brush in her hand, a bucket of soapy water at her side.
Joe sidestepped her sprawled skirts. “You missed a spot there, Peg,” he teased.
Peg glared as she dragged the brush along the baseboard. “Oh, it’s right funny you are, Joe.”
Rachel went past without catching the girl’s eye. She had already learned life was easier if she avoided conversing with Peg. “Everyone is so busy today.”
“Don’ you know we’ve special company comin’?” Joe set down the box in the entry hall. He stretched his neck and pretended to tidy a cravat like the greatest peer of the realm. “Dr. Castleton and ’is esteemed sister, Miss Louisa Castleton. Won’t be bringin’ ’is missus tonight. ’eard she’s off visitin’ somewheres. ’e’s a right stuffy bloke, ’e is. Goin’ to be takin’ over the doctor’s practice when we go. Don’t much like how ’e looks around ’im when ’e comes to visit. Like ’e’s taken a fancy to ownin’ the place on top of everythin’ in it! An’ there’s ’is sister . . . well, she’s a pretty one, and I think she ’as ’er ’eart set on Dr. E, the way she bats those eyelashes at ’im whenever she’s ’ere. Not that I’ve been spyin’ on them or anythin’.”
“Of course you wouldn’t.” Rachel waited as he opened the front door, retrieved his box, and stepped through. “And Dr. Edmunds, does he return Miss Castleton’s interest?”
Joe cocked his head and grinned. “Why, you soft on ’im too?”
“I hardly know him,” she protested, warmth creeping along her neck. “Besides, he is my employer.”
“All the more reason to be interested in ’im! Sure didn’t stop that Miss Guimond from goin’ all big-eyed around ’im. Even though folk like us shouldn’t be bothered with pinin’ after folk like Dr. E and ’is kind. Too high up an’ all.”
“Yes, Joe,” she agreed. “Far too high for folk like us.”
He started down the steps toward the curb. A cart with a banner pasted to its side declaring it belonged to St. William’s Benevolence Society waited there.
Joe continued on with his discussion of Miss Castleton without breaking stride, the dishes in the box rattling as he thudded down the steps. “But that Miss Castleton, she’s the right sort. Though Dr. E keeps ’is feelin’s close as a miser’s purse. Miss Castleton oughta try to break an arm or somethin’ if she wants to get ’im to notice ’er! But then, ’e’s obluvis an’ all. Might not work.”
“Oblivious, Joe,” Rachel said slowly and smiled. “I should not be listening to any more of your gossip, you know.”
The man from the Benevolence Society gestured toward the cart. His hand swept past his thick waist, which strained the buttons of his waistcoat. Clearly, he had never lacked for food or suffered need, unlike those he ministered to.
“In the back here,” he said. “There is space adjacent the other crates.”
“Yeah, we see it. Like we’re blind or somethin’,” muttered Joe.
Rachel set her small box atop the bed while Joe hoisted his box alongside. A wagon moved aside to avoid colliding with them. Rachel hurried out of the street.
“I jes’ wish Mrs. M ’ad picked a better day to be haulin’ our old kitchen goods aroun’. I’ve got work in the dinin’ room polishin’ the silver.”
Joe hopped back toward the house. Another, larger crate waited at the foot of the stairs. He and Rachel had brought it out earlier.
“Jes’ think, miss,” he said, squatting down to grasp hold of the crate. “Pretty soon ya won’ be needin’ to ’aul boxes around. Yer cousin found you a teachin’ position, ’as she?”
“How did you hear about that?” Rachel asked, taking the other side.
“There’s nothin’ what ’appens in this ’ouse doesn’t get spread around like manure in a cattle shed.”
“I’ve no position as yet. But she hopes I shall soon.”
On the count of three, they hoisted the crate in their hands.
Joe shifted its weight and jerked his chin at the handful of neighbors and inquisitive strangers collecting to watch, clotting the pavement with their nosiness. “Wish they’d consider ’elpin’ rather than gawkin’.”
“I doubt they would even contemplate the idea, Joe.”
“Too ’igh and mighty for ’ard work, too, aren’t they all? Cor.”
A tiny girl toting a monstrous basket of apples for sale was forced to walk in the roadway to get around them, the faded and dirty condition of her dress a glaring contrast to the crisp kerseymeres, nankeens, and cambrics.
Rachel’s gaze tracked the girl’s wary path, her heart tugging. “Little girl, do be careful,” she called out. For a moment, the child looked her way.
“Ho!” the man from the Benevolence Society scolded Rachel. “Watch what you’re doing. You’ve almost trod on my foot.”
He gave her an irritated push, and Rachel’s boot heel snagged on a jagged cobblestone, the box jolting from her hands.
“No!” she yelled.
The box crashed onto the street, plates and pots spilling out to roll away, crockery smashing. A man steering a two-wheeled carriage swung wide to evade a battered pewter platter cartwheeling across the cobblestones, lurching into the heavy oncoming traffic. He shouted at someone to watch out.
And then Rachel heard a scream and the whinnying recoil of his horse.
CHAPTER 9
Why have you stopped?” James asked the hackney driver, leaning his head out the window.
“Looks like there’s been an accident.” The man used the butt of his whip to point. “No one’s gettin’ through there.”
A tangle of horses and wagons and people blocked passage. Someone was trying to back up a cart to turn around and ran into a hitching post at the side of the street. Raised voices rumbled down the roadway, bounced off the sides of the houses, and mixed with the staccato clatter of hooves on cobblestone. A policeman trotted past.
James grabbed his medical bag and unlatched the door. “They might need my help. We’re close enough to my house as it is. I’ll get out here.”
He tossed the driver his fare and headed up the road. The worst of the mess looked to be located outside his front door.
James started jogging.
He heard Mrs. Mainprice’s voice before he saw her thundering down his front steps, an old blue blanket in her hands. “Make some room for the lass, will you?”
James shoved aside two scruffy boys, crossing sweepers he recognized from over on Knightsbridge, who had come running to take advantage of the confusion and try their hands at picking pockets of the unsuspecting. “Get away before I summon the constable over there.”
A seam formed in the crowd ahead of him and he pressed through. A phaeton had overturned in the middle of the road. Its red-faced owner worked to free his struggling horse from its traces while Joe tried to calm the animal, barely missing flailing hooves. The two nags attached to a nearby cart, St. William’s Benevolence Society emblazoned on its side, shuffled and snorted their agitation. The policeman began shouting for everyone to clear the street, adding to the din.
A clutch of people was gathered just beyond the phaeton. Mrs. Mainprice disappeared into their midst.
“Let me through,” James called out, stepping over a broken earthenware pitcher he recognized as once having belonged to him. He thought he saw the top of Miss Dunne’s head, the bright blaze of her hair, low to the ground. Was she injured? His heartbeat ratcheted up. “I’m a physician; let me through.”
Mrs. Mainprice heard his voice and waved to him. “Oh, sir, thank goodness you’re here! You’ve got to help.”
One of his neighbors, the banker’s wife with her silverish hair and curiously coordinating day dress, sidestepped to make room, taking her parlor-maid with her.
“It’s a girl, Dr. Edmunds. One of those street sellers who are always coming around. She’s been run over,” she said without any particular compassion.
The last of the crowd parted. Mrs. Mainprice had draped the blue blanket over the huddled pile on the street. The girl’s basket lay not far away, apples cascading onto the road, shiny globes of pink lodged in the dung and the filth. Miss Dunne was seated in the disgusting mess, the child’s head cradled on her lap, snarled strands of hair the shade of dead grass splayed across her apron. Spots of color rode high on the girl’s cheeks—was she more than five years of age?—and she pinched her eyes shut against the pain.
James dropped to his knees next to Miss Dunne. “What happened?”
She glanced over. “I dropped the box. She was in the road when the carriage veered around it. He ran into her. It was my fault.”
Impulsively James pressed a hand to her elbow, the thick twill of her gown rough beneath his fingers. “Don’t blame yourself. Please.”
She looked away from his face, down at the girl quietly moaning in her lap.
James dropped his hand. “Has she been moved at all?”
“No. I made certain she was not seriously injured before letting anyone lift her off the road.”
“Very good, Miss Dunne. That was precisely the right thing to do. Poor creature.” He brushed the child’s hair back from her face, scratched from scraping against the ground, a smear of dirt along her jaw She whimpered and squirmed. “Shh, little one. Hush now.”
His fingertips lingered, shaking as he drew them down the side of her face. Cleaned up, the girl might resemble Amelia, with her daintily pointed chin. He blinked away the image. In truth, she looked nothing like his daughter, but he saw Amelia’s face everywhere these days.
James peeled back the blanket. A crosshatching of cuts bled scarlet onto her threadbare dress. Her left arm dangled awkwardly from above the elbow, bending in a direction no arm was meant to go.
“I think only her arm is broken,” Miss Dunne said, her voice abruptly gone faint, as if coming from a distance. “I checked her ribs and . . . legs and . . . and . . .”
He looked up from his examination of the girl, saw Miss Dunne go pale, and caught her just before her head hit the ground.
Rachel sputtered awake, the acrid stench of ammonia making her eyes water. Voices buzzed all around her, like a hundred flies circling her head. She blinked up at Dr. Edmunds’s face, hovering very close above hers.
He smiled then looked over his shoulder. “As you see, Mrs. Mainprice, quick-lime and muriate of ammonia works every time.”
Mrs. Mainprice took the bottle he held out and tucked it into the pocket hidden deep within her voluminous skirts. “Glad to see you awake, miss. Was worried about you for a moment there.” She nodded and moved out of Rachel’s view.
“What is going on?” Rachel’s head felt strange, empty and loose as if she had left a portion of her brain on the cobblestones. She tried to focus on his face.
“You fainted, Miss Dunne.”
Oh, yes. The little apple seller and her broken arm . . . A fresh wave of lightheadedness swept over Rachel.
Dr. Edmunds shimmied his arms beneath her legs and her shoulders. “Hang on tight. Unless you want me to drop you.”
“I can walk,” she protested, though the spinning of her head made clear there would be no walking in her immediate future.
“I think not.”
Rachel tensed her eyes against the dizziness and clasped her hands behind his neck. She felt the strong muscles of his shoulders bunch and then he stood. The smell of his shaving soap—the scent of almonds—wafted off his cheek, his face was so near to hers. Shifting her weight, he ascended the steps.
“But what about the apple seller?” Rachel tried to peer around his arm. “She is still in the street.”
Curious onlookers knotted around the girl, forming a wall that prevented Rachel from seeing the child. Mrs. Mainprice’s familiar frilled white cap peeked between arms and bodies.
“Mrs. Mainprice will tend to her until a surgeon arrives.”
“But the girl needs help now” The child had been shivering and Rachel had sent Mrs. Mainprice to get a blanket to keep her warm. There had been so much blood, and the way her arm dangled . . . Rachel’s head reeled and she closed her eyes. “The poor child was run over like a dog in the road.”
“I know, Miss Dunne.” Weariness edged the doctor’s voice. He passed through the open front door, and they entered the cool darkness of the hallway. The sight of the crowd was lost to Rachel. “But I will see that she’s properly tended to.”
“Will it be enough?” she whispered.
If he heard, he didn’t answer, though she thought she felt tension move through his chest, crushed tight against her own.
He carried her down the hallway and into his office. Carefully, he settled her onto the settee.
“Molly, bring a lap rug and some hot tea for Miss Dunne,” he ordered the maid, who had followed them into the room.
She missed the comfort of his arms the moment he withdrew them. Silly Rachel. “I shall be fine, Dr. Edmunds. You do not need to stay with me.”
“Let me decide what you need.” He smiled a doctor’s comforting smile and pressed his fingertips to the pulse in her throat. “Good. Steady” They swept along the line of her cheek, soft as a feather stroke, before lifting away to leave the feel of them on her skin.
He inhaled a rapid breath and stepped back.
“Is anything the matter?” Rachel asked.
“Not with you.” He wiped his hands together as if trying to remove something from his fingers. “I believe I shall send Mrs. Mainprice in here to sit with you until you’re feeling better.”
“Can’t right sees ’em as yet.” Joe swiveled his head the other direction and poked it farther through the open window in Rachel’s bedchamber. “Nope. Not comin’ that way either.”
“It’s quite all right, Joe. I should not be so curious.” What Miss Castleton looked like was none of her affair, anyway. Besides, Rachel’s room was so high up from the street, she’d likely see nothing more than the top of the woman’s bonnet.
Joe pulled himself back into the room. “But women are always curious ’bout other women.”
“Well, this woman needs not to be.”
“Eh.” He winked. “If you don’ mind me sayin’, yer a hundred times prettier than ’er, Miss Dunne.”
“A fine compliment, Joe.”
“A true one.” The bells chimed in the nearest church towers, striking five. “Cor, is that the time now? I’ll ’ave me ’ead boxed if I don’t get those water glasses shined up afore the company arrives.”
