“But I swore an oath and she didn’t,” he told the sleeping boy. He paused another minute, knowing he had more than fulfilled his oath, as far as his unexpected stay in Edgar warranted. “All right then.” For the second time in as many days, he took out that same coin and flicked it, stepping back so it would land flat and not roll. “George, if I see you, I am free to leave.”
Again, the coin landed with George staring bug-eyed up to the ceiling. And again, he pocketed the coin and went down out the door to find Mrs. Tavish.
She was precisely where Tommy had said she would be found, also staring at the ceiling, her face a sickly pallor and with eyes so hard he knew what had happened even before Mrs. Cameron ushered him into the hovel.
Mrs. Tavish lay so still that he went directly to her bed and pressed the back of his hand against her neck. Herpulse was slow and thready, and probably only still beating because she looked like a woman with a grievance.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tavish,” he said softly. He turned to Mrs. Cameron in sudden anger, even as the logical part of his own brain told him he was inappropriate. “Could you not have called me, at least? Perhaps I could have done something!”
Mrs. Cameron didn’t suffer fools gladly. She seized his arm with a surprisingly strong grip and jerked him to the corner of the room, so he could stare down at a baby so small and thin that no art of the surgeon could have changed the outcome.
He had the good sense to apologize, even as he pulled back a surprisingly clean towel to take a good look at what happens to a malnourished infant from a malnourished mother.
“I doubt my friend Rhona Tavish has had a decent meal in two years,” Mrs. Cameron said, her voice low with emotion. She stuck her face in his. “Mister or Captain or Surgeon or whoever you are, does it ever shame you to be a man?”
“Almost on a daily basis,” he replied, which made the woman lower her eyes and step back.
“My boy?” he heard from the bed, even though Mrs. Tavish spoke no louder than a whisper.
“Tommy will live and walk again, Mrs. Tavish,” Douglas said, returning to her bedside. “What would you like me to do with your daughter?”
How was it possible for even tears to look exhausted? Touched almost to his heart’s core, he who had seen so much, Douglas dabbed at her eyes.
“No money forcladh,” she whispered. “No potter’s field either, please no.”
Where did all his nerve come from? “Miss Grant has a pretty little garden behind her house. Do you … do you have a name for your daughter?”
“Call her Deoiridh—pilgrim—for she was a pilgrim passing.” Mrs. Tavish sighed and slept.
Miss Grant, I am going to keep trying your good will, it appears, he thought. He turned to Mrs. Cameron. “This nice towel, please. I’ll get you another.”
Mrs. Cameron nodded and went to work shrouding the tiny body. She bound it neatly with cloth strips, offering no protest when Douglas lifted the bedcovers and examined the sleeping Mrs. Tavish.
“You took good care of her,” he said finally. He reached in his pocket and pulled out three coins that made Mrs. Cameron’s eyes widen. “Buy food for both of you and there will be more.”
She put the feather-light infant in his arms and he turned to go. He stopped and handed the child back. “One moment.”
In a fury, he crossed the noisome yard into the Tavish’s ruin of a house, where Mr. Tavish, sober now and eyes burning like two coals, sat at the table.
“A man takes care of his family!” Douglas shouted, wondering whose voice was so menacing, before he realized it was his own. “I have no power to do anything to you, but take this!”
He picked up a stick by the door, probably the stick that Tavish used to beat his wife and son, and cracked it against the side of the man’s head. Tavish grunted, shrugged it off, and slammed Douglas to the ground. The last thing the surgeon remembered was a foot crashing into his ribs, and his own fervent relief that Tavish must have pawned his very boots for one more drink. Shoes would have cracked his skull.
Chapter 8
Olive Grant learned of Mr.Bowden’s slow and painful walk from one end of the High Street to the other from one of her pensioners who often dropped by early to pay for his luncheon with fuel for the kitchen stove. The man didn’t mention the small bundle the surgeon carried, but he was old, and his eyesight cloudy.
Olive wiped her hands on her apron and went to the door. She took the four steps in two steps and ran to the surgeon, who just stared at her with tears in his eyes and held out the bundle, beseeching her.
She gulped and took the baby, tucking it in her arm as though the child lived. She touched Mr. Bowden’s face, wincing when he winced. “I can send Mr. McCullough here for the constable,” she said.
“No need. Tavish will just say I struck him first, and I did.” He gave his side a gentle pat. “Don’t think my ribs broke, but I need to lie down.”
“Mr. Bowden, I have no patience with brawlers,” she told him, which made the surgeon smile.
“I haven’t heard such a tone since my own mother caught me smoking.”
“That’s a bad habit,” she said, matching him for calm. “I trust you gave it up.”
