“You will teach him. When he is good enough for your satisfaction—and Lucinda’s, I don’t doubt—then I will perform this little surgery.”
“It might be a week or more. Lucinda must be taken care of properly. And then I pray you will remain here to make certain my hand is properly healed.”
“I fully expect this to take at least six weeks,” he replied. “I never leave my patients before I am confident all is well. We must be certain there is no infection, and that you can hopefully bend those fingers.”
Mrs. Aintree nodded, satisfied at last, as Douglas wondered about the workings of fate. Man proposes, God disposes. He remembered one of his captains booming that from the quarterdeck after every reading of the Articles of War on Sunday, followed by a miniscule sermon more threat than encouragement. The captain also shouted that after a battle, and generally while facing a French or Spanish foe.
He stood there contemplating his immediate future, while Mrs. Aintree took the jug into a back room. She returned with cream for the leek and fish soup, plus a small sack. “I made a nice soft cheese yesterday.”
He took the items with his thanks and let her open the door for him. “I’ll tell Tommy of our arrangement for his future.”
“I could pay him a visit,” Mrs. Aintree said.
“Delightful. Every convalescent likes to be remembered.”
Douglas was silent through the fish and leek soup, which had enough cream to please him. He sat in the littledining room and watched Olive Grant and little Maeve serve the pensioners. A few paying customers came in, but so few. He knew it wasn’t his business how she managed to keep the tearoom open, but it began to dawn on Douglas Bowden that he now found himself in the middle of life in Edgar. Nowhere was it written in any surgeon or physician’s oath that he was responsible for everything, but he knew himself well. He had his own credo, which had served him well aboard a ship: If it moved and breathed, and, in the case of sailors, swore a lot, he was accountable to God above that it kept moving, breathing, and swearing in good health.
A visit upstairs and bowls of soup for Mrs. Campbell, Tommy, and Duke confirmed his confidence that Tommy could not have a better nurse. He was cleaner and more alert, without the bewildered look of someone in pain and mental turmoil.
Duke thumped his tail in approval of the leek and fish soup. Even the dog looked cleaner. A questioning glance to Mrs. Campbell made her blush. “He didn’t mind a good brushing and a little water, think on,” she admitted.
An inspection of Tommy’s sutures proved satisfactory. “I’ll craft a short splint today,” Douglas said. “I see no reason for you to not begin walking about.”
“Then I could help Miss Grant, couldn’t I?” the boy asked, hopeful.
“Aye, lad, but there might be something else for you to do,” Douglas told him. He patted the boy’s shoulder, wishing he had more meat on his bones. “Rest some more today, and I’ll apply that splint tomorrow morning.”
He walked down the stairs slowly, knowing that he needed a surgery for Mrs. Aintree and a place for himself. Olive Grant deserved better than to have her little parlor full of bloody lint and bandages and smelling of camphor and alcohol. He fingered the coin in his pocket, the one he had been tossing for heads or tails and then ignoring.
At the foot of the stairs, he tossed the coin again.Heads I stay in Edgar for at least two months, he thought.Tails I stay in Edgar even longer. There. He had finally quit fooling himself.
The coin went up and over, rolled a bit, then came to rest on its edge, leaning against the carpet. “I need a new coin,” he said as he pocketed buggy-eyed George III.
Luncheon was in full swing, so Douglas helped himself to leek and coley soup and slapped down that coin on the kitchen table, through with it. Olive stopped long enough to look at the coin and murmur, “You’re overpaying me,” before she edged out of the door with a tray of bowls and chunks of bread.
When he finished, Douglas stood in the dining room a long moment, hands in his pockets, nodding to the meek members of Miss Olive Grant’s dining society. They remained a mystery to him. He would have to commandeer Olive to explain them and what ailed Edgar.
Most of the people took a second bowl of soup and more bread, which told him that luncheon was probably their first meal of the day, perhaps their only meal. He recognized the pale skin, rheumy eyes, and air of futility that he had seen on the faces of prisoners—him among them—languishing in a Spanish prison. He saw no hope on their faces.
He made up his mind. When Olive and Maeve came out to gather the empty bowls, he helped them. “Can you enlist some of these old dears to do dishes? You and I need to talk.”
He saw the surprise in her colorful eyes and then apprehension. “I’m not leaving anytime soon,” he assured her, pleased to see surprise replaced by relief. “In fact, I also need you to tell me how I can rent that empty house by the bridge.”
Without a word to him, she touched two ladies on their shoulders and gently herded them toward the kitchen, where Maeve stood scraping bowls that didn’tneed scraping because no one left anything uneaten. The door closed. When it opened, Olive wore a chipstraw bonnet and her plaid shawl.
He fell into step with her as she walked toward the bridge. They paused at the empty house. He smiled to see Olive peer into a dirty window, almost as though she wanted to see the pitiful place pass muster before she agreed to his scheme.Are you determined to nurture all of us?he thought.
“I have heard it is haunted, but I suppose it will do,” she announced finally. “You could have an office on the first floor and a surgery. I know there is a large-enough cupboard—see there?—for your medical supplies.”
He came closer and peered into the window too. He looked where she pointed. “There is a kitchen?”
“You can cook?” she asked.
“No. I can compound medicine and roll pills in a kitchen,” he told her, then looked at her freckled, earnest face, so close to his own as they looked through the window. “I was planning to take my meals at Miss Grant’s Tearoom, if I can work out a paying arrangement with the proprietor.”
She smiled at that, and he admired her crooked incisor. Amazing how a woman with so many interesting and varied elements to one face could look so charming. Douglas wondered again what was wrong with the men in Scotland. Didn’t they understand that absolute perfection becomes tedious?
“We can do that,” she said, stepping back because he probably was standing too close.
