“It’s fine,” the child said, her eyes on the bag. She took one out, looked at it, and handed it to him. “You try one, Mr. Bowden.”
Douglas took the biscuit. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Olive give a slow wink with one of her heterochromatic eyes.You are a sly one, he thought. He took a bite and recoiled. He held it out to Flora.
“I have never really enjoyed biscuits made with anise,” he told her. “Begging your pardon, Miss Grant, but Flora is going to take these home to her gran.”
Olive sighed. “Flora, do me a favor and take them. If your gran complains, she can take it up with me.”
“She won’t,” Flora said in a small voice.
He could tell Olive wanted to stay. He wanted her to stay, but there were probably social rules that made her give him a bright smile and close the bag. “Don’tforget these, Flora. Mr. Bowden, I’ll think about what you told me.”
“Do it.”
He saw her to the door and watched her cross the street. She waved at him from her own stoop. He stood there a long moment, looking down the street to see Tommy Tavish making his way to Mrs. Cameron’s house, rollicking along at a clipping pace on his crutches. Douglas turned and looked at Mrs. Aintree’s tidy place next to the tearoom, wishing he could convince the woman to do a great service for a little family hanging on by a thread.
He thought of Mrs. Campbell, who had sat with Tommy when he couldn’t and whom Olive paid with meals. Tommy managed on his own now, and Mrs. Campbell had returned to her own cottage, back to meals of weak tea and toast. And he knew that for one Mrs. Campbell, there were others in want, and not just the Highlanders. Life was less complicated at sea.
Maybe Olive was right, and why not? She knew her village better than he did. Maybe everyone in a poor village would look with suspicion on their own countrymen from far to the north until the refugees died off or crept away to become someone else’s challenge. The pie only had so many slices.
Flora proved to be an excellent nurse, petting her little patient, singing to her, and then feeding her the thin gruel. He stood in the doorway and watched Pudding lap up the gruel, then curl up in her blanket-lined box and go to sleep.
“Flora, I have something you can do to help me,” he told her, holding out his hand to her. He walked her into the surgery and pointed to two boxes on the floor. “I’ll carry these into my waiting room, where I want you to organize them into piles.”
She nodded and followed him back into the waiting room. He pried up the box top and indicated that she come closer.
He enjoyed her sharp intake of breath.
“Mr. Bowden, where did you get these?” she asked, touching the shells with the same delicacy she had used on Pudding.
“When I was only seven or eight years older than you, I started collecting shells,” he told her. “Before us are shells from all of the seven seas.” He set down three squares of ship’s cloth. “Small, medium, and large will do for now, until I figure out what to do with them. Will you help?”
“Aye, but it’s not enough to pay my debt for Pudding,” she said, and followed that announcement with a solemn shake of her head.
“It will do for right now,” he assured her.
He saw three patients that day, two of whom were able to pay his modest fee, and the third who brought him fish, which did perk up Pudding for a brief spell. He took a thoughtful walk to the greengrocer’s to find mother and son doing well.
Lunch was fish soup at the tearoom, where he sat in the corner and watched Olive Grant with her diners. They paid so little, but Olive smiled at each one, stopping to chat before she went to the next table, and the next. He had enough left of his own luncheon to share with Flora across the street in the kitchen that had become Pudding’s convalescent home.
Only with difficulty could he convince Flora that Pudding needed to stay overnight and that she should return home. He walked her down one of Edgar’s narrow closes and into a row of decrepit stone shelters barely deserving the title of homes. Olive had told him those were the poor houses, provided by the Church of Scotland.
Flora hung back, her eyes apprehensive, as she took a scolding from Gran.
“I told her to drown the wee beast,” Gran said and shook her finger at Flora. “She was not t’bother thee.”
“No bother,” Douglas assured the old woman. “I’m not too busy yet, and it seemed a pity to drown a perfectly good kitten.”
“There’s always more where that one came from,” Gran told him with a sigh. She lowered her eyes, and Douglas felt the shame that filled the little room that appeared to be parlor, bedchamber, and kitchen for Gran and her dead daughter’s child.
He felt a sudden burning anger at the Duchess of Sutherland and her progressive estate managers, who had convinced her that her Highland holdings could be squeezed for profit. He knew enough about the woman to know that her husband, the Marquess of Stafford, was England’s wealthiest man. He wondered if the countess had any idea of the misery she had unleashed on her own people, many of them now as helpless as the kittens he saw kneading and nursing the equally tired mother cat in a corner of the room.
He swallowed his anger, determined that Flora not think he was angry at her. “You have a fine granddaughter,” he told the old widow. “She took good care of Pudding after I finished.”
“We’ll pay you when we can,” the widow murmured, her eyes still on the dirt floor.
“I’ll think on the matter and find a way for Flora to pay me,” he said. He touched Flora’s shoulder. “And you’ll report to Miss Grant tomorrow morning for more porridge for Pudding.”
Flora nodded. “Thank’ee,” she whispered. “I knew you would help me.”
