I am a free man, Douglas thought, even as he tried to look properly sympathetic. “Look at it this way, Captain: perhaps there will be another war soon.”
That didn’t go well. Captain Bracewood’s face turned an amazing color not ordinarily found in nature, and he pointed to the door. Douglas snapped off as fine a salute as he had ever executed, did an about-face, and took the hint.
He stayed another week in London, visiting a tailor recommended by his last captain. He commissioned three new civilian suits, more shirts, some ordinary trousers, and a low-crowned beaver hat that he thought looked stupid. He was so used to the intimidation factor of his lofty bicorn that he felt like a midget from Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre, which he also visited. He kept one good uniform to be buried in eventually.
A morning at a balloon ascension was followed by a visit to the shabby sheds that housed Lord Elgin’s famous marbles. He stayed a long time, walking around the pieces and remembering a visit to Athens when the statues were still in their proper places high up in the Parthenon.
A night in Drury Lane Theatre observing the great Edmund Keane portray Othello had charged his tired brain but mainly served to remind Douglas of his own time spent in Cyprus, doing what he could during an outbreak of diphtheria. Most of his patients had fared no better than Desdemona, which meant he added those Cypriot corpses to his never-ending list when he was supposed to be sleeping.
His most enjoyable bit of tourism took him to the British Museum solely to look at poor dead Sydney Parkinson’s magnificent watercolors drawn in Australia and South Sea islands, during one of Captain Cook’s voyages. He had to ask a bored clerk to let him see the delicate little beauties, stored in the nether regions of the museum. Douglas admired the exquisite drawings and felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. They reminded him of better times at sea, including a lengthy stopover in Otaheite, with its lovely women. They were not the stuff of nightmare, thank the Almighty; quite the opposite.
When he collected his new clothes at the end of the week, Douglas had to agree that even if he didn’t cut a dashing figure—too many wrinkles, hair too gray at thirty-seven—at least he was comfortable, especially in the trousers. Who knew that really good tailors could actually add a little extra fabric to whichever side where a man needed more room?
Then it was back to the mail coach, with his new clothing and the old smallclothes and nightshirt folded carefully into an equally new traveling case. He wore one of his new suits, since his navy days were done. His boat cloak remained useful and would probably never wear out. Back went his one good bicorn into its hatbox, and everything else into his duffel bag. He wore the beaver hat but with regrets.
As usual, he carried his capital knives and medical kit in the same battered leather satchel, which he rested on his lap when the coach was crowded, and set next to him when it was not. All his worldy possessions except for a trunk and box of shells were right there on the Royal Mail, going who knew where.
The rain had let up. He sat back and enjoyed the beauty of an English spring as the coach rocked its way north. The swaying never bothered him, even though one of the passengers turned green and threw up into his hat. This misdemeanor set off a small child and required the coach to stop and the driver’s assistant to sluice out the interior. Such was travel.
It was pain in his hinder parts that finally caused Douglas to surrender several days later at Pauling, a village high in the Pennines. He got out, stretched, and looked around, wondering if this was the place for him. Under the discreet protection of his boat cloak, he rubbed his backside, thinking that perhaps he could stay here a few days and make a decision. He had seen a quantity of pleasant villages in the last few days; when had he become so picky?
Wisdom acquired during his journey encouraged him to seek a public house away from the inn where the mail coach stopped. He found such a place in the next block, which fulfilled the requirements of relative silence, and from the odors emanating from the open door, good victuals.
A clean room on the second floor, followed by a meal of stuffed quail and tender asparagus that nearly reduced him to tears, affirmed his choice. He followed it with ale the golden color reminiscent of the hair of a woman he knew in the Baltics, and then local cheese, one piece after another until he almost hurt himself.
Since the sky still held some color, he did what he usually did and climbed the nearest hill. He stood at the summit and looked in vain for a glimpse of ocean. He walked down, nodding his head, and then retired to his bed, made cozy with a thoughtful warming pan. His dreams were no worse than usual, but certainly no better.
He slept through the sound of the mail coach leaving and woke to more kitchen fragrances. The innkeep had said something last night about thick slabs of bacon and shirred eggs with cheese. Douglas smelled bread and put his hands behind his head, thinking of a piece the size of a Portuguese roof tile, slathered with butter.
He stayed two more days in Pauling, walking the countryside. When Douglas inquired, the innkeep told him with a sorrowful shake of his head that there was no physician or surgeon any closer than ten miles.
“You don’t look pieced out and ruinated, sir,” the keep ventured.
“I’m as healthy as they come,” Douglas assured him. “I’m a surgeon just retired from the Royal Navy and looking for a place that needs a doctor.”
“We’re it, then, sir,” he said, his expression brightening. “Wait’ll I tell the missus and the vicar!”
“Hold off, man. I haven’t quite decided,” Douglas cautioned. “Just give me another day.”
He used that day to walk by a deserted stone house, two stories, just across the street from the inn. He even went around back to look in the windows, gratified to see sound floors. He could have an office, waiting room, and surgery on the main floor, and he suspected two bedchambers upstairs, one for him and the other for a patient who might require closer observation.
When he inquired at the inn, the keep told him that the local magistrate owned the house. He gave Douglas directions to the man’s house and looked at him expectantly.
“Tomorrow is soon enough to decide,” Douglas warned him.
“You don’t rush into things, do you, sir?” the keep asked.
Douglas thought of all the surgeries and frantic first aid on a bloody deck that he had rushed into. “On occasion I do,” he said. “I’ve never owned a house or set down roots before.”
The keep pushed a glass of golden ale toward him. “Tomorrow’s soon enough.”
Douglas didn’t argue. He drank slowly, savoring the bright taste of the ale as he rolled it around his mouth. Something in the back of his brain suggested to him that he should be more eager to visit the magistrate, now that he had found the perfect setting for the rest of his life’s work.
After supper—shepherd’s pie with crust so flaky that he ate too much—Douglas walked up the tallest hill again, wondering why he kept doing that. Pauling met every need. Why this blasted hill? Still he climbed.
The same view met his gaze, rolling hills, covered now with the white blooms of hawthorn, sheep, and little lambs capering about on stiff legs, without even a glimpse of the ocean.
Suddenly he knew. Both Mrs. Fillion and CaptainBrackett had been absolutely correct. He tipped his head back to look at the sky and laughed at his folly.
