“No need, lass,” Mrs. Aintree said. “You should know this, too.”
“Tommy hasn’t been giving you troub …” Olive said at the same time as Douglas said, “Tommy’s leg is …”
Mrs. Aintree laughed. “Listen to the two of you.” She looked first at Olive. “No, my dear, Tommy is all I could ask for in a milker.” She turned to Douglas. “He keeps scratching those stitches.”
“It’s time they came out,” Douglas said. “Soon, I promise. What … what is it?”
Mrs. Aintree took a deep breath and looked toward the ceiling, as if shy to speak. “I have two empty rooms over my kitchen,” she said finally, and she spoke fast, as if trying to keep ahead of her own natural reserve, a commodity well-represented in Edgar. “No reason that Tommy and his mam can’t move in there. I can use her help, Mr. Bowden. I don’t know why I didn’t think I needed it.”
Olive watched with gratitude in her heart as Douglas Bowden’s shoulders relaxed.Two problems solved, Olive thought. The Tavishes will have a home, and Mrs. Aintree will have help with housework and cooking, following Mr. Bowden’s hand surgery.
“I haven’t mentioned it to Tommy yet,” the widow said. She looked at the surgeon now, the hard work over as she acknowledged her needs and let go of her bit of unnecessary pride. “I wanted you to know first.”
“He’ll be delighted,” Douglas said. “I know I am. Mrs. Aintree, I predict that Mrs. Tavish will be most grateful and ever so attentive in her duties, once you explain them carefully to her. All she wants is a place for her and her boy to live without fear.”
“There’s a bed in each room and lots of sheets and blankets,” Mrs. Aintree said. “I have so much. In fact, if you need some, you know, when winter comes …”
“I’ll be gone by then,” he told her. “But I thank you for the offer.”
“You really should just stay here,” Mrs. Aintree told him.
“He has other plans,” Olive said quietly. “We’re grateful he is here now.”
Mrs. Aintree nodded. “I’ll tell Tommy, and we’ll walk together to tell his mam.”
“Would you like me to come along?”
“No, laddie,” she said, her eyes kind. Olive wondered if Mrs. Aintree saw the exhaustion too. “It’s a woman’s job. Tommy is all the escort I need.”
When she left, Douglas let out his breath in a sigh of satisfaction. “I haven’t prayed in years, but I tell you, Olive, I was about to give it a try, before Mrs. Aintree knocked on my door!”
“Heaven forbid that you should be forced to summon deity,” Olive joked. “Did you forget I am a minister’s daughter?”
He shook his head. “I’m off my feet, my stomach is about to get full, a problem is solved, and I feel a glimpse of returning good humor. How simple is man.”
Another knock.
“We are busier tonight than Wellington after Waterloo,” Douglas said. “I’ll have to tell people to form a line to the left.”
Two people stood there. Olive had eyes for one, and from the way he reached forward, Douglas had eyes for the other.
She stepped aside while he gently reached for the good arm of Edgar’s cobbler. She sucked in her breath to see a bodkin driven straight through his wrist.
“What did you do, man?” Douglas asked, impressing Olive with the sudden calmness in his voice, and of all things, more than a hint of a smile.
She realized what she was seeing and wondered howthe Royal Navy had ever let such a doctor actually retire.My stars, she thought, wondering if such things were taught in medical school. As soon as Douglas Bowden sees that some wretched wound isn’t going to be fatal, he has a remarkable facility for putting someone at ease.
Sure enough, the terror left the man’s face, even if the pain did not. “You’re looking at a clumsy fellow, Mr. Bowden. Can you fix me?”
“Without question, Mister … Mister …”
“McIntyre. What a poor excuse for a cobbler I am. I was going to stitch up a pair of boots. Got on a wooden box, a shaky wooden box let me add, to reach for my larger needles and the bodkins. I’d shake your hand but …”
The surgeon chuckled. “Some other time. Go right in there,” he said, opening the door to his surgery. “Let me help you. Just tell yourself it looks worse than it is.”
“Crivvens, but he is a cool one, is our surgeon,” the innkeeper’s wife said.
Our surgeon, Olive thought, touched to her heart’s core.I wish that were so. “He is. Since he is occupied, may I help?”
