On her fifth day at Painswick Court, Anne asked permission to use the stillroom adjacent to the kitchen to prepare a few simple remedies to soothe Lady Celia. These would not be medicines, per se, as prescribed by a physician, but common home remedies familiar to and often prepared by the lady of the house or her stillroom maid. The Fitzjohns did not currently employ a stillroom maid, so the cook-housekeeper said Anne was welcome to use the small workroom with its utensils, pans, and cooking range.
Anne retrieved the case her father had given her withits small drawers containing dried herbs as well as narrow shelves holding labeled jars, vials, and graduated measuring glasses, funnel, spatula and spoon, small mortar and pestle, et cetera. Carrying it downstairs, she noticed Dr. Finch talking quietly with Rosa near the side door. She wondered what they were discussing but continued past without making her presence known.
She planned to prepare powdered root of Turkey rhubarb, orRheum palmatum, as a gentle laxative, a diuretic infusion of juniper and dandelion, and a liniment rub made of camphor, rosemary oil, and spirit of ammonia for her patient’s restless leg muscles.
Not long after she began, Dr. Finch came down and joined her. “Miss Stark told me I might find you here.” He glanced around at the mortar and pestle, vials, and bubbling pot and added, “I must say, I am impressed. Looks like a laboratory in here.”
She smiled in reply and continued her task.
He gestured toward the open case. “Is that the family’s medicine chest?”
“Mine, actually. A gift from my father.”
“This book too?”
“Yes.”
He picked it up and read aloud, “Cox’sCompanion to the Family Medicine Chest and Compendium of DomesticMedicine;Particularly Adapted for Heads of Families,Ship-Captains,Missionaries,and Colonists,With Plain Rules for Taking the Medicines,toWhich Are Added a Plain Description of the Treatment ofFractures and Dislocations,and a Concise Account of Asiatic orSpasmodic Cholera. Goodness, that’s quite a title.”
“Comprehensive, certainly.”
“And you brought this with you to Painswick because ...?”
“I like to be prepared.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “It’s unfortunate there are not more opportunities for formal training for sickroom and monthly nurses. Although you seem quite adept already. In fact, you could instruct others. Have you always been drawn to the vocation?”
She shook her head. “As a girl, I had no great desire to be a nurse.”
“No? What, then?”
“You will laugh, but I wished to be a physician, or a surgeon-apothecary like my father.”
“Why would I laugh?”
“Because I am a woman, if you haven’t noticed.”
He looked at her and said in a low, serious voice, “Yes, Miss Loveday. A fact of which I am very much aware.”
Anne felt her neck heat at his words. She braved a glance at him and saw his own face redden as well.
“Well, I...” He cleared his throat. “I shall leave you to your work.”
Later, on her way back upstairs, Anne glanced into the family parlour and saw Miss Fitzjohn.
Noticing her, the woman called, “Ah, Miss Loveday. Have you heard our news?”
Anne walked closer and stood in the doorway.
“We are to be quite a full house soon,” Katherine Fitzjohn continued. “My two cousins are coming to stay.”
Anne’s stomach fell. “Two cousins ... here?”
Katherine nodded. “You must have met them at some point. Colonel Jasper Paine and—”
“Colonel? He’s moved up in the ranks.”
“Yes. And Mr. Jude Dalby.”
