Eight
Over two years and two months passed.
The urgent letter from Edinburgh to Dr. Alasdair Andrews came at one of the worst possible times in the year for a country doctor. Dr. Joseph Murray, the man who had taken Alasdair off the streets at the age of ten years and arranged for him to undertake the study of medicine at age fourteen, was dying. Alasdair desperately wished to be at his side, if possible. But January was the time for so much pneumonia and influenza, a month when cold and damp laced the air and people were crowded together indoors. How could he leave the environs of Sommerleigh to go to Edinburgh?
As luck would have it, he heard of a physician who had arrived in nearby Tavishbourn to join the well-established practice of an older physician. But the older doctor had decided, much to the chagrin of his wife, that he was still far too capable to stop practicing, and the younger doctor, anxious to make his name and earn some fees, was left at a loose end.
Alasdair immediately paid a call on the younger doctor. Alasdair found his medicine sound, his mind good, his way pleasant. An agreement was quickly reached. Dr. Jasper would take over Dr. Andrews’ surgery and his patients immediately until Dr. Andrews could return from Edinburgh.
Alasdair went through his list of patients with the young doctor, who took notes.
“Naturally, in my surgery, ye will find my own notes, but there are some particularly frail patients I must apprise ye of.” Alasdair described the various elderly folk and those children who seemed to always take sick in January.
“And then there is the Lady Drake. This is her third pregnancy. The other two have gone well enough, but this one has been difficult for her. She has had trouble eating and her weight has dropped. Ye must talk to the countess exactly as ye would to another physician. Use exact and clinical language. Her husband, the earl, ye will treat as one would any other overly protective and anxious husband. But the lady—she dinnae tolerate euphemism and generalities. And she willnae look in yer eyes but she will remember everything ye say. With precision. For years. That is her way.”
Alasdair paused. “Tonight, I will make Lord Drake aware that I am leaving and that ye will be taking my place. I am not looking forward to that conversation. But I expect I will be back before the countess is in much danger of delivering.”
The young Dr. Jasper looked aghast. “You deliver babies, Andrews?”
“I always have an experienced midwife with me, but aye, I have delivered well-nigh onto three hundred babies. Have ye never thought before that a physician should be present at the time of delivery? ’Tis the period of greatest danger to women, the time when they are most likely to die. Physicians should be trained in childbirth, should attend deliveries.”
Dr. Jasper shook his head. “I will attend the deliveries of your patients since that is your wish, but I am glad of the midwife. I know little of this.”
Alasdair clapped the young doctor on the back. “Mrs. Finch will take charge. She is a good midwife. Just remember,primum non nocere.”
First, do no harm.
The earl’s words to Alasdair were sympathetic and reasonable. Certainly, Alasdair must go see his mentor, the man who had made it possible for him to be a doctor. But Alasdair could see the worry on Thomas’ face.
“I will see Lady Drake before I go, if I may, my lord.”
“She’s been in her aerie all day. She sent me away this afternoon, saying she had to work when she could.”
“Well, if she is working, I widnae want to disturb her. But ’tis a good sign, I would think, that she has turned her mind to Fermat’s conjecture, even as she has been ill?”
“Yes,” Thomas grumbled, “but if you leave without seeing Harry, she’ll have my head.” Then a thought seemed to strike him and he rubbed his mouth to cover a grin. “We’ll go see her together.”
They climbed the main stairs and then a much smaller staircase, Thomas ahead of Alasdair, taking two steps at a time. They reached a door, and Thomas knocked, and after a moment or two, Harry opened it.
Alasdair thought Harry did look better. She had some color in her cheeks. A few children’s toys—a little horse on wheels with a string, a doll, some blocks—were scattered on the floor, evidence that young Hypatia and Richard spent some time in the room that the Lady Drake,néeHarriet Lovelock, called her aerie, the place where she undertook her mathematical thinking and writing. Besides the toys, the room contained a desk, a chair, so many books and piles of papers. And, oddly, a bed.
Harry lay down atop the counterpane of the bed and Alasdair took her pulse and felt her distended abdomen for movement—aye, a good kick there—and observed the bones in her face. He was glad to see that despite her weight loss, she was still not as thin as she had been when she first came to Sommerleigh.
“I am feeling better, Alasdair.” She sat up with the assistance of her husband’s hand. “There is a clear broth that Mrs. Haversham makes from our chickens that I am able to drink. And this peculiar and very dry cracker that has almost no taste. And the whites of eggs.”
“I am glad that Mrs. Haversham has found some things for ye to eat since I was not of help. But I have come to tell ye that I am going to Edinburgh tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Harry said abstractedly, her mind somewhere else already, her eyes on the ceiling. “I hope you travel safely.”
“Thank ye, Harry, I hope to be gone only a fortnight or two—”
Harry clutched Alasdair’s arm.
“Wait. Edinburgh. In Scotland.”
“Aye, my lady—”
Harry rose and went to her desk.
