“Pillows,” he said peremptorily, holding Dr. Murray up with one arm and snapping his fingers. He was handed two pillows. “More!’ he roared and the nurse went to get more.
After a half dozen more pillows had been stuffed behind Dr. Murray’s back and he was able to sit precisely perpendicular yet still be supported, the aged man’s breath slowed.
Alasdair looked at his mentor’s swollen, weeping legs. Dropsy. He did not need to press on the limbs to know that his finger would leave a lasting impression in the edema. He laid his ear on Dr. Murray’s chest and there were sopping-wet crackles in the upper lung fields and no sound whatsoever at the bases of the lungs. The heart had a high-pitched murmur, easily heard over Dr. Murray’s noisy breathing. The second heart sound could not be heard. And the carotid pulse was weak. And delayed.
He knew that if Dr. Murray were to have a post-mortem exam, his lungs would be filled with clear fluid, close to water, and the left lower chamber of the heart would be thick with muscle, so thick there was scant room for blood to collect to be pumped out. And the valve that lay between that chamber and the rest of the body would be small and narrow.
“Diagnosis, Dr. Andrews?” Dr. Murray gasped out.
“Diagnosis: once a teacher, always a teacher.”
“I have,” Dr. Murray wheezed, “been taking digitalis,” wheeze, “but the efficacy,” wheeze, “is not what it once was.”
“I might, with yer permission, drain the fluid from yer lungs.”
“Nae,” the man gasped.
“He has refused the procedure from the finest physicians in Edinburgh, Doctor,” the nurse said.
“If I were to have it done,” wheeze, “I would have ye do it,” wheeze “but the fluid will only reaccumulate.”
“Aye,” said Alasdair. “But it will give ye some time. Some easier breathing. Ye willnae tire so soon.”
“I am ready,” wheeze, “to see my wife.” Here, Dr. Murray pointed a finger up at the ceiling. His wife had died fifteen years earlier when Alasdair was still training, and Dr. Murray had said often since then how much he looked forward to joining his wife in heaven.
“I was only waiting for ye,” wheeze, “dear boy.”
“Well, I am here.” Alasdair worked very hard to keep his voice steady. His grief would not ease Dr. Murray’s passage. “Would ye like some laudanum?”
“Nae.” Gasp, wheeze.
“Please give me some sign when ye want some. And I have plain morphia as well.”
“Aye.” Wheeze. “Have ye married?”
Alasdair shook his head.
Dr. Murray pushed himself up even straighter with his arms. “Ye must!”
“Calm yerself, Dr. Murray. I will.”
“When?” Dr. Murray beetled his eyebrows and tried to look fierce despite his panting.
“When I meet the right woman.”
Dr. Murray labored for a minute and then said, “Ye have already met her.”
How did he know? “Perhaps.”
Gasp. “P’raps be damned!” Dr. Murray said.
“I met a woman, once, years ago, Dr. Murray. But I hesitated. I did not pursue her, and she ran away.”
“Then ye must find her.”
Alasdair had been awake for three days when Dr. Murray died. The man had not wanted any drugs for sedation or pain until the very end. He had said he was ready to die but he had not wanted to be unconscious until it was inevitable.
Finally, eased by morphia, Dr. Murray’s rattling, gasping breath went silent.
