Louise drew a deep breath. “You mentioned extracting the lens completely, Mr. Berkly. I’d like to know if—”
“Louise. I heard what happened.” Her mother’s voice swept toward her and then the lady’s hands gripped hers. “Your father has sent for the carriage.”
“It should be ready within five minutes,” Papa’s voice announced. His tone was harder as he said, “If I’m not mistaken, I specifically asked you to stay away from my daughter.”
Louise winced as heat burned her cheeks. “Mr. Berkly is—”
“Beneath your notice,” Papa clipped. “Madam, assist your daughter, please, so we may depart.”
“Lord Grasmere,” Redding said, his voice conveying the soothing sort of calm he likely used on impossible patients, “Mr. Berkly is the finest oculist I know. His success rate with regard to cataract surgery is second to none, which is why the doctors at the Royal Infirmary for the Diseases of the Eye and at Moorfield's Eye Hospital refer their most challenging cases to him.”
“Be that as it may,” Papa said in that tone he always used when he’d no interest in further discussion, “Mr. Berkly is not the sort of person anyone wishing to safeguard their reputation would want to associate with.”
“You would sacrifice your daughter’s hope for perfect vision because of prejudice?” Mr. Berkly asked, his incredulity and offense so palpable it enhanced Louise’s chagrin.
“Come, Louise.” Papa’s voice brooked no argument. “I’ll make an appointment with Doctor Pierson in the morning.”
Mortified by her father’s treatment of Mr. Berkly after he’d been so kind to her, Louise muttered a soft apology to him. As her mother escorted her from the room, Louise murmured, “I wish Papa had been nicer.”
“He only wants what’s best for you.”
“I don’t think he knows what that is, Mama.”
“The most important thing now is for us to fix you as quickly as we can so you can get on with the season.”
Louise wished she was brave enough, or disrespectful enough, to tell both her parents to go to the devil. But that wasn’t who she’d been raised to be.
And yet, she could not stand the idea of having her eyes couched again. So as she settled into bed later that evening, she made her decision - she’d find a way out of it, at least until she’d learned more about the alternative option.
Marcus wanted to hit something. Preferably Grasmere’s arrogant face. He’d not experienced such forceful anger since learning about his father’s crime. The man wanted to torture his daughter with a senseless procedure that wouldn’t work, by sticking a lancet in her eye whenever the need to do so arose.
Granted, his own solution wasn’t pain free, though most of his patients had said it was tolerable. And on the plus side, the surgery – if successful – meant they’d never have to endure another cataract operation again. In his opinion, this did seem preferable to always looking forward to someone poking a needle around in your eye once again.
“Redding tells me you’re in a snit,” Guthrie said when he called on Marcus two days later in his office at St. Agatha’s.
Marcus tossed aside the book he’d been reading and stood to greet his brother-in-law. “I don’t understand stubborn people – least of all those who’d rather suffer, or make others do so, by turning their backs on progress. 1753—that is the year the French Academy of Surgery published Jacques Daviel’s report on the technique he’d developed for cataract extraction. Yet here we are, seventy-five years later, and there are still doctors and surgeons who swear by couching.”
Guthrie crossed to a nearby cabinet where a decanter and glasses stood at the ready. He poured two glasses and handed one to Marcus. “For a man who rarely gets riled up over anything, you seem to be taking Grasmere’s decision to refuse your help pretty badly.”
“The man’s an ass.”
Guthrie grinned. “Can’t argue that. But it’shisdaughter.Hisdecision.”
Marcus scrubbed his jaw and sighed as he sank back into his chair. He took a deep swallow of brandy and glanced at Guthrie, who’d propped one shoulder against a bookcase. “It ought to be hers. But she doesn’t strike me as someone who’ll go against her father’s will. She’s too nice, and she’ll let herself suffer for it.”
“You like her,” Guthrie remarked with a smirk.
“I barely know her.”
“Hmm…” Guthrie pushed away from the bookcase and drank his brandy. He set the empty glass on Marcus’s desk. “If you want me to interfere I can probably—”
“No. Thank you. I’m frustrated, that’s all, but I’m sure it will pass.”
“Quickly, I hope, since your line of work does require an optimistic disposition. Being grumpy will not put your patients at ease.”
“Of course not.” Redding had said something similar, but Lady Louise losing her eyesight and Grasmere’s subsequent response were still so fresh in his mind they’d been hard to shake. He had to pull himself together, for the sake of his patients. “My next appointment is in half an hour. I’ll take a brisk walk before then to clear my head and put this debacle behind me.”
Since Louise had no desire to meet with Doctor Pierson, she decided to approach her father and try to reason with him. She was familiar enough with her home not to need assistance moving about – least of all during the day when the rooms were bright enough for her to discern the shapes of furniture and other potential obstructions to her path.
