“It is a work of translation.”Dunning looked uncomfortable and distant; Andrew concentrated on his pudding.She wished he would eat it rather than stir it.He needed to eat.“I have collected fragments of poetry, written in Greek, from the classical era.”
“Which poems, Lady Georgiana?”Dunning’s well-mannered question was forced.Any polite interest would evaporate when dinner was done.
“Those by women.”
“Really?There can’t be very many.”The idea genuinely stunned Dunning.
“You would be surprised, sir.”Her words were for her hostess’s grandson, but she continued to watch Andrew, who had given up pretense of eating.He held his hands flat on the table as if to still them.
“But where are they, I mean to say, how do you find and collect them?”Dunning’s bafflement irritated her.
“They hide in plain sight.They can be found in anthologies.They are quoted in larger works by men.Most are fragmentary, but they are very much there.I believe their contemporaries, or more likely men who came after, didn’t treat their work well.”
A frown creased Dunning’s forehead.“But they can’t be of great importance if they haven’t been studied.”
“That is exactly why I wish to do so!”Georgiana’s temper rose.
The sound of cutlery hitting the floor interrupted them.Andrew lurched forward and knocked his spoon and knife off the table.
Mrs.Potter leapt into action, cleared space, and located a coverlet to put over him.She brought water for him to drink and urged him to keep his head down until the weakness passed.
Andrew refused to allow them to call in a physician.Dunning, to his credit, summoned a chaise, assisted him into his coat, and insisted that he accompany Andrew home.
Georgiana did not help; she could think of none to offer that he would accept.A soft rustle alerted her that Mrs.Potter had come up behind her.The two women watched them leave.
“He will never help me, will he?”
“Oh, my dear, don’t give up hope.He needs you as much as you need him.Our job is to make him understand that.”
Georgiana turned a puzzled gaze on the old woman.
“The work,” Mrs.Potter said.“He needs the work.”
“Your grandson doesn’t see the value.Andrew has Selby, and?—”
Mrs.Potter waved the thought away.“Your unique talent is outside Geoff’s experience.Given time, he would come to see the value.But it is young Mr.Mallet you need, not my crusty Latin-scholar grandson.”
Georgiana nodded.She fervently hoped the old woman was right.She swallowed back tears and turned to hide them.She looked back in the direction of the chaise.It was gone.
“He will heal,” said the voice behind her, gruff with age but underpinned with steel.
“Some things will.”She choked.Grief for the young man who would never come back from war washed over her, and she began to shake uncontrollably.
* * *
“Please,I amMisterPeabody.Leave “Doctor” to the University men.”
Richard’s Mr.Peabody claimed greater pride in his training as a surgeon than his status as a physician.Georgiana found that refreshing after the insufferable London physicians who fawned on her mother’s patronage over the years, pushing powders and flattery down patients’ throats.A few years younger than Georgiana and a foot shorter, Peabody managed to command respect through common sense and robust good humor.
He examined her person with rigorous thoroughness, more than she dreamed possible.He went about a process she expected to find mortifying with a complete lack of self-consciousness that somehow conveyed itself to her.She was at ease with his physical examination, but not with his probing questions.Questions about what he called her “history” didn’t sit as well.She made jumbled replies.
Undeterred, Peabody began to tell stories about his practice.He stood with his back to her and kept up a stream of steady conversation while she righted her clothing.She knew he was deliberately trying to set her at ease.Buttoning her bodice, she realized it was working.
“You have a clinic for poor women?”she asked in astonishment.“Whatever brought you to that work?When I think of it, isn’t your focus on women and their unique complaints unusual?”The failure of her body and the weakness that continually threatened to keep her from life devastated her.She knew that other women must feel the same.She had never met a man who understood.
“Sisters.”He peeked around and smiled benignly.“Six of them, all older.I watched them grow up, marry, have babies.They always forgot about me when they talked.Female complaints were familiar to me before my teens.”
“Is that why you became a physician?”Georgiana had never heard anything like it.
