Doing No Harm (19 page)

Douglas thought he had won that round, firmly telling the boy that his stitches needed to come out in a week, but not in a place as dirty as the Tavish hovel, where foul humours and infections ruled. “I won’t have you undoing all my work,” he had told the boy. Whether Tommy listened to him remained to be seen. Other patients had ignored him, usually with lamentable results.

He rehearsed in his mind the surgery planned for Mrs. Aintree’s fused fingers. At least her house was spotless and far less susceptible to germs. Once she was on the mend and her wounds healed, he could leave Edgar in good conscience, knowing he had helped.

Why did the knowledge have no appeal? Tommy would be healing, Mrs. Aintree as well, and Flora would be happy that little Pudding would be gimping about on three and a half legs. The grocer’s wife had friends and relatives to assist her if she needed help, which he doubted. Women and mother cats had a fine instinct for child care. Miss Grant would smile her patient smile and wave good-bye, even as he knew she was staring down her own ruin in a year’s time when her legacy ran out, all because Olive had a conscience and the Duchess of Sutherland did not.

Discontented in the extreme, he sat up and looked out the window, elbows on his knees, chin in his palms. He listened to the mellow chimes and suddenly had an idea so brilliant that he flopped back on his bed and laughed at the ceiling.

It was a modest idea, one so tiny and inconsequential that he knew if he over-thought the matter, he would toss it onto the ash heap of ideas better left to die aborning.

He padded downstairs to his surgery waiting room, where Flora had left his three piles of shells. He sat down cross-legged on the floor, wincing a bit as his bare parts met the cold wood. The moon shone on the shells, rendering them all white and gleaming, where he knew them to be multi-colored, exotic, and a far cry from a place as tired as Edgar.

He selected three shells, large, medium, and small, and took them into his surgery. He lit the lamp and searched until he found his smallest drill in his trephining kit, knowing in his heart that he would never tell Olive where he got it, even as it made him chuckle, thinking of the times he had used it to drill tiny holes in skulls.

He did a quick inventory of his catgut before he unrolled a modest length from the spool. Largest first or smallest first? He debated, then drilled holes through the largest shell at the top and bottom, then ditto with the others. He threaded through the largest shell, catgut behind, and made a small knot before he repeated the steps. One more trip to the waiting room and he had three threaded shells.

For want of anything better, he hung the three-shelled strands from the little hearth broom, using more catgut. Then he set it swaying. The sound bore no resemblance to Olive’s metal wind chimes; it was a tantalizing rustle. He knew when the light struck his shells in the morning that the colors would glow, some almost iridescent, others pale and mysterious.

He held out the impromptu chimes and announced, “Flora, you are going to pay me with wind chimes. You’ll make one for the kind lady too. And then we’ll see who else wants them.”

Olive rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed. She yawned and opened her eyes. There was the sound again, pebbles against her window.
I’m too old for pebbles against the window
, she thought and would have gone back to sleep, except for the “P’ssst! Olive!” that came next, a whisper in a lower register that she couldn’t ignore.

She looked out the window, laughed, and opened it, astounded at the sight of Douglas Bowden, dignified surgeon, standing there in what looked like his nightshirt, holding out something that glittered in the moonlight.

“My blushes, Douglas,” she whispered and tried not to laugh. He obviously had no idea that moonlight did curious things to cotton nightshirts. Luckily no one else was out at midnight. It wouldn’t do for the constable to call Douglas up on charges of indecency or insanity or both.

Olive pulled on her robe, didn’t bother with slippers, and hurried down the stairs, careful not to waken Tommy and Duke in the next bedchamber. She let herself out the front door and stood in the street with a lunatic.

He was nearly hopping up and down in his excitement. She just stared at him.

“It’s a wind chime, or sort of!” he said, holding out the hearth broomstick to her. “Well, it will be when I have Flora and other children find just the right lengths of driftwood. I’ll have her make me one to pay me back for Pudding’s surgery.”

“I want one too,” Olive said, admiring the delicate shells and trying not to stare at the surgeon’s hairy but handsome legs. For certain she would never stare at his nearly thigh-high nightshirt. Well, maybe just a peek.

A quick glance, and then she looked into his eyes, because that was safer. He had an inquiring expression, as though he expected her to think his thoughts. Amazingly, she did. She put her hand to her mouth because the idea was so audacious.

“We can get Flora and maybe other children to make more,” she said, “and—”

He interrupted her in his enthusiasm. “—take a few to the Hare and Hound, where coach riders and the touring trade will see them—”

“—and want one of their own as a souvenir! Douglas, you are a genius.”

“Not yet,” he declared, taking back the shells. “If she only makes a few pence a day, it’ll keep her and Gran fed and their pride intact.”

He continued to look at her in that inquiring manner. “You have something bigger in mind, don’t you?” she asked.

“I just might.”

He seemed to have recalled where he was standing and in what stage of undress. “Beg your pardon, Miss Grant.” He started to back up. “Flora’s coming over for oats tomorrow … well, this morning. Can you ruin some more porridge?”

“Mr. Bowden, this is a strange conversation,” she said with a laugh. “I will ruin some more porridge.”

He gave her such a grin then, the boyish kind she had seen earlier. He gave her a salute, turned on his bare heels, and walked back across the street. She watched him go. If he was going to caper nearly naked in the street at midnight, she might have to suggest flannel.

Or not.

Chapter 18

D
ouglas came across the street
in the morning for breakfast, fully clothed. The high color on his cheeks suggested to Olive that he might have taken a good look at himself in that nightshirt and wondered if he ever dared show himself in the tearoom again. Better put him out of his misery.

He opened his mouth, probably ready to apologize, but she spoke first. “My lips are sealed, sir,” she said. “Would you like porridge or porridge?”

“I believe porridge would be best,” he replied. “Do forgive last night’s enthusiasm, but I had been wondering what to do. Will Gran require convincing?”

“Let’s find out. When breakfast is over and I have ruined sufficient porridge for Flora’s sake, let us see if Flora can put the chimes together.”

“I should find a piece of driftwood,” he said after he finished breakfast. He stood up to drink his coffee, which told Olive worlds about his busy life during the war. She wondered how many meals he ate sitting down.

“Nothing simpler. If you haven’t already noticed, it piles up against the bridge.”

He raised his cup in salute and hurried away, a far cry from the man who had walked by her place only yesterday, head down, hands clasped behind his back, dejection written everywhere except on a placard around his neck.

Feeling more optimistic than usual, Olive surprised Maeve by instructing her to add more fish to the noonday stew and be generous in slicing the loaves of bread.

Flora came into the kitchen like a breath of spring, desperation gone from her face. She came right up to Olive. “Miss Grant, I stopped to see Pudding first and she is moving around! Please may I have some more thin porridge for her?”

She handed over the penny that Douglas had surely given her and made no comment when Olive’s first batch of porridge was too thick. She ate it with no objection, likewise the second, which took longer for her to eat because she wasn’t starving today. Flora concluded breakfast with bread from Maeve, who said she hadn’t meant to slice it so thick.

Her eyes widened to see butter on the bread. Olive’s breath caught in her throat when Flora clapped her hands at the sight of butter. Olive watched, tears just below the surface, as the little girl tested it with her tongue and gave a small sigh. Olive decided that tomorrow there would be eggs, although what excuse she could give for them escaped her at the moment. Deformed yolks? Three minutes instead of four? Olive took a page from the surgeon’s book and decided she would think about it later. No sense in rushing into prevarication. Perhaps a good fib was like fine wine and needed to age.

“I nearly forgot,” Flora said as she waited for Olive to spoon Pudding’s thin gruel into a can. She darted outside and returned with a piece of driftwood. “Mr. Bowden wanted you to see this.”

She held it out and Olive took it, turning the nicely weathered wood over in her hands. “Brilliant.”

“I don’t understand,” Flora said. “He wants you to come with me, and that it is all he would say.”

“Very well, Flora. I have a little time before I must start luncheon.”

They were almost out the door when the greengrocer stopped by with a basket of onions, leeks, and potatoes. Olive took a moment to savor the happiness in the man’s eyes, even though he appeared to need sleep. He looked like a new father.

He held the basket out to her. “I paid Mr. Bowden, but I wanted to do this too. Since he’s eating here, he said you should have it, Miss Grant.”

She took it with thanks, mentally adding more potatoes to the as-yet-unmade luncheon, which in a stroke went from fish soup to fish stew.

He held out a smaller basket, this one with eggs nestled in oats so they would not crack. “And here are these.”

“I appreciate your kindness,” Olive said simply. After the greengrocer left, she took the food past Maeve and into the pantry. She touched the eggs, pleased to see two brown ones.
I can tell Flora tomorrow that people would rather eat white eggs than brown ones
, she thought.

Douglas met them in the waiting room. He had carried Pudding’s box into the room, where kitten watched them with interest.

“I have to keep several layers of bandage on that limb because Pudding licks it,” Douglas said. “Thank the Almighty that none of my Royal Navy patients licked their sutures.”

Flora laughed out loud, which made Douglas smile. When Flora turned her attention to Pudding, he leaned toward Olive. “What would you wager that she has not laughed like that in ages?”

“I never wager,” she replied, struck again at the great care Douglas took of his patients, and their owners in this case.

While Flora made certain her pet licked the porridge instead, Douglas enlisted Olive to help him. “I have drilled holes in the shells of appropriate size, and here is my spool of catgut. Did you like that piece of driftwood?”

She held it out to him. “I could wish we could take a bit of glass paper to it to smooth the rough surfaces, but I believe the rustic quality is what you were looking for.”

“Precisely. This is to be my set of chimes and that is what I wish. Flora, I need your complete attention now,” he told the child. “This is how you are going to pay me back for the surgery on Pudding.”