Doing No Harm (8 page)

“Life is hard for you, lad,” Douglas commented, knowing he did not ask a question.

“Aye, mister,” the boy replied. “Me mam … Sir, please.”

“I’ll go find this Mrs. Cameron and see how she fares. Do you have a direction?”

“Behind me house and over one,” the boy said as he finished the last of Douglas’s blood pudding and leaned back, exhausted.

Without a word, Douglas gave him a lesser draught, lowered him down again, and sat beside Tommy until he gave a long sigh and surrendered to poppy sleep. Douglas sat there a moment, knowing that he could leave Edgar right now, and Miss Grant would keep Tommy Tavish alive. He closed his eyes and smiled over the heterochromatic beauty that a woman with red hair, almost a burgundy color, and faded freckles, blue and brown eyes, and a nose just shy of being labeled masterful could possess. He had no argument with her figure, which he would characterize as comfortable, an attribute probably most pleasing on a cold Scottish night. He already knew she had more brains than a roomful of females. Oh hang it, likely more gray matter than most men.

“But I swore an oath and she didn’t,” he told the sleeping boy. He paused another minute, knowing he had more than fulfilled his oath, as far as his unexpected stay in Edgar warranted. “All right then.” For the second time in as many days, he took out that same coin and flicked it, stepping back so it would land flat and not roll. “George, if I see you, I am free to leave.”

Again, the coin landed with George staring bug-eyed up to the ceiling. And again, he pocketed the coin and went down out the door to find Mrs. Tavish.

She was precisely where Tommy had said she would be found, also staring at the ceiling, her face a sickly pallor and with eyes so hard he knew what had happened even before Mrs. Cameron ushered him into the hovel.

Mrs. Tavish lay so still that he went directly to her bed and pressed the back of his hand against her neck. Her pulse was slow and thready, and probably only still beating because she looked like a woman with a grievance.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Tavish,” he said softly. He turned to Mrs. Cameron in sudden anger, even as the logical part of his own brain told him he was inappropriate. “Could you not have called me, at least? Perhaps I could have done something!”

Mrs. Cameron didn’t suffer fools gladly. She seized his arm with a surprisingly strong grip and jerked him to the corner of the room, so he could stare down at a baby so small and thin that no art of the surgeon could have changed the outcome.

He had the good sense to apologize, even as he pulled back a surprisingly clean towel to take a good look at what happens to a malnourished infant from a malnourished mother.

“I doubt my friend Rhona Tavish has had a decent meal in two years,” Mrs. Cameron said, her voice low with emotion. She stuck her face in his. “Mister or Captain or Surgeon or whoever you are, does it ever shame you to be a man?”

“Almost on a daily basis,” he replied, which made the woman lower her eyes and step back.

“My boy?” he heard from the bed, even though Mrs. Tavish spoke no louder than a whisper.

“Tommy will live and walk again, Mrs. Tavish,” Douglas said, returning to her bedside. “What would you like me to do with your daughter?”

How was it possible for even tears to look exhausted? Touched almost to his heart’s core, he who had seen so much, Douglas dabbed at her eyes.

“No money for
cladh
,” she whispered. “No potter’s field either, please no.”

Where did all his nerve come from? “Miss Grant has a pretty little garden behind her house. Do you … do you have a name for your daughter?”

“Call her Deoiridh—pilgrim—for she was a pilgrim passing.” Mrs. Tavish sighed and slept.

Miss Grant, I am going to keep trying your good will, it appears
, he thought. He turned to Mrs. Cameron. “This nice towel, please. I’ll get you another.”

Mrs. Cameron nodded and went to work shrouding the tiny body. She bound it neatly with cloth strips, offering no protest when Douglas lifted the bedcovers and examined the sleeping Mrs. Tavish.

“You took good care of her,” he said finally. He reached in his pocket and pulled out three coins that made Mrs. Cameron’s eyes widen. “Buy food for both of you and there will be more.”

She put the feather-light infant in his arms and he turned to go. He stopped and handed the child back. “One moment.”

In a fury, he crossed the noisome yard into the Tavish’s ruin of a house, where Mr. Tavish, sober now and eyes burning like two coals, sat at the table.

“A man takes care of his family!” Douglas shouted, wondering whose voice was so menacing, before he realized it was his own. “I have no power to do anything to you, but take this!”

He picked up a stick by the door, probably the stick that Tavish used to beat his wife and son, and cracked it against the side of the man’s head. Tavish grunted, shrugged it off, and slammed Douglas to the ground. The last thing the surgeon remembered was a foot crashing into his ribs, and his own fervent relief that Tavish must have pawned his very boots for one more drink. Shoes would have cracked his skull.

Chapter 8

O
live Grant learned of Mr.
Bowden’s slow and painful walk from one end of the High Street to the other from one of her pensioners who often dropped by early to pay for his luncheon with fuel for the kitchen stove. The man didn’t mention the small bundle the surgeon carried, but he was old, and his eyesight cloudy.

Olive wiped her hands on her apron and went to the door. She took the four steps in two steps and ran to the surgeon, who just stared at her with tears in his eyes and held out the bundle, beseeching her.

She gulped and took the baby, tucking it in her arm as though the child lived. She touched Mr. Bowden’s face, wincing when he winced. “I can send Mr. McCullough here for the constable,” she said.

“No need. Tavish will just say I struck him first, and I did.” He gave his side a gentle pat. “Don’t think my ribs broke, but I need to lie down.”

“Mr. Bowden, I have no patience with brawlers,” she told him, which made the surgeon smile.

“I haven’t heard such a tone since my own mother caught me smoking.”

“That’s a bad habit,” she said, matching him for calm. “I trust you gave it up.”

“From that day on.”

A gesture summoned two diners, who put a hand on either side of Mr. Bowden and helped him into the tearoom. Olive considered the matter for a small moment and pointed to the stairs. “Across the hall from Tommy Tavish,” she said.

“I don’t mean to turn your home into a hospital ward,” Mr. Bowden said.

To Olive’s ears, at least he sounded apologetic. He also sounded deep in pain. She sat him down and unbuckled his shoes, then carefully swung his legs onto the mattress. The others left the Spartan little room, but Olive wanted an explanation. She didn’t have to wait long.

“I’m no brawler,” he began. “I’m not good at it.”

“That is patently obvious.”

He sighed, which made him wince. “I doubt Mrs. Tavish’s baby even drew a breath,” he said. “Tiny little malnourished thing. I made some remark to Mrs. Cameron that she should have summoned me, and I got the tongue-lashing I deserved.” He sighed again. “No physician or surgeon would have made a difference, even had they been able to afford one.”

“And that fired your anger,” Olive told him.

“Oh, aye. I wanted to pound Tavish into the soil.” Mr. Bowden managed a little laugh, which made him press his hand against his ribs. “Alas, he was sober this time, and I couldn’t compete.” Even the head shake that followed such a statement made him clench his teeth in pain. “He even robbed me. Turned my pockets inside out, and what did I do but groan?”

“I will definitely summon the constable,” Olive said and turned toward the door.

He grasped her hand and raised up on one elbow, while sweat popped up on his forehead. “No, no. Don’t do that. I have a strong suspicion that Mr. Tavish has already left for greener pastures. Good riddance to him.” He lay down and crossed his hands on his chest, which made Olive laugh.

She stopped laughing when he told her what he had promised Mrs. Tavish.

“I’ll send two of my pensioners to dig a wee hole beside my flower garden,” she promised. “I can find a small box. I even have a shawl that will make a good lining.” She thought of the Highlanders and one lady too proud to come in for food. The woman could sew anything on short notice, and Olive could stretch out her project to include three meals a day for many days. “I know a seamstress for that lining.”

“Excellent. Is Tommy awake?”

Olive went to the door and stood there, watching the steady rise and fall of the little boy’s chest. “No, thank goodness.”

He motioned her back to the bed, and she looked down on a pair of single-colored eyes filled with masterful resolve. Just a glance at his eyes told her all she ever needed to know about Mr. Bowden’s determination. She doubted that any man he could even remotely save would dare die.

“I think I did a foolish thing,” he began.

“Even more foolish than thinking you could brawl with a man taller than you and maybe a bit younger?”

“It remains to be seen,” he said, then closed his eyes in sleep, falling back on that refuge from pain used by all of the Almighty’s creatures, from garden gopher to the king of England probably. She watched, her curiosity aroused, and then left unsatisfied as his breathing became regular.

The noon meal brought out more people than usual because Edgar was not a village prone to much excitement. When something out of the everyday happened, the event became a matter of prime importance. Twice she had to add more potatoes to the soup to make it stretch.

“Joe Tavish is gone!” the constable declared, over soup and oat bread. “We owe the good man upstairs on his bed of pain a rousing three cheers!”

The huzzahs resounded, shivering the very window glass. Olive bit her lip to keep from laughing, as she wondered if the sleeping surgeon had suddenly been jerked awake.

“What good thing can we do for the surgeon?” one of Olive’s regular dishwashers asked.

Perhaps let him sleep in peace
, Olive thought and stifled her laughter with her apron. “I don’t think he’s staying in Edgar much beyond seeing Tommy on the mend,” Olive said. She was never one to gild any lilies, a silly expression, indeed.

“We could take him our ailments and appeal to his better nature,” a woman announced.

“And pay him with what?” a one-legged fisherman asked.

Silence. As everyone looked at her, Olive Grant wondered when she had become Edgar’s chief magistrate (ex officio, of course).

“I’ll have to think about this,” she told her friends, touched to her heart because they already relied on her for at least one good meal a day. She made an open-handed gesture. “I really will ponder the matter.”

Think she did, once she had sent round a note to the seamstress, along with her mother’s shawl and the box. She stood a long time at the window, wishing for summer. She felt old and tired, wondering what she could do to convince the surgeon to stay in Edgar. Nothing came to mind.

Douglas woke later with his rib cage aching and pounding like a drunkard’s head. With no small effort, he pulled up his shirt and probed his own ribs, happy to feel no more give than usual. He took a shallow breath, and then a deeper one, and then another until he reached the limit of his endurance. He wouldn’t be running any races soon, but at least he could breathe well enough. He hadn’t the courage to ask Miss Grant to tape his ribs. He had imposed enough.