Medicine and Manners #2 (14 page)

“Ho, there!” she called as the rider charged toward her. “Slow down, please. I would ask you a question.”

Horse and rider ignored her call. She tried to move to avoid a collision, but as she veered away, the man on the horse turned toward her again. Seeing the flash of a knife blade, Nancy fell to the ground when the horse's powerful shoulder muscles struck her body.

Light and darkness swirled around her. A woman appeared in the mists of her vision. An angel?

Alexandra smelled the rain before she felt the soft, teasing mist. It was fresh and earthy, the scent of spring, but it was accompanied by a slashing knife of wind that cut through her clothes and into her flesh.

The wind and the ache in her leg made her forget for a moment the horrors of the night before. The pain was referring itself into her foot and ankle now. She sat up suddenly, her hands flailing at her legs when she remembered the slimy, slithering thing she had battled in the darkness. There was nothing there on her legs, none of the things she had imagined—snakes, rodents, unnamed crawling creatures. There were only her torn stockings, ripped skirt, and clumps of dirt and mud.

When she heard the rustling in the leaves again, she knew she hadn't imagined the creature, but a surge of pain in her leg made her forget for a moment. Her head whirled with dizziness, and for a moment she thought she would be sick. She lowered herself down onto her bed of dirt and pebbles and exposed roots, all of it dampened and cold from the rain. She lay there for a moment, trying to will away the sharp agony, trying to remember what had happened and why she had spent the night in such misery. Looking around, she remembered the fall, remembered the steep slope of the ravine. She was at the bottom of a canyon of sorts, where no one could see her. Wouldn't Nancy and the boys call out to her as they searched? Or had they called and she hadn't heard? She knew she'd slept part of the night. Now she had to force herself to stand and find a way out.

A spasm grabbed her leg and bit into it with long, jagged teeth when she tried to lift herself. Her body felt abnormally heavy. She settled back to a sitting position and attempted another examination of her leg. Skin and tissue were swollen and tender, making it impossible to confirm her initial diagnosis of a fracture. She lifted herself slightly so she could manipulate her leg, and another, even more violent crescendo of pain came, accompanied by a moment of nausea.

She needed to force the broken ends of the bone together, and then stabilize it. Nancy always helped her with this procedure, and she usually gave the patient laudanum to dull the senses before she began. She would have the luxury of neither laudanum nor an assistant this time. Using both her hands, she pressed the upper and lower sections of her tibia, turning it slightly and manipulating it in an attempt to get the two ends joined as one might do a broken table leg, yet trying not to exert enough pressure to cause another break. Everything around her spun again, and she felt herself slumping forward as the world grew dark for a few seconds. With great effort, she pulled herself back to consciousness and pushed the bone pieces again while sweat, mixed with the mist of rain, ran down her head and into her eyes. She vomited once before she convinced herself that the bones were joined. Leaning back against the side of the embankment, she took in gulps of air until the pain subsided. It never let go of her completely, but there was enough of a respite to allow her to concentrate on the next step. The fractured limb must be splinted to keep it from breaking apart again.

Searching the space around her, she pushed away pebbles, twigs, and dried leaves as she looked for a suitable piece of wood. She picked up a rounded stick, too thin to be of use, but when she started to throw it away, it moved.

The snake!

It twisted itself around her hand. It was an adder! Her father had taught her to recognize the deadly viper by its big, flat head.

She screamed. Flung it away.

It landed a few feet out from her and slithered away.

She was almost too frightened to move, but she forced herself to examine her hand and arm, looking for signs of the penetration of fangs, the release of deadly poison into her veins. There was nothing on her body except dirt and debris, but she searched again, trying to push away the horror she felt.

For several seconds she sat, stiff and unmoving, too stunned and frightened to do anything else. Finally, she forced herself to search again for something to use as a splint, this time poking at the debris with a slender twig and hoping nothing would again move under the leaves. There was bound to be a broken branch that had fallen from the trees above the ravine that would serve her purpose.

When at last she found one she thought would do, her next problem was to find how to secure it in place. She had no bandages. It took only a moment for her to realize that of course she had bandages. The petticoats and skirt that had made running difficult and that had done their part in causing her fall would redeem themselves now. She tore a strip of white cotton from the bottom of her top petticoat, and then another and another and did the same with the bottom petticoat. The dress she wore was made of a lightweight wool flannel that would be sturdy enough to hold the bandages in place.

By the time she had wrapped the leg several times and used the wool flannel as a final wrap, she was sweating. Her leg throbbed, as did her head, and wave after wave of nausea returned. A weak dawn peeked over a distant horizon and advanced with slow, timid caution. Finally, it overruled the mist, but not before it had left her drenched. An overwhelming surge of fatigue pulsated from her insides, and she leaned against the side of the embankment once again.

She slept. There was no way to know how long, but she forced herself awake and tried to call out for help. She called for Nancy, Artie, Rob, and Zack. Her voice was weak, and her mouth so dry her tongue seemed uncommonly thick. The effort to speak was too great. She gave in to exhaustion once more and slumped to the ground.

When she awoke, the snake was there again, wet, slithering, this time moving against her face and her mouth.

Nicholas had already retired to his bedroom, where he was reading, when he heard a commotion downstairs. At least two people were shouting in unusually loud voices. Walls and doors in the centuries-old house at Montmarsh were thick and solid so that sound didn't penetrate them easily. When he could actually hear a fracas going on, it clearly bore investigating.

Throwing on a dressing gown, he hurried downstairs. Along with the sound of scuffling, he heard Stokes's voice, much louder than usual, and the vociferous screech of a young boy.

“Stokes! Is something wrong?” Nicholas called, just as he rounded the curve of the staircase and saw his butler and the boy. “Artie?” he said, surprised. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm terribly sorry, my lord,” Stokes said. “I tried to contain the noise and the disturbance so it wouldn't awaken you, but the young hoodlum insisted that he see you. I was doing my best to keep him—”

“It's all right, Stokes, I know the boy. Something's wrong, or he wouldn't be here.”

“She's disappeared, and she ain't sent word back to us like she always does,” Artie screeched, “so Rob went lookin' all by hisself, 'cause Nance wouldn't let me go, but I went anyways, wif Zack. Snuck away, we did, 'cause I knowed you'd come help, and good as Rob is, 'e ain't got no carriage or no fast horse like ye has, me lord, but Zack turned back 'cause 'e's sick. Poisoned, the doc says, and if 'e dies the doc won't never get over it, if she ain't dead already, so you got to 'elp us, me lord, that's wot I was tryin' to tell the bloke what opened the door, but—”

“Artie! Artie! Slow down, I can't make heads or tails of what you're trying to tell me. Who has disappeared, and who has been poisoned?”

“Doc Gladstone.” Artie was near tears.

“Doctor Gladstone has been poisoned?”

“I'm terribly sorry, my lord,” Stokes said again. “Clearly the boy isn't making sense. I'm afraid his sort starts imbibing spirits at a young age. Please, my lord, go back to bed, and I'll see to it that he leaves—”

Nicholas barked at Stokes, ignoring his protective attitude. “Have my carriage readied!”

“Best take yer 'orse,” Artie said. “ 'Twould be faster.”

“We'll need the carriage to transport Dr. Gladstone,” Nicholas said. “You know where she is, I assume?”

“No, me lord.”

“Then how do you know she's been poisoned?”

“She ain't the one wot's poisoned. She's the one wot disappeared, and we're all afeard she's kilt.”

Nicholas could hear his own blood rushing in his pounding head, but he forced himself to be calm. He'd dealt with difficult and confused clients and witnesses in his law practice. The trouble was that he'd never dealt with one when it involved someone he cared for as deeply as he cared for Alexandra Gladstone.

“All right,” he said, with as much calm as he could manage. “First tell me how you know the doctor has disappeared.”

“ 'Cause she didn't come home tonight after she went to see them sick people, and when she knows she has to be late, she always gets word to us somehow. Then it got plumb dark, and we still didn't hear nothin'.”

Nicholas pulled the story from Artie, little by little, including the fact that Zack was sick, and Nancy and Alexandra thought he might have been poisoned, and that he had turned back when Artie left for Montmarsh.

“Who would do such a thing? Poison a dog?” Nicholas was already on his way toward the staircase. He would go up and change clothes.

“I ain't fer knowin' that, me lord, but maybe 'twas the same person wot kilt the doc.”

Nicholas felt as if his heart had dropped from his chest, and he stopped, partway up the stairs. “You don't know that for certain, do you? That she's dead, I mean.”

“Don't know nothin' fer certain,” Artie said, looking forlorn.

Nicholas dressed quickly, and by the time he was downstairs again, the groom was waiting outside the door with the carriage. Nicholas scooped Artie up and placed him in the seat and got in beside him. “We'll stop by the doctor's house first, in case she's returned. If she's still not there, we'll try to retrace her steps, since you say you know where the two patients she was going to visit live.”

It was a two-mile ride to the Gladstone house, but they made it in record time. When they arrived, the first thing Nicholas noticed was that there were no lights burning in either the surgery or in the main part of the house.

“Ain't like Nance to go to bed when the doc's gone,” Artie said. “Maybe she's back. Maybe she ain't dead or disappeared.”

Nicholas jumped from the carriage, followed by Artie, and pounded on the door for several seconds, calling out to Nancy and Alexandra, but there was no answer. “Was Nancy here when you left?” Nicholas asked Artie.

“She was, me lord.”

“And she told you to come for me?”

Artie was silent.

“You snuck away,” Nicholas said.

Artie hesitated again. “Had to. I had to tell ye so's ye could find 'er.”

“Nancy must have been beside herself when she discovered you were gone.”

“But I took ol' Zack. She knowed 'e'd watch out fer me.”

“You said he left you,” Nicholas said. “Said he went home because he was sick, but he's not here. If he were, we'd certainly hear his bark.”

“I called for 'im to come back to me when 'e left me. Called 'im over and over, but 'e just kept chuggin' on with that heavy ol' walk 'e has. Ye knows how 'e does. 'E was goin' back home. Lookin' for the doc, I guess. But 'e ain't here. Maybe 'e died,” Artie said, his voice choked.

“Let's not jump to conclusions,” Nicholas said, although the possibility that it could be true not only for Zack, but for Alexandra and Nancy and Rob as well, was already stalking him.

“Jump wot?” Artie asked.

“Never mind,” Nicholas said. “Get back in the carriage. Our job is to find all of them.”

“Ye thinks we can find 'em? All of 'em?”

“Of course,” Nicholas lied. He urged the horses forward. “We'll retrace her route. Go to the patient nearest to the house and see if she ever made it there.”

“That must be wot Rob done. 'E's smart like that.”

“Nancy may have done the same,” Nicholas said, as much to himself as to Artie.

“Yup,” Artie said. “Nance ain't missin' too much in the way o' smarts.”

Nicholas was silent for a long time, trying to decide on the best plan for the search. The moonless night would make it difficult under the best of circumstances, and the lighted lanterns at the front of the carriage did little to coax away the darkness.

“Turn here,” Artie said.

It took a moment for Nicholas to realize they had come to a crossroads.

“Here?” Nicholas asked, as he gave the reins a pull to guide the horses to the left.

“No, t'other way,” Artie said. “They's a house up that way where that girl lives that the doc had to cut the baby out of 'er.”

Nicholas pulled the horses to a stop. “She would have gone there first. That makes sense. And Nancy and Rob would have most likely gone there as well.”

“Yup,” Artie said.

Nicholas was silent for another moment. “We'll start at what was supposed to be the end of her journey and work our way back this way,” Nicholas said. “No use going over plowed ground.”

“We ain't got time for no plowin',” Artie said. “Anyhow, it's too dark to plow.”

“You are certainly correct,” Nicholas said. “Now, do you know the way to the other patient's house?”

“Ol' Vern? 'Course I does. Ye goes down that road there. The one you started down a minute ago. 'Tain't too far, but 'tain't too close, neither.”

“You're exceedingly helpful, Artie.” Nicholas aimed the carriage down what he hoped was the right road. Except for the feeble glare of the lanterns on the carriage, the only light was from the pinpoint stars. Though they populated the heavens profusely, they did little to illuminate the world around them. Trees and brush tangled themselves together at the sides of the lane, menacing, waiting in the darkness. Not a single light shone from a cottage along the way.