The Healing Season (15 page)

“This from the lady who faints from self-starvation?”

She returned his smile with a lighthearted laugh. “I have no performance tonight. I can eat like a horse.”

He was looking at her so cordially she felt herself blush. She, who was so used to manipulating men’s emotions while keeping her own under strict control, found herself time and again in Mr. Russell’s company giving way to reactions and feelings she had no command of.

Where would it lead? She could see no simple ending to the script.

H
enry did nothing but rave about Mrs. Neville for the rest of the week. He told Ian they must take her everywhere to promote the idea of a children’s hospital.

After he’d gone to see
The Spectre
for a second time, he said to Ian, “You must go. Mrs. Neville is adorable as the fainthearted Leporello. The audience is wild about her. They predict the show will run over a hundred days.”

Ian ignored his friend, but when he left the dispensary, he was once again tempted to turn his footsteps toward the theater. The same argument that had waged in his mind since the party at Somerset House began again.

He owed Mrs. Neville something for what she had done that evening. Digsby’s visit had proven invaluable. He’d corroborated everything Ian had said during his talk at the gentlemen’s club. The men were interested
in a constructive plan to stem the rising tide of illness and debauchery in the city. Riots were on the rise among both mill workers and unemployed. They vilified the Prince Regent, who was almost afraid to ride his carriage in the streets.

After Ian’s talk, another gentleman approached him saying he’d read a paper Ian had published on a surgery technique. The man had then invited him to address the Royal Society on the subject. This was the most prestigious gathering of scientists, philanthropists and intellectuals of the day.

All this because Mrs. Neville had introduced him to Digsby. The least Ian could do was go see her in her new show. He owed her that much. It was such an insignificant action, but one that would best demonstrate his gratitude. Why his reluctance?

Because the rational part of him knew he mustn’t keep seeing her. The more he did, the more drawn he felt to her. It had gone beyond her beauty, he realized. He had seen a genuine distress and caring in her when she’d visited the sick. He could no longer dismiss her as a mere actress concerned only with rising to fame in her narrow world.

He had heard from Althea that Mrs. Neville had been visiting the mission a few mornings a week. Sometimes it seemed he couldn’t escape her name. Like a spider’s thread, the more he sought to evade it, the more entan
gled he became. He
would
go, he finally resolved. He’d go and be done with it! At least it would silence Henry for a few days.

The decision made, Ian turned the corner toward the Royal Circus. When he arrived, the entrance was once again filled with loitering prostitutes and merchants peddling food, flower girls selling their bouquets, and ticket sellers announcing the plays.

“Five shillings a box, two shillings the pit! Sellout crowd! See Mr. Moreland as Don Giovanni, Mrs. Neville as Leporello! Come and get your ticket before they sell out.”

Ian climbed the steps to the lobby with a heavy heart, feeling dragged to his destruction. Why had he no strength of will when it came to the actress? This was madness, he told himself as he purchased a box seat and made his way to his place.

The orchestra began to play and soon the actors appeared on the stage from the side doors. Ian put on his spectacles and sat back, prepared for a piece he would certainly disapprove of.

The crowd loved the bawdy lyrics, hooting and calling out. Mrs. Neville winked at them several times as she delivered her lines. She strutted around the stage in her long coat and knee breeches and powdered wig.

He had to admire her talent. Her voice wasn’t dainty or refined; it was warm and lusty.

How had God given to one so much talent to squander among such a lowly audience—men shouting their lewd remarks, women talking and laughing among themselves whenever they wished?

The longer he watched her perform, the more his admiration grew. He recalled what she had come out of and her fight to rise above her beginnings. She’d achieved much in her young life. These realizations only deepened his sorrow that she could never be the one for him.

Mrs. Neville reached one end of the stage and swiveled about it, her hands on her hips, belting out a song. Ian remembered the sensation of standing on the stage. How it must feel tonight with a crowd applauding her.

She took a step forward in the middle of a syllable, and the next second she disappeared.

Ian leaned forward, wondering for a second at this trick. He remembered the trapdoors on the floor. Why would they have her go down one now? A bloodcurdling scream rent the air, eerily echoing from the chamber below.

Ian leaped to his feet before anyone could react and ran out to find a way onstage. That had been no act. His heart pounded as he jerked open the stage door. Pandemonium broke out, actors shouting and running to the open trapdoor, their panic spreading to the audience.

Ian pushed his way through actors and audience members who had managed to climb onto the stage. He
reached the gaping trapdoor and knelt at its edge. “How far does it descend?” he asked an actor beside him.

“About ten feet, but there’s all kinds of equipment down there she could have fallen on,” the man answered in fear.

“Get some light! Someone get some light!” Ian shouted.

Soon a stagehand was shining a lantern down below.

Ian’s heart constricted seeing Eleanor lying deadly still, her body splayed like a rag doll’s. A large metal contraption of wheels and pulleys sat right below the trapdoor. It was clear she must have hit that before falling onto the floor to one side.

“Is she dead?”

“She doesn’t look like she’s breathing to me.”

“She must’ve broke her skull falling on that machinery.”

Ian ignored their cries and rushed to the back of the stage, grabbing a stagehand who was just entering. “Show me how to get down there. She needs medical attention. Hurry, man! I’m a doctor.”

At that, the man’s eyes widened and he came to life. “This way. There’s a staircase at the rear. Wait, we’ll need a light.” He grabbed a candle from a wall sconce and continued to the back of the stage, behind the scenic backdrops.

They ran down the stairs, their shoes clattering
against the steps. It seemed an eternity before they reached Eleanor.

Ian knelt beside her and immediately felt for her pulse.

“Is she alive? Is she breathing?” came the shouts from above their heads.

As soon as he heard the steady throbbing of her vein, Ian bowed his head.
Thank You, Lord.

“Yes, she’s alive,” he told the stagehand. He proceeded to check her for any broken bones.

Her eyelids fluttered open. “Where—what happened?” Her voice sounded faint. As she took a breath, she gasped in pain.

“Where does it hurt?”

“My…side,” she whispered, making a faint motion with her hand but flinching as she moved. “Oh…it even hurts…to bre…athe…”

As she moaned softly, he opened the heavy jacket she wore and touched her rib cage gingerly.

She cringed when he touched the middle sternal ribs. “It hurts awfully.”

“Do you remember what happened?” he asked as he continued his probing, his fingers running along each ridge, his eyes flicking back and forth from her torso to her face, watching for the least reaction.

“I turned…and the next thing I knew…I was falling into the dark. I smashed into something…I don’t remember anything more until now.”

Satisfied that no bones seemed to be broken, he shifted to her head and touched her scalp. A large lump was beginning to form at one side of her skull, the same side as her injured ribs. “Your head hit a piece of equipment, probably your ribs as well in your fall. Can you move your legs?”

“Yes,” she replied after a second.

He moved down to her legs and felt the length of them. “Any pain?” he asked her, his fingers pressing her ankles.

“No, just at my side.”

He looked at the stagehand. “We need to get her somewhere that I can examine her properly.”

At that moment a man entered the basement room. “How is she? I’m the stage manager.”

“She has sustained some damage to her ribs, and likely a concussion to her head. But I need to get her somewhere to examine her.”

“Her dressing room is right on the ground floor, up just one flight of stairs.”

Ian picked up Eleanor’s hand. “We need to move you. I’m going to try and carry you, but if that hurts too much let me know and we’ll fashion a litter.”

She looked at him, fear in her eyes. “Just don’t drop me…please,” she begged.

He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. “I won’t, I promise you.”

Eleanor cried out at the pain when he first reached down and slid his hands under her arms and knees.

“It’s all right,” Ian crooned. “You’ll soon be more comfortable. Just bear with us a little.” He tried his best not to hold her too tightly as he climbed the winding stairs, but still she whimpered at each jostle.

“I feel as if I’m in my own melodrama,” she muttered, clasping her arms around his neck, “except the pain isn’t going to stop when I get offstage.”

“I’ll give you something to ease it soon.”

“I’m going to tell that orchestra to begin playing or we’ll have a riot on our hands,” said the stage manager. “I’ll be up to see Mrs. Neville as soon as I can.”

Ian and the stagehand made their slow progress up the winding stairs. When they finally arrived at Eleanor’s dressing room, the wardrobe mistress had a couch prepared. “Just lay her down here,” the woman told him. “I’ve spread out a blanket.”

Eleanor winced as Ian lowered her onto the couch. The wardrobe mistress placed a cushion under her head.

“It’s almost over,” Ian told Eleanor, wishing he could take away her pain. He motioned with his head to the mistress. “We’ve got to remove her coat.”

She came immediately to his side and began working at a sleeve.

Eleanor cried out.

“Just one more, ma’am, we’re almost through…there
we go,” the wardrobe mistress said, slipping off the other sleeve and taking the heavy coat away.

She came back to the couch with another blanket over her arm. “The doctor’ll have you right in no time, isn’t that right, sir?”

Ian made no response but nodded to the stagehand. “Thank you for your quick help. If you’ll leave us now, I’ll examine Mrs. Neville.”

The man nodded. “Just let us know how she is. Good night, Eleanor. We’re so sorry this happened. Can’t understand how a trapdoor could give way like that.” He shook his head, muttering in disbelief as he shut the door behind him.

Eleanor closed her eyes again, her head sinking back on the pillow. She looked deathly pale, and Ian’s heart constricted.

Before he could request it, the wardrobe mistress began unbuttoning the vest and shirt. “I hope that’s all right, Doc. I’m an expert at helping them dress and undress.”

“That’s fine, thank you. You’d better remove her shoes as well and cover her with the blanket.”

Eleanor made no protest as her shirt and vest were slipped off, but Ian noticed her biting down on her lip to keep from crying out. She was left in only a pair of men’s breeches, a thin camisole, and stays. Quickly the mistress loosened the stays and removed them.

For the sake of her modesty, Ian left the camisole on,
but he lifted it above her waist and once again probed the area of pain, which had begun to swell.

“Tell me when it hurts.” He turned Eleanor’s body slightly so he could examine her vertebral ribs. She only nodded her head, her eyes still closed.

“Good, it looks as if the only injury is to the sternal portion of your rib cage, most likely pulled or torn ligaments.

Satisfied, he covered her with the blanket.

“What does that mean?” she asked in a voice laced with pain.

“It means it doesn’t look as if you have broken any bones, but it does mean you’ve torn tissues, and that is what is causing you so much discomfort.”

Eleanor seemed to be in too much distress to take in what he was saying. He turned to the wardrobe mistress. “I’m going to bind her ribs to prevent further injury when she moves. I would recommend giving her some willow bark tea to ease the pain. We could send a boy around to the apothecary at St. Thomas’s. I know he’ll still be there.”

“Very good, sir. I’ll fetch an errand boy.”

“In the meantime, I’ll need some cold compresses to apply to her head and ribs, as well as some long strips to bind her rib cage with.”

“Very well, I’ll get them straightaway.”

As the woman hurried out to carry out his instruc
tions, he sat in a chair beside Eleanor. He pushed her fallen tresses away from her forehead, feeling a tenderness well up inside him.

“Are you still here?” she asked after a moment. “I thought you’d gone.”

“I’m still here. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve been stretched out on the rack.”

He smiled. “Sounds like an accurate description.”

“I wish I could stop breathing until the pain goes away.”

“As soon as we get the remedy from the apothecary, the pain will lessen…at least enough to breathe.”

“So, what is the diagnosis?”

“A sprain, I would say. It’s difficult to tell how severe. You had quite a fall.”

“Have you ever had a sprained rib?”

“No, but I have broken an arm.”

She opened her eyes at last and glanced at him. “Really? I thought a doctor wasn’t supposed to get sick or injured.”

He smiled ruefully. “We suffer the same debilities as anyone else.”

“Tell me how it happened,” she asked, her face grimacing with her own pain.

“When I was a lad. I disobeyed my father and climbed up into the hayloft with some friends. We dared each other to jump down onto the ground. They came away unscathed. I broke an arm. I don’t know which was
worse—the pain of the break or the pain in seeing the disappointment in my father’s eyes.”

The wardrobe mistress returned at that moment, her arms laden with her commissions. “How are you, luv?”

Ian took the materials from the older woman and went to work with the compresses. Eleanor sucked in her breath as he gently pressed the cold compress against her bare rib cage.

He lifted her head just enough to set another on the lump. He and Mrs. Baldwin, the wardrobe mistress, changed these frequently.

“All right, I’m going to bind this tightly,” he warned Eleanor as he removed the last compress from her ribs. “I’m going to need you to sit up for a moment. It will hurt at first because I need to pull it tightly, but then I think you’ll find it more comfortable.”