The Surgeon's Lady (8 page)

“God damn,” Captain Brackett said, sounding as weary as Lt. Brittle looked.

“Blame Boney instead,” Lt. Brittle replied. “Captain, go home. I’ll take it.”

The other surgeon stood where he was, and they both seemed to be listening.

“What are you listening for now?” Laura asked.

“If there is another bell in a higher pitch that means…” He chuckled and looked at Captain Brackett. “How do we delicately phrase this for a lady?”

“Lady Taunton, it means hell has broken loose and shake your asses, all surgeons,” the captain supplied. “I don’t hear it, Phil. Can you truly spare me?”

“I can.”

“I’ll come, too,” Laura said, almost amazed to hear the words leave her lips.

“It’s grim, Laura. They’re fresh off the ships.”

He wasn’t telling her no. He waved a hand at his superior officer, who started across the quadrangle at a trot, then told another mate to stay with Davey upstairs.

“Come along,” he said.

“Where is he going?” she asked, gesturing after the other surgeon, who by now had reached his own quarters in the same row of houses where Lt. Brittle lived. “Surely you have had less sleep than he.”

“No. His wife was in confinement all last night and delivered a son. The baby is doing well, but his wife is not. I don’t think she will live.”

“Poor man,” Laura murmured.

“Sometimes it’s hard to believe that anyone dies in this world except soldiers, sailors and Marines, but it is so.” He picked up his apron, turned it inside out, and put it back on. “If you were dipping your toe in the River Styx with Davey, it’s time for a complete dunking now. Just do as we tell you. Remember this—there isn’t anything you can’t wash off your hands.”

What am I doing?
she thought, as she hurried to keep up with the running men. Casting dignity aside, she pulled up her skirts and lengthened her stride as a seaman in a jolly boat cast an expert line to another sailor on the pier and snugged the boat tight to the dock.

Other orderlies and mates had arrived at the dock and were helping the men in the jolly boat onto land, where some of them sagged and then collapsed on the pier, unable to move. She saw two women in black already moving among them gesturing and then kneeling beside the wounded.

“They’re matrons from other blocks,” Lt. Brittle said as he slowed his pace enough for her to catch up. “Good. Brian already has a bandage satchel. Here we go.”

Laura stayed on the dock for three hours. It seemed strange to her that birds could still sing in such a place of carnage, but they did. At intervals between the groans and shrieks of men in more pain than she could imagine, she could hear the sound of hammering from the nearby drydocks, and in the distance, a knife grinder calling. Somewhere, at least, life was going on as usual.

She did what Lt. Brittle told her to do, asking no questions.

The surgeon was scarcely recognizable, covered in
blood. Once or twice, he stood away from the tree and let an orderly throw a bucket of water on him, then give him a new apron.

Then it was over. The matrons returned to their blocks, following a macabre parade of the walking wounded. The orderlies began to throw buckets of water on the bloody pier, and one gathered up Lt. Brittle’s capital knives.

“Careful of those,” he called. “When they’re washed, sharpen them.” He smiled then, for the first time in hours. “Oh, hang it. You know how to take care of them better than I do! Sorry, lad.”

Another orderly helped her to her feet. She wanted to at least smile her thanks to him, but her face was stiff. She put a hand to her cheek and felt the dried blood there. She wanted to cry, but that would have taken more energy than she possessed. She just stood there and stared at the surgeon.

He came to her then and did nothing more than take her in his arms. She still could not cry or speak, until he took her chin in one hand and gave her a little shake. She gasped, and then looked at him.

“Can you manage?” he asked.

“I can,” she said, only because that was the answer he needed.

He spoke to the closest orderly. “Would you walk this nice lady back to my quarters and turn her over to my housekeeper?”

“Aye, aye, sir,” the orderly said with a grin. “This makes me the most fortunate bloke in the Royal Navy and the envy of me peers.”

What he said struck Laura as funnier than anything she
had ever heard before. She laughed, which only made Lt. Brittle look at her closely.

“I am not given to hysterics, sir,” she told him, and saw the relief in his eyes. “You must admit what he just said is funny, and indicative of the rascals this navy seems to attract. I’m a sad case and I’ve ruined my one remaining dress.”

The surgeon’s relief was almost palpable, confirming her belief that the last thing he wanted on his hands right now was a woman who could not stop laughing. He turned to the orderly. “Lad, I agree with you. She’s a pretty sight, even now.”

“I will never understand men,” she declared, standing still and letting the surgeon wipe off her face with the damp cloth in his hand.

“Nature never intended you to,” he replied. “We are an entirely different species.”

When he did not come, too, she asked, “What about you?”

“I’ve just started my night,” he replied. He followed her, wiping his hands on his apron. “Thank you, Lady Taunton,” he said, “thank you a thousand times. I’ll probably not be around when you leave for Torquay in the morning, but…”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she interrupted. “Nana might be disappointed, but I’ll write her a letter and explain everything.”

“Home to Taunton, then?” he asked gently. “I’m sorry we were so hard on you.”

She shook her head. “Taunton is not home. You are so dense. I’m staying here, Lieutenant. I promised Matthew I would read
Robinson Crusoe,
and someone has to hold Davey Dabney’s hand.” She fingered her stiff dress. “Besides, I am
not even fit to ride the mail coach. Twenty-five pounds a year will hardly keep me in dresses, at this rate.”

“Are you…”

“Serious? Staying? Of unsound mind? I am, indeed, sir,” she told him. “All three. And know this—I intend to fight Boney in my own way, too.”

M
aybe it needed to happen. The jetty had pushed her beyond tears.

“I don’t even know what this is in your hair, and I’m not going to look too closely,” Aunt Walters said as she scrubbed Laura’s hair over the large sink in the scullery. “If I thought he would listen, I would give my nephew a generous helping of my mind.”

“I volunteered,” Laura said, in Lt. Brittle’s defense. She tipped her head forward while Aunt Walters poured warm water over it. “I wanted to,” she added, when she came up for air.

“You’re braver than I am,” Aunt Walters said frankly, handing her a towel. “I’ve never screwed up enough courage to go to the landing jetty.”

“It’s a terrible place.”

She protested, but the housekeeper insisted on delivering supper in bed. Propped up with lavender-scented pillows, she ate stew, then wrote a letter to her sister. She knew
she was disappointing Nana, but Laura didn’t think she could fight Napoleon in a sitting room in Torquay.

She was glad Aunt Walters sat with her as darkness came, telling her about Stonehouse, then stories about her nephew: his earlier years as surgeon’s assistant on a frigate in the Mediterranean, Trafalgar, school in Edinburgh and London Hospital, and his most recent years in a fever hospital in Jamaica.

“He survived yellow fever,” the woman said as she tidied the room. “Tough as an old boot, is Phil.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Laura countered, and told Aunt Walters about his kiss on Davey Dabney’s forehead.

Aunt Walters nodded. “He suffers agonies when they die. I wish he had a wife to talk to, for comfort.”

Laura tried to compose herself. Her back still ached from bending over so many wounded men for so many hours; she wasn’t sure she could lie flat.

Aunt Walters was about to close the door when Laura stopped her. “Tell me something. I looked up once at the jetty and saw Sir David Carew standing at a window. Why didn’t he help?”

“And get his uniform mussed?” Aunt Walters muttered something low in her throat. “He’s a physician, Lady Taunton, with a medical degree written up on parchment in Latin no one can read, a head full of theories that probably never saved a tar on the jetty, and no skill at all with capital knives. I doubt he could dismember a chicken bone at the dinner table.”

That was an image Laura found vastly unappealing. “I’m not certain I care to see
anyone
carve poultry right now! Do you think…does your nephew get used to what he does?”

Aunt Walters shrugged. “How could he? Good night, Lady Taunton.”

She went to sleep at once, and would have slept all night, if she hadn’t been wakened by the sound of someone sobbing.
Maybe they will stop,
she thought, as she tried to burrow under her pillow and block out the sound.

It continued louder than before, irritating her, until she realized she was the one crying. Unnerved, she wiped her eyes on the sheet, just as the door opened.

“I’m all right, Mrs. Walters,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

Lt. Brittle sat on the edge of her bed and handed her his handkerchief. She blew her nose, sobbed again, blew her nose again, then made not the slightest attempt to keep herself from leaning against his leg.

He must not have minded, because he put a gentle hand on her head. He tried to prop himself against the headboard, moving a little more onto the bed until she sat up, and without a word, pulled back the coverlets.

He was still fully dressed, but he unbuckled his shoes, took them off, then lay down next to her, gathering her close to his side as she threw her arm across his chest and cried. He held her close, saying nothing and doing nothing more than running his hand over her arm until she stopped crying and sat up again. He stayed where he was, practically asleep himself.

“Have you been in Block Four all this time?” she whispered.

He pulled her down and she found that same nice spot against his shoulder.

“Blocks Three through Six. We’re stretched thin, Lady T. I came home two hours ago, changed clothes and went
to Captain Brackett’s quarters, where I pronounced his wife dead. He needed to talk then, as you might surmise. There are days I wish I had never left Jamaica.”

She wasn’t even sure of that last sentence, because his voice trailed off and he slept. She sat up, careful not to disturb him, and watched his face relax and his hands open up. Carefully, she settled him on his back, then loosened his neckcloth, sliding it slowly from his neck. As he breathed evenly and deeply, she unbuttoned his shirt, then removed his cufflinks, reaching over him to set them on the nightstand. Her breasts grazed his chest as she did that, but he did not even stir.

She hesitated a moment, then decided in for a penny, in for a pound, and unbuttoned his trousers.
You’d be an easy man to seduce,
she thought, smiling at the idea. She knew she should retreat to the downstairs sofa, but she didn’t.
I’ll cry again if I do,
she reasoned, as she tucked her nightgown tidily around her ankles, lay down, hesitated for only a second, then backed up against the surgeon, who responded by turning sideways, draping his arm over her and breathing steadily into her ear. She never slept better.

Laura dreamed of nothing for the remainder of the night, and woke just before dawn to the sound of seagulls this time, quarreling down by the jetty. She shivered involuntarily, trying not to think what it might be they found so attractive, then suddenly remembered she was sharing her bed with Lt. Philemon Brittle.

She turned slowly, and stared into his blue eyes. They were even sharing the same pillow. As her face grew red,
his did the same. She knew the only way they could have been closer was if they were making love. As she watched his face, she felt almost as though they were.

She was relieved he didn’t leap up with a horrified expression, and stammer something stupid. He stayed where he was, observing her in a way that softened her heart, peeling away layers of calculus that had formed there since her discovery, at age eighteen, that she had not one advocate in the entire world.

He spoke finally. She knew one of them had to say something.

“I should have left last night before paralysis overtook every limb.”

It was a guileless apology, explaining exactly how he felt. It would have been almost clinical, if he hadn’t pulled her hair back from her face.

“There is nothing to apologize for,” she told him. “I could just as easily have gone downstairs, but I knew I would only be crying down there.”

He turned onto his back. “I have used you abominably, these past two days.”

She flopped on her back, too. Their heads touched on the pillow but neither of them moved away. “I don’t recall complaining.”

“You’re dotty, then,” he joked.

“Completely. Think how cheap you are getting my services. Come to think of it, both of my dresses, ruined now in the service of poor King George, would make a huge dent in my twenty-five-pound salary. They were made by a modiste of the first rank! See there, at this rate, I will use up my entire annual salary, just trying to replace my
wounded wardrobe. Tell me. If I land in debt to the Navy Board, must I work for them forever?”

He laughed softly, and twined his fingers through her hand, holding it up. “You have better hands than I do for surgery. Look how long and narrow your fingers are.”

She thumped him with her other hand. “There are limits to what I will do for the Royal Navy!”

“Very well.” He released her hand. “Since I doubt I will have another opportunity today, let me tell you what I need from a matron. Every building has its own kitchen on the ground floor. All the food is uniformly bad. I said yesterday I wanted to try two things with Davey Dabney. You saw the first one.”

She interrupted him. “Please tell me he is still alive.”

“He is. When I left him at midnight, he told me to tell you thank’ee.”

“I did so little.”

“Saving his life?” Lt. Brittle took her hand again. “The second thing is this—somehow, you are to make good food come out of that kitchen. I am going to dispense with that low diet that the sickest are fed.”

He turned to face her again, his expression animated. “No one can get well on that! It’s folly to think that a gruel of milk and breadcrumbs will ever give men like Davey the strength they need to recuperate. Laura, for the most part, these are strong, healthy men. They’ve been subjected to serious bodily insult, but they are not weaklings.” He made a sound of disgust. “At least, not until they spend time in a hospital. It’s all backward.”

She was facing him now, too. “Better food. What else?”

His face fell. “That will be hard enough. I am slave to
the almighty budget.” He lay back again, staring at the ceiling. “I’m willing to use some of my own salary, but it’s not exactly magnificent.” He propped his knees up then, and noticed that the fall front on his trousers was unbuttoned. “No wonder I was so comfortable last night,” he said as he buttoned them.

She knew she should have been embarrassed, but he was so matter-of-fact she decided not to waste her time with nonsense. This is a man with no spare time, she thought.
I doubt there has ever been a more unusual employment consultation in the history of the universe.

“Where was I?” he asked, putting his hands behind his head.

“I believe finance had reared its ugly head,” she reminded him, hugely amused by this whole experience, especially since it didn’t seem to faze him at all.

“Ah, that. There is no delicate way to say this. I want Davey to have rich food. He needs meaty food, food with fresh vegetables, but nothing so rich as to make him uncomfortable.”

She couldn’t help herself; she was so excited she wanted to bounce on the bed. “I can do this! For three years, what do you think I was feeding my very late, my extremely late, husband? I have pages of receipts back at Taunton which are, if I may say, just what the doctor ordered. And as for the extra expense, Lieutenant, I can pay it. In fact, I insist.”

He looked at her in amazement, then covered his eyes with his hands, saying nothing. He worried her, so she timidly took his hands off his eyes. “Lieutenant?” she whispered, then dabbed his eyes with a corner of the sheet. “It’s a small thing.”

He did not speak. Laura decided they were just two people tired of bearing heavy loads, and that was enough. Another thought struck her.

“Lieutenant, I have a cook. No, a chef.”

He got to his knees then on the bed and planted a whacking kiss on both cheeks that made her laugh, and then smother her laughter in his shirt because she remembered—and reminded him, too—that he had an aunt in the house.

“She insists on sleeping downstairs in the room off the kitchen,” he said, “and she’s not an early riser.” His face was still close to hers. “You have a cook,” he repeated reverently.

“I do. Pierre Gagon is an émigré who hates Napoleon about as much as those men in Block Four, I imagine. I can have him here in a day or two, along with a scullery maid. If you want a really good housekeeper, I have one of those, as well.”

He took it all in and leaned against the headboard again. “A housekeeper would free you for the other task I have in mind.”

“You are a wicked hard taskmaster,” she commented amiably.

“Too right. I want you to ward walk with me every day. My mates on duty accompany me, but you should, too. I want you to become acquainted with the men and their injuries.”

“What do you do?”

“We walk through each ward, stopping at each bed, checking each chart. We compare notes, and I make assignments. Everyone knows what is going on.”

She nodded, tucking her nightgown around her and drawing her knees up to her chin. She knew there wasn’t any point in standing on ceremony with this man ever
again. He would engage her in discussion during any free moment, obviously. What a relief he hadn’t found her in the bathtub.

“If you can convince your cook and housekeeper to come, they can take charge of meals, and counting linen, and keeping things clean—all the scut that must be done. You might actually have time to sit with the men, write letters for them, listen to them—oh my God,
listen
to them!—and just be your cheerful self.” He smiled at her then, and she could tell he was becoming conscious of where they were, even though he plunged ahead. “You have no idea how much good a pretty face can do.”

“All my face got me before was trouble,” she reminded him, amazed she had the courage to say that.

“Things have changed,” he told her. “Maybe you’ve noticed?”

He got out of bed and stretched, then rotated his neck until it cracked. “I just came in here last night to check on you,” he said, sounding mystified. “And now it is morning, and I have not slept better in years. Odd, that.”

I haven’t slept better, either,
she thought, as she pulled the covers over her again and settled herself down on the pillow they had so recently shared. She already knew he could manage more frankness than most people.

“Lt. Brittle, I know this will embarrass you, but you are the only man who has ever slept in my bed all night.”

He was at the door, but he turned around in surprise. “You were married all those years!” His face turned red. “I mean, he was not always an invalid.”

“No. I told you of his single-minded efforts to get a son.”

She put her face into the pillow, shy now. She nearly
stopped breathing when Lt. Brittle came back to the bed, and sat down. “Keep going,” he said, his voice soft.

“He would finish, then go back to his own room,” she said simply. “I was happy last night.”

“I was, too.”

He left the room then. A smile on her face, she listened. Sure enough, there it was. He startled whistling before she heard the door to his room close.

She completely lacked the courage to go down to breakfast. Then the matter was moot, because she had no dress, anyway. She stayed in bed until she heard the front door close, then got up and looked out the window. There he was, uniform on, running a hand through his short hair and then slinging an apron over his shoulder. His jaunty walk made her smile.