With This Ring (26 page)

“
The American war?” she asked. “But
that was ….”

“
Years ago?” he said helpfully,
supplying the text. “Aye, Lord bless us. I was awfully young then,
but I learned awfully fast.” He let go of her hand. “I have not
always lived in Merry Glade! Help me now.”

Swiftly the removed the major’s
clothes, Lydia gritting her teeth as they pulled away the
blood-clotted shirt. The Innises returned with water and towels,
and left just as quickly. Sitting on the bed again, she watched the
surgeon wipe carefully around the wound, exposing the length of
it.

“
A saber cut to the back, eh?” he
asked, more to Sam than to her. “Oh, laddie, I know your problem.
Lord knows, I saw plenty of these.”

“
You … you did?”

He pointed a finger at her. “You are
amazingly skeptical! I suppose I must heal the sick here before you
will believe me!”

“
Well, I, yes, actually,” she said.
She touched Sam’s back where Picton’s surgeon had operated. “This
was done over a week ago. He … he said he could not bear any
more. He wanted to hurry home to finish it there.”

The doctor washed the area around
the wound, up into Sam’s hair. “See that?” he asked, pointing to
the red rash spreading up his neck. “Ill humors. He would not have
made it home, lady. I don’t think I am too late, but I need to go
to work now. Stay or go, madam.”

“
I will stay.”

He beamed at her, the picture of
good nature, except that his hands were red with Sam’s blood. “I
knew you would. You must allow me to tie his hands to the
bedpost.”

“
No
.”

The doctor looked down in mild
surprise at the major, whose eyes were open again. “I don’t recall
inviting you into the discussion, lad. It’s between me and your
lady.”

“
Don’t tie me down,” he pleaded, and
her heart went out to him. “Just let me rest my head in her lap.
Oh, please.”

The doctor looked at her, and she
found the strength from somewhere to nod. “You’ll have the best
seat at the cockfight, missie,” he warned her. “And if you move,
I’ll tie your hands, Major Reed.”

“
I will be fine, if Lydia is
here.”

I do not know why I was so wild to
be away from Holly Street, where I had no responsibilities, she
thought as she settled onto the middle of the bed and rested Sam’s
head in her lap. Heaven knows, life was not pleasant there, but I
never was called upon to make decisions, or exert
myself.

“
Put your arms around her, laddie,”
Mr. Wilburn said as he dumped some evil-looking instruments into
the hot water.

“
With pleasure,” Sam replied. He
draped his arms around her, hissing in his breath with the agony of
it, and then unable to keep from groaning with the pain.

“
Excellent! Excellent! I do not know
a surgeon with a better view”—he winked at Lydia—”or a prettier
restraint.” He selected a scalpel and dried it on his shirt. “You
know what I have to do now, since you’ve been down this road
before, lad. Cover his eyes, Mrs. Reed.”

She did as he said, clamping her
hand over the major’s eyes, but unable to take her own from the
spot where the wound had not broken open, but still bulged with
infection. The major screamed, and she grabbed his hands behind her
back and held them there, wondering if it was possible for her
bones to break through the skin from the ferocity of his grip. In
another breathless moment, he fainted with a sigh and relaxed his
hands.

“
Excellent!” said the surgeon
cheerfully, his face close to the nauseating wound that oozed milky
white infection. He squinted his poor eyes, changed the scalpel for
a probe, and worked around in silence for long, long
minutes.

When she thought she could not take
another moment of the mess and blood in her lap, he set aside the
probe for long-handled forceps. After another concentrated effort,
during which Sam, still unconscious, began to stir restlessly, he
pulled out an unidentifiable, rotting mass that made her stomach
turn.

With a grin of satisfaction, Mr.
Wilburn spread out the mass on a corner of her apron that was still
clean. “Looks like a piece of blue shirt, and a bit of red wool.”
He bent close to his unconscious patient. “Any more of your uniform
in there, laddie? Shall we hunt about? Ah, yes. I knew you would
agree, considering the alternative.”

He poked about some more, going deep
into the major’s shoulder until he seemed to be in up to his
forearm. Dizzy with nausea, Lydia watched, unable to take her eyes
away, reminded of the Christmas goose, boned, laid bare and ready
for stuffing and trussing. She willed him to finish, but still he
poked about, finding the most minute scraps with his poor ruined
eyes. Thread by thread almost, he pulled out the last of Sam’s
shirt, driven deep into his own shoulder by a French dragoon’s
saber thrust.

“
Shall we reassemble your husband,
and hope that we do not have any parts left over?” he said at last,
when a clock somewhere downstairs chimed four or five. She could
not be sure, so weary was she with watching.

He called loud for some more water.
Mrs. Innis must have been right outside the door because she
hurried in, took one look, and sank to her knees. “Up you go,
Maudie,” the surgeon cajoled. “The major here needs some more
water.”

The woman gasped and rose to her
feet, her face red with embarrassment. She hurried out and came
back with a bucket of warm water. “Thank you, my dearie,” the
surgeon said with a smile. “Now, be a good girl and hand Mrs. Reed
a damp cloth.” She did as he said, then hurried from the room.
“She’s a real good’un, as you’ll likely learn tomorrow,” Mr.
Wilburn commented. “If it’s not too much, my dear, would you wipe
my face?”

Touched, she did as he said, taking
off his blood-dotted spectacles to clean them, and put them back on
his nose. She squeezed out the cloth and began to wipe delicately
around the gaping wound. When she finished, the surgeon realigned
the flesh he had pulled back, working slowly, continuing his hunt
for the smallest stray bit of fabric that would only suppurate and
cause pain and further infection.

“
There may be bits and pieces that
will fester and rise to the skin, but the wads that would kill him
are gone now,” Mr. Wilburn explained, ever the teacher, even as his
shoulders drooped with weariness. “He’s young; he looks healthy. If
you can keep your hands off him for a few weeks and make no
strenuous demands, your major will heal.”

He smiled at her and winked, despite
his almost palpable exhaustion. Quietly he began to close the
wound, expertly winding the suture around the forceps and tugging
just right. How could I have thought you were unequal to this? she
thought. Oh, Father in heaven, when I get silly and tight-lipped,
remind me not to judge so quickly.

Sam’s shoulder was a map of black
lines now, each stitch orderly. Clutching his spectacles so they
would not fall off, Mr. Wilburn looked closely at his work,
frowning and squinting, and then nodding in satisfaction. “You’ll
do, laddie.” Tears came to her eyes when the old man quickly kissed
the major’s cheek. “Brave lad. When you are conscious again, I will
tell you how much I hate war,” he whispered.

It took him a moment to straighten
up, and he was generous enough to overlook her tears as she sobbed
quietly into the wrung-out cloth. When she finished, she helped him
into his coat.

“
My dear, I will return in the
morning.” He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a packet. “Here
are some fever powders.”

“
I doubt he will let me give them to
him.”

“
Then, do it anyway,” he said. “Be
the benevolent despot that most good wives are.” He fished the
instruments out of the long-cooled water and dumped them in his
satchel. He rummaged in it and pulled out an odd-shaped earthenware
container.

“
I don’t want him getting up for
anything, not even to piss. Use this instead.” He patted her cheek.
“You can certainly blush over the ordinaries of life, missie. The
major must find you refreshing.”

He left then while she stood there
holding the urinal. She set it down and walked slowly to the
window, feeling older than the oldest person in the world. In a few
minutes, the surgeon was out in the street, starting off with a
purposeful waddle that would have made her laugh, if she had not
been so tired. She opened the window and leaned out.

“
Oh, thank you, sir! From the bottom
of my heart!”

He looked up, squinting his ruined
eyes. “Think nothing of it, my dearie. Just wait until you get my
bill. I will be in Bath this winter, thanks to you!”

She sank down in the window seat,
her stomach in turmoil again. An operation and at least two weeks
in bed at the Mill and Glade, she thought, seeing again in her
mind’s eye the road agent grinning at her as he snatched her paltry
resources and grabbed Sam’s wallet. “And how are we to pay for
this?” she asked her husband.

She looked at the ring on her
finger, twisted it, and shook her head. ‘“With this ring I thee
wed, and all my worldly goods endow,’ eh, Sam? That was what you
said. Ah, well. Maybe I will think of something
tomorrow.”

Weary to the marrow in her bones,
she lay down beside her husband and closed her eyes.

S
he thought
she would sleep for a few moments at least, but she could not. For
a long time she rested herself against the major’s comforting bulk,
but her mind would not stop spinning like a top. She worried about
him when he seemed to breathe too deeply, or when it was too
shallow for her liking. She thought about Maria and knew she should
go find her. She wondered what would happen if there were more
uniform fragments hidden deeper in his shoulder.

Always through verse after verse of
her worries was the chorus: You have no money; no worldly goods to
endow anybody with. Even people as kind as the Innises need paying
guests at their inn. Few of us can live long on goodwill. She
shuddered and imagined the Innises booting them downstairs and out
the door, and then Mr. Wilburn pulling out each painstakingly
applied stitch when told that she could not pay.

She sat up in a perfect sweat.
Lydia, you are a fool, she scolded herself. These are good people
who will help you, if they know of your present dilemma. She sighed
and leaned against Sam’s hips, staying far away from his shoulder.
“Sam, you would probably have a thousand solutions,” she said
softly, “but I do not think you are in any condition to suggest
anything right now.”

She lay down and tried to sleep
again, but it was hopeless. Making sure that Sam’s bare body was
covered against the slight breeze of early evening, she went
downstairs. Her hair was a tangled mess, but her hairbrush was in
the bandbox and probably in Ealing. The small comb she carried in
her reticule was in the possession of the other road agent. “And my
three pounds,” she grumbled out loud.

The public room was occupied by a
fair number of the local constituency, drinking, rolling dice,
smoking, and playing cards. She hung back at the entrance, too shy
to go in, until the innkeeper saw her and set down what must be his
perennial glass and rag to hurry to her side. “Mrs. Reed, you’re
looking lively!” he said. “How is the major?”

The room was quiet, and all eyes
turned in her direction. I’m sure this is the most exciting thing
that has happened in ages, she thought. “He is unconscious still,
but he is breathing well. I have every hope that he will recover,”
she said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

It seemed straightforward enough to
her, but as she dared herself a look around the room filled with
men, she noticed, to her surprise, that several of them were
dabbing at their eyes, or coughing and turning away. “Oh, I do not
mean to make any of you melancholy,” she said, clasping her hands
in front of her. “He’s a brave soldier and a stalwart one.” She
looked down in confusion at their reaction, and noticed her
bloodstained apron. Oh, dear, I hope they do not think I am
soliciting anyone’s sympathy with my sad plight, she thought as she
removed the apron, then hastily put it back on; the stains
underneath on her dress were worse.

“
If there is anything we can do for
you, Mrs. Reed, you only have to ask.”

She looked at the speaker, and
recognized him as one of the farmers who had come upon the coach
that afternoon. She gave what she hoped was her bravest smile. “I
thank you for what you have done already.” Oh, dear, she thought as
she turned away. Some of them are even sniffling.

Mrs. Innis was in the room now. She
took Lydia by the arm. “Come to our quarters, Mrs. Reed,” she
urged. “I think I can safely say there is someone who would like to
see you.”

Maria sat on the floor in the cozy
sitting room behind the public room, concentrating on blocks. She
looked up when Lydia called her name, and crawled over to be picked
up. With a sigh, Lydia picked her up and held her close, enjoying
the sweet smell of her, and the feel of someone sound and whole,
and without a worry. “I hope she was no trouble,” she said to Mrs.
Innis as she seated herself on the sofa with Maria on her
lap.