The Healing Season. Ruth Morren Axtell
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and wondered at it. Had her scrutiny made him uncomfortable?
She tapped her fingernail against the tea mug, pondering as she watched him sip his tea.
“How do you stand it, day after day?” she asked after a few moments when it seemed as if he was unaware she was even there. She was not used to being ignored.
“Stand what? Ah…the blood, you mean?” he asked.
She nodded. “All of it. The screams of agony. The exposed—” She shuddered in memory. “I even saw someone’s bone.”
He toyed with a spoon. “You get used to it.” He grinned at her, revealing a dimple in one cheek, and she marveled at how young he suddenly looked. “That wasn’t always the case. I got quite sick the first few times I watched my uncle perform an operation.”
“Your uncle. He’s an apothecary?”
“Yes. More of a surgeon-apothecary. I apprenticed with him a few years before going to Guy’s training hospital. By then I felt quite the veteran among the first-year students. You could always tell the novices. They would faint around the operating table their first time.”
“The medical profession runs in your family?”
“Not entirely. Only my uncle and myself. My father was a Methodist lay preacher.”
She nodded, envisioning some man preaching in the open air. “Are you also a surgeon-apothecary?” she asked. The little bit of history he offered her made her suddenly hungry to know more about him. He hadn’t hesitated to risk his life to stay and take care of the injured during the riot.
“Strictly speaking, I am a surgeon, since I am a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, which conferred the license on me, and who frown on any dilution of medical practices.
“Even helping your young friend the other night would not come under a surgeon’s duties, even though I performed a surgical procedure on her.”
“Then whom should she have called upon?” Eleanor asked, horrified at the notion that a man of the medical profession wouldn’t attend someone during an emergency because it didn’t fall under his purview.
“A midwife or an accoucheur, if a man had been required.”
“But you came. Why?”
“Because in actual practice I am a surgeon-apothecary-midwife, as you have been able to witness over the last few occasions. On the days I lecture or operate at St. Thomas’s, I am strictly a surgeon. When I open my doors at the dispensary, or am called on an emergency, I treat anyone who comes along, whether the illness is internal or external.”
“And whether they can pay you or not,” she stated with quiet irony.
He shrugged. “Those are the ones who most need my attention. I earn enough as a lecturer and resident surgeon at St. Thomas’s to make up for any shortfall.”
She smiled. “Your profession is somewhat like mine.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“We stretch the narrow definition of the burletta—the only dramatic form we’re licensed to perform—until we are doing the same sorts of performances you would see at the royal theaters, only we mustn’t let on to the fact.”
He returned her smile. “I suppose the parallel is a just one. I never would have seen the connection.”
She stirred her tea. “You could also say we both deal with healing. You take care of the physical injuries. I attempt to bring respite to people through a few hours of laughter.”
His smile disappeared, leaving an uncomfortable silence. Had her second comparison displeased him?
“You’ve ruined your outfit,” he said softly.
She followed his gaze down to her gown. He was right. The front was hopelessly soiled with blood and dirt.
“It’s the second time you’ve ruined a gown when you’ve been in my company.”
“So it is,” she said, realizing it was the second time she’d assisted him in doctoring. What a strange turn of events. “You must ruin a good many shirts and neck cloths.”
“That’s why I don’t dress in the finest.”
She studied the cut of his coat. “No…I can see that. What a pity. You are not a bad-looking man, but as they say, clothes make the man.”
She caught that slight flush on his cheeks again. “Have I put you to the blush?” she asked, feeling inexplicably pleased. “Forgive me if I’ve been indelicate. We’re very frank about our looks in the theater. It is part of our livelihood.
“My physician is always tailored by Weston,” she continued. “He’s particularly proud of the knot of his cravat. Dr. Elliot, do you know him?”
“I know of him,” he answered. “He has quite a reputation.”
She could read nothing from his tone, and was left wondering how to interpret his remark.
“Thankfully, I’m usually as healthy as a horse, but Dr. Elliot does give me drafts for my throat to keep my voice at its best.”
Mr. Russell felt in his waistcoat pocket, then frowned.
“What is it?”
“I keep looking for my watch, before remembering I have no watch. It was stolen from me last week.”
“How dreadful. The streets are being overrun by cut-purses these days.” Quickly she drew out her own watch and snapped it open. “It’s just past four.”
“I need to be getting back to the dispensary. May I escort you to your carriage?”
She nodded and began to collect her things.
When she dropped him off at the dispensary, he turned to her. “I wish to thank you for your able assistance this afternoon. I did need your help.”
She lowered her lashes. “It is I who must thank you for your protection and for making me eat when I felt faint.”
“Think nothing of it.”
She felt a sense of regret when he stepped down from the chaise. After so many hours in his company, in danger and working side by side with him, she felt a bond with the dedicated young surgeon who smiled all too infrequently.
“Well, I must be off.” He stepped away from the carriage and lifted his hat.
As her carriage drove away, she glanced back. Mr. Russell stood watching her. She raised her hand in a wave, but he didn’t return the wave. Instead, he wheeled about and entered the dispensary.
Chapter Five
Ian dipped his pen into the inkstand.
Under the heading Respiratory Disorders, he wrote “Consumption and Phthisis.” Beside it he jotted the number three, the total number of cases he had seen that day. Next he wrote “Pleurisy and Pleuritic fever.” One case. “Catarrh.” Two cases.
Thankfully, the weather was still warm, so the dispensary hadn’t yet seen many respiratory cases. That would soon change as late summer gave way to autumn.
The next category was gastrointestinal. Several cases of colic, diarrhea, and worms among the infants and children. Two deaths. The columns grew. Ian pushed away from the desk in frustration. Too many children were dying.
His uncle had taught him the importance of meticulous record keeping. Although many times the number of fatalities was discouraging, Ian knew in the long run the only way to convince officials of the need for decent living conditions was to show them hard numbers.
At least more and more parents were bringing in their sick children. When he’d first opened the dispensary, the only children he’d seen were the ones on his visits to people’s homes. The