The Irish Healer

Chapter 16





Rachel was packing the doctor’s collection of botanical books when he strode into the library.

“Miss Dunne. Working on a Sunday?” He had just come in from outside, his hat and gloves clutched in his right hand. He ran his fingers through his hair to tame a few wayward locks. Which never worked for long. “It’s a day of rest for you.”

“I have taken too much time away from my tasks of late, Dr. Edmunds.” Rachel tidied the topmost books and forced herself not to stare at him, notice how handsome he looked in his deep green coat and buff trousers, his shoes polished to a gleam. “And since we leave for Finchingfield in the morning, I thought it best to finish this set of shelves and not have to worry over it while we are gone.”

His gaze scanned the bookshelves. Most of them were empty, dust tracing the outlines of departed books. “You’ve accomplished quite a lot. It seems to me you can take an hour away from your chores and visit the apple girl. If you still want to go, that is.”

“I do.” Truthfully, her mind had not been much on her work. Between worrying about Molly and the threat from the cholera, Rachel hadn’t been able to concentrate on Milne’s Botanical Dictionary or Dr. Stokes’s Botanical Materia Medica. She might not have even logged them properly.

“I do indeed wish to see how she is doing,” Rachel answered firmly.

“Good.” Dr. Edmunds slapped his hat against his thigh. “I’ll have Joe get the gig ready, and I’ll meet you out at the mews.”

Once he left, Rachel untied her apron and hurried to fetch her bonnet and shawl. She paused in front of the hallway mirror just long enough to check the condition of her hair.

He waited for her at the door in the garden wall that led into the mews-house.

“I’ve heard from the surgeon that her arm is setting well.” Dr. Edmunds ushered Rachel inside, the pungent sweet-musty odor of straw and oats and horse greeting her nose. They passed into the open mews beyond, where Joe waited with the gig. The mare nickered upon catching sight of the doctor, and Joe steadied her as Dr. Edmunds grasped Rachel’s elbow and helped her up.

The doctor climbed alongside and took the reins from Joe, led them down the mews alleyway, through the arch and then onto the streets. “The girl lives near the river south of here, in Chelsea. Too far to walk.”

They set off at a steady pace, the traffic thinning rapidly as the lovely boulevards and gleaming white terraced houses of Belgravia turned into more utilitarian roads and less grand buildings. They passed gardens and a hospital grounds. Smokestacks from distilleries and manufactories punched the hazy skyline.

“They’re down this lane,” Dr. Edmunds said.

A hodgepodge of houses—crooked timbered buildings from a prior century, multistoried brick apartments thrown up with only a modicum of concern, a squat home with peeling stucco—jumbled together. Dr. Edmunds slowed the mare and hopped down, avoiding the overflowing gutter that ran down the middle of the street. The stench of sewage and the sulfurous gasses from the lead works by the river settled over the neighborhood, making Rachel press a fist to her nose. The smell had to be poisonous, and Rachel searched the people passing in the street to see any indication of disease on their faces.

The apple girl’s father opened the ground-floor door, his brawny arms swinging wide as he led them down a narrow hallway to a set of two connecting rooms at the rear. The entirety of their home. His family, which appeared to include four other children ranging in age from an infant to a ten-year-old boy with a twisted foot, were huddled over a lunch of boiled potatoes. The little apple seller was stretched out on the cleanest mattress they owned, her arm swathed tight in bandages, two narrow wood boards securing it straight.

“We did not mean to interrupt your lunch.” Dr. Edmunds’s eyes made a quick circuit of the space, noting the cots lined up along the walls and the stains on the floor covering. They showed no repugnance or condescending pity. Either he excelled at hiding his feelings, or he’d seen such poverty and want so many times before that it no longer shocked him. Certainly Rachel had, every day back in Carlow.

“Not an int’ruption at all, sir.” The man moved his children aside with his foot to clear a path. They were clean-faced and bright-eyed, at least, and appeared reasonably well fed and curious about their visitors. The oldest stared, open-mouthed, at the gold watch fob dangling from Dr. Edmunds’s waistcoat pocket.

“Janey, the doctor’s a-come to see you.”

Dr. Edmunds’s crouched at Janey’s bedside. “How are you, Janey? Healing up?”

The girl nodded.

“Good.” He pointed out Rachel. “This is the lady who first came to your assistance, Miss Janey. Her name is Miss Dunne.”

Big eyes dark as damp earth fixed on Rachel’s face. Rachel clutched her shawl around her shoulders and stared back. She did not look like Mary Ferguson or any of the others. She did not . . .

“Say thankee, Janey girl,” her father prompted.

“Thankee, Miss Dunne.” Her voice was faint as a fledgling’s peep.

“You are most welcome. For what little I did,” Rachel answered.

The doctor peeled off his gloves and rested soft fingers on the girl’s tiny forehead. “No fever. Excellent.” He examined the girl’s unbroken arm, resting atop a paper-thin blanket, gingerly probing around her badly scraped elbow. “Skin isn’t hot. No apparent infection. In spite of all the blood the other day, her cuts were mostly superficial.”

How many times had Rachel seen her mother’s hands move with the same fluid motion, at once reassuring and assessing? Mother would look up at Rachel, observing carefully, and their gazes would connect in common understanding.

Just as Dr. Edmunds’s gaze did now His eyes locked and held hers, their gray depths fathomless. Yes, Dr. Edmunds. I see that her skin is a healthy pink and dry, her eyes clear and attentive. Yes, I see that I managed to cause her no harm.

“Did the surgeon apply a poultice of common comfrey to set the bone?” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Rachel wished them back.

Dr. Edmunds’s eyebrows lifted. “How many herbal treatments have you studied, Miss Dunne? I have heard about your mother’s miraculous tonic. Are you keeping more secrets from me?”

He was teasing, but nonetheless, Rachel’s fingers tightened nervously on her shawl. “I . . . my brother broke his wrist once and the apothecary made up a poultice to heal the break. The bones knit perfectly clean. I merely recalled the treatment, doctor.”

Her answer satisfied him. “I suspect the surgeon didn’t use a poultice, Miss Dunne, but a correctly applied splint has never failed.” Dr. Edmunds stood and faced the father. “You are keeping her absolutely still, as the surgeon ordered? It’s critical that the bones in that arm are not jarred.”

“We’ve been a-tryin’. But Janey ’ere ’as to get back to peddlin’ soon, sir.” The man jerked a thumb in the direction of his children. “We’ve mouths to feed and the missus’s job at the lace works don’ bring in much. Not that I’m complainin’. ’Tis a good job an’ all.”

“If Janey goes back to her work prematurely, her arm might be permanently disfigured.”

The man fixed Dr. Edmunds with a hard look. “Then she’ll make a good beggar, won’ she?”

“I know you don’t mean that.” Dr. Edmunds fished around in his coat pocket and pulled out a half crown. He dropped it into the fellow’s hand. “Another two weeks at least before you let Janey get up.”

“Thankee, guv.” The man pocketed the coin. “Well, Janey me girl, you’ve a ’oliday, it seems.”

“Yes, Da.” She sighed wearily, seemingly unhappy with the prospect of being a burden. Or being forced to lie about in a hot, damp room where the air stank of mold and factory smoke. Plying the streets of Belgravia must seem like heaven to Janey. She might be just as eager to return to her peddling as her father.

Rachel and the doctor left soon after. Dr. Edmunds stopped on the curb, halting to pull on his gloves. “Do you really believe a comfrey poultice heals bones?”

“Our apothecary has always claimed so.”

“Well, I’ve been wrong about such things before,” he said, a shadow of a memory darkening his expression. He shook it off. “I give five days before Janey is up and toting that basket of apples around again.”

“Three is more likely, Dr. Edmunds.” Rachel refastened her bonnet ribbons and climbed into the gig.

He looked up at her, his hand resting on the toe board as he leaned close. “So you see why I must give up my practice. It’s futile to keep trying when your patients won’t even do what’s right for them.”

“They are too poor to ponder the option of right versus harmful, sir.”

“Then why do I bother?”

His eyes filled with frustration and pain, the sight twisting emotions deep in her heart. He bothered because he felt as she did, felt the compulsion to help like the instinct to catch a falling bit of crockery or to jump back from a thrown spark. Even though responding to the impulse too often brought only pain and disappointment.

“Because someone must?” she replied, aware of the ache the answer caused in her own chest.

“Not me, Miss Dunne.” With a snap of his wrist, Dr. Edmunds released the reins from the pole he had tied them to. “I’ve vowed to become the most successful gentleman farmer in Essex. And I shall, even if it kills me.”





“I’ve instructed Joe to send Janey’s surgeon a note, Miss Dunne, telling him about using a comfrey poultice.” A twitch endeavored to turn into a smile at the corners of Dr. Edmunds’s mouth.

Rachel paused on the pavement while Mrs. Mainprice and Peg climbed into the hired carriage that would take them to Finchingfield. “You have?”

“Indeed.”

How surprising. “I just hope she gives it long enough to work.”

“We both expect otherwise though, don’t we?”

Lightly touching her elbow, he guided her into the carriage and shut the door, tipped his hat, and strode off.

Mrs. Mainprice watched their interchange with interest. “The master surely enjoys talking with you, miss. More than he ever did with Miss Guimond, ’tis certain.”

Rachel blushed. “He is just very kind.”

“Aye. That he is, and wise of you to notice.”

How could I not?

Rachel settled onto the seat next to Peg, already attempting to doze. Dr. Edmunds climbed onto his mare and gave last-minute instructions to the coachman. Joe watched from the curb; he’d promised that today he would post Claire’s money to Ireland. Rachel had included a note telling them to wait until she could be certain the threat of cholera had passed, delaying their reunion. A necessity, she supposed. Molly, who had roused herself, joined Joe on the pavement. Together, they waved off the carriage before the sun had done more than paint the sky a purple dark as the heart of a fresh bloom of hound’s-tongue.

They set off as fast as traffic—heavy even at this early hour—would permit. For many minutes, they traveled along the long, green expanse of a great park—Hyde Park, Mrs. Mainprice informed her—then veered away from it. Almost immediately, the jam of townhouses and shops gave way to gardens and orchards and spacious lawns surrounding tidy houses. A hill rose to their north, the former regent’s park to their south, and the sky stretched into the distance. Another flurry of development came and went, with its poorhouse and small factories, then suddenly they were in countryside and open air. Rachel sighed deeply, the past days’ tension exhaling with her breath, easing from her neck and shoulders. And all it took was the sight of some green . . .

“Ah,” she sighed again. Peg grumbled at her to raise the window and close the shade so they could sleep, which made Mrs. Mainprice tut at them both.

Dr. Edmunds rode up alongside. The rising sun cast a golden glow over his features, burnishing them. “Miss Dunne, you might wish to get some rest. It’s a long and tiring journey.”

“Told ya,” Peg muttered, quiet enough that only the occupants of the carriage could hear, and huddled into her shawl.

Rachel ignored her. “I am interested in seeing the sights, Dr. Edmunds. I doubt I could rest if I tried.”

“Pleased to be away from London?” he asked, guessing at her true feelings.

She smiled. “I am.”

“I thought you might be. Which is why I instructed the driver to skirt the city to the north rather than pass through it. A less direct route to Essex, but a more pleasant one.”

“Thank you, Dr. Edmunds.”

“My pleasure, Miss Dunne.” Tapping fingertips to his hat, he pressed his heels against his mare’s flanks and set her trotting. Rachel poked her head through the window and watched the set of his shoulders, his fluid movement of his torso as he rode ahead of them. He was thinking of me, of what I might enjoy . . .

“Can ya shut the window?” Peg snapped.

Rachel jerked her head back in, slid the window up, and caught sight of Mrs. Mainprice’s contented smile before she snuffed it out.