The Irish Healer

Chapter 20





What is it you know, Molly?” James repeated.

Silence permeated the hallway like a mist rising off damp cobblestones.

Molly’s eyes jerked to where Miss Dunne stood rooted to the ground, her face turned an unearthly shade of white. “She’s been lying to you, sir. All this time she’s been working for you, she’s fooled you into believing that she’s of good character. Well, she isn’t, Dr. Edmunds. There was a trial in Ireland, and she was the accused.”

“You must be mistaken, Molly,” he said dismissively. “You have misunderstood the situation, I’m sure.”

Molly’s face flushed an ugly shade of red. “I have not. I’ve a letter that proves what I’m saying.”

“What do you have to say for yourself, Miss Dunne?” He waited for her to deny Molly’s ridiculous assertion, waited for her to throw back the accusation. Waited for denial that did not come.

“Molly is telling the truth,” she answered, her soft lilting voice steady. Unbelievably calm.

“You were accused of a crime?” It wasn’t possible. “What could you have done? Something desperate, like taking a loaf of bread to feed hungry family members, perhaps,” he said, grasping for a palatable explanation, one he might comprehend. “Tell me it was something like that.”

“I cannot, Dr. Edmunds.” Her gaze was unwavering. “I was accused of murder.”

His blood ran cold through his veins. Funny, when he was young he had always believed that expression to be just a saying, but indeed it was truth. “Impossible.”

“I assure you, it is not.”

Molly started laughing, a feral sound emanating from low in her throat. “Murder! What a rotten hypocrite you are, saying you won’t help me.”

What an odd comment, James thought, his eyes never leaving Rachel’s beautiful face. He stared at her as though she were a stranger, an unfamiliar woman he might pass in the street and wonder about. Who is she? What is her past? He thought he had known, at least enough. He’d just learned he had not known her at all.

“I did not murder Mary,” Rachel said to Molly, so smoothly it sounded as though she were saying nothing more startling than she did not wish to have jam with her toast. His physician’s mind analyzed; he’d had patients so shaken by their injuries they acted with utter calm, as if the wound were happening to another person. He witnessed the same response here. “I was accused, but not convicted. The jury acquitted me.”

“But you obviously did something that made the officials think you might have been a murderer! Constables don’t go accusing folk for no good reason!” Molly shrieked.

“Quiet down, Molly,” he ordered. Mrs. Mainprice would hear; the men from the moving agency scraping furniture across the floor even now would hear; his neighbors would hear. Miss Dunne had barely flinched.

“She died while in my care,” she answered Molly’s hysterics. “While I was asleep. I do not even know what happened, why . . . But I did not murder Mary Ferguson. That I swear.”

“Mr. Ferguson doesn’t think you’re innocent, does he?” Molly spat, her gaze venomous. “That’s what it says in the letter.”

“Molly, enough!” James said. “I’ll deal with Miss Dunne. This is none of your concern. Please leave us.”

“Make sure, sir, you don’t listen to the evil she’ll likely spread to defend herself,” she said, eyes narrowing. “Miss Dunne is a wretched liar. Next she’ll be saying all sorts of things about Peg and me, to make her own self look good. Don’t believe them.”

“I asked you to leave, Molly, in case you didn’t hear me.”

Molly blanched and scurried down the stairs, toward the kitchen.

Miss Dunne’s gaze was fixed on a spot halfway up the wall. Spine erect, shoulders squared, she awaited his sentence like a prisoner in the dock.

Dash it all, why did you do this to me, Miss Dunne? I wanted to remember you as perfect in every way . . . I wanted to hold on to you until the last possible second.

He walked nearer until they stood face-to-face. He attempted to gather his thoughts, but they kept slipping away from him, like he was trying to cup grains of wheat in his hands only to have them trickle through his fingers. He had to believe she was innocent of any crime, this woman he had come to respect so highly. This woman he had desired to embrace, to kiss. But it was clear now that she had kept secrets from him. Clearer still that his only option was to send her away.

A vast abyss, arid and wide as some distant desert chasm, opened in his chest.

When he spoke, his mouth was dry. “You should have told me what happened to you in Ireland, Miss Dunne. Now because Molly knows what you’ve concealed and the rest of the house will learn, too, I have no choice but to dismiss you from my employ.”

“I am sorry for not telling you. Believe me, I truly am.” Her eyes begged him to understand. “But the treatment I received in Carlow from people who had known me all my life led me to believe I had to keep quiet. They shunned me, Dr. Edmunds, went out of their way to avoid me on the streets, like I was a leper. They shunned my family as well. My mother’s work as a modiste dried up like . . . like a puddle of water on a hot day, as if it had never existed. My brother, my little sisters, treated with contempt and cruelty though they were innocent . . .” Her voice cracked. “I concluded I would have no chance at honest employment anywhere if my past were known.”

He started to reach out to grab her shoulders and shake her back to being the woman he’d believed her to be. “I entrusted you with the care of a patient.”

“It is too late now to change what I did.”

Too late. Much too late. “I wish you had told me anyway.”

Rachel’s eyes were on him. “I hope you will still give me the character reference I require. In spite of everything.”

Without a reference, she would have no future in London beyond some menial job that would force her into poverty. He couldn’t do that to her, no matter that disappointment weighed like a millstone on his heart.

“Your work for me has been exemplary. I will write to Mrs. Chapman and inform her of just that, nothing more.” James swallowed hard, though the lump he felt wasn’t in his throat. “I must ask you, though, to please pack your things and leave in the morning. The staff . . . they’ll expect me to force you to go. I’ll pay for hackney fare to whatever destination you choose.”

“I am forever in your debt, Dr. Edmunds.”

She bowed her head and left him to the emptiness of the hallway.





How long did I think I could keep this from him? Forever?

Rachel stared up at the bedchamber ceiling as if she might find an answer in the dips and hairline cracks in the plaster. Frankly, she should feel better that the truth had been forced into the open, but she didn’t. Not when there were details of that awful day in Carlow that she’d kept from him.

Restlessly, Rachel shifted on the bed, her sniffles nearly drowning out the sound of a muted sob coming through the bedchamber wall. Rachel lifted her head and heard another sob coming from the chamber next to hers. The one shared by Peg and Molly, but only occupied by Molly now that Peg was in Finchingfield.

Throwing back the sheet, Rachel rose, tucked her feet into slippers, and pulled on her robe. Dark stillness stretched along the hallway, defiantly quiet. Rachel tiptoed down to Molly’s door and listened. She hadn’t imagined the sound; Molly was whimpering.

Rachel tapped on the door. “Molly, are you ill?” She whispered to avoid waking Mrs. Mainprice, who slept in the room at the end of the hallway. “What is the matter?”

“Go away.”

“Are you ill? Have you . . .” Merciful heavens. What if the girl had taken another tonic to rid herself of her baby? “I am coming in.”

“No!”

Rachel pushed open the door, which Molly had left unlocked. “Tell me what is wrong.”

Dim moonlight bathed the room in silvery light, showed a form curled up on the far bed. “I said go away.”

Rachel hurried to the girl’s side. “Did you take something to get rid of the baby?”

Molly shook her head, the dark braid of her hair moving across her shoulder.

Rachel rested her hand against Molly’s forehead. It was hot and frighteningly dry. She was at the height of a fever. “You have a fever, Molly. Let me fetch the doctor.”

“No!” Molly twisted to face her. “Leave me alone. I’ll be fine. I don’t want your help, and I don’t want him to know.”

“I will not leave you to suffer here alone, because you do need help. Someone’s help, if not mine. Tell me the truth. Have you tried to get rid of the child?”

Molly squeezed her eyes shut. Answer enough.

“Have you lost it?” Rachel asked. It. The same way the prosecutor had referred to Mary Ferguson. “Did you harm it?” A thing, a creature. Not a human being. Rachel flushed, angry at the memory, angry with herself. “Have you lost the baby?” she amended.

Molly shook her head, her cheek digging into the pillow. “I don’t know I’m bleeding, but not much anymore. Lord, how it hurts. My insides are going to come out.”

Fear shot through Rachel. “I am going to fetch the doctor.”

“Don’t!” A sudden spasm convulsed Molly, her face pinching and making her look years older. She was too proud to cry out with Rachel standing right next to her. “I knew you’d tattle on me,” she managed. “You’d like to see me on the street.”

“I do not want to see you on the street any more than I want to be there. I really only want to help you.”

Molly’s hand shot out from beneath the sheets to grab her arm, the reaction plumbed from some deep reserve of frantic energy. “You can help by not telling Dr. Edmunds.”

“I have to tell him. I cannot do this, Molly. I cannot tend you. I made a promise to myself . . .” A promise she had been forced to break how many times since that afternoon in Carlow? The jury might have found her innocent, but no one else had, least of all herself. She’d vowed never to sit at another sickbed after Mary Ferguson had died. Never be responsible for another’s life. Yet here she was, yet again, her intentions as worthless as the false golden glow of pinchbeck.

Rachel broke Molly’s grip on her arm. “I have to bring him, Molly. He is the only one who might save you!”

Rachel fled the room and hurried down to the next floor.

She pounded on Dr. Edmunds’s bedchamber door. “Dr. Edmunds, it is Rachel Dunne.”

He pulled open the door, a lit candle in hand. His hair was tousled and his legs were bare beneath the indigo brocade dressing gown that skimmed the top of his ankles.

He frowned. “I can’t change my mind about letting you go. I’m sorry—”

“I am not here about that,” she interrupted. “It is Molly. She is very sick. You must come and tend her.”

“Let me get some clothing on.” He shut the door in Rachel’s face. It reopened in moments.

“What are her symptoms?” he asked, tucking in his shirt while they strode side-by-side toward the staircase. “Is she sick to her stomach? Does she have a fever?”

“She is feverish, but I do not think it is the cholera, if that is what you are asking.” This might be the only time Rachel wished someone were ill with a deadly disease. He would forgive Molly the cholera. Pregnancy, he wouldn’t.

He walked into the maid’s cramped room, the slap of his slippers soft against the wood floor. “Now, Molly, what is the matter?” he asked, dropping his voice into a soothing baritone.

“You didn’t have to come, sir. I’ll be all right. Honest,” she said, still curled on her side. “Miss Dunne shouldn’t have fetched you.” In the light of the candle, Rachel could see a circle of rusty red on the white sheet, down below her belly. Condemning evidence. Dr. Edmunds spotted it too.

“Molly, you’re bleeding heavily. Are you having trouble with your monthlies?”

“I . . . unh.” Another spasm overtook her and she pulled tight into a ball.

“Dr. Edmunds, she is pregnant,” said Rachel. He may as well know now what he was facing.

“She’s lying!” Molly protested between gritted teeth. “She hopes you’ll dismiss me. She hates me.”

The line of his jaw tightened and he stripped back the sheet. The bloom of red was clearer against Molly’s linen chemise, crimson on cream. An exhalation whistled through his teeth. “Miss Dunne, bring warm water and a towel. Some fresh linens as well.”

Rachel gaped at him. “You want me to help? After what I . . . after what you said?”

“You’re here and I need you to help me. Molly needs you,” he said succinctly.

Rachel did as he asked, running down to the kitchen to heat a kettle. She roused the fire to life, set water to heat, and fetched clean towels and sheets. Everything gathered, Rachel returned to the bedchamber. While she’d been in the kitchen, Dr. Edmunds had gone to his office to retrieve his medicines—a bottle of fever mixture, another of elixir of vitriol, the common brown bottle of laudanum.

His face was set with concentration, his hands moving steadily and assuredly as he laid out his paraphernalia. “Miss Dunne, mix a tablespoonful of the fever mixture in two cups of water while I prepare the medicine to ease . . . Molly’s cramping.”

Meaning her body’s efforts to rid itself of the baby. He poured out drops from the elixir of vitriol into a glass of water—a good cut-glass goblet from the crate in the dining room—adding a small amount of laudanum to help Molly sleep. Rachel dropped the towels and sheets nearby, hastily poured the hot water into the empty washbasin, some of it splashing over the rim. Using the doctor’s silver measuring spoon, she made up the fever concoction and set it at his elbow.

“Here, Molly, take both of these. They will help you.” Gently, he lifted her head. She gagged on the taste but bravely swallowed both.

Meanwhile, Rachel dipped one of the smaller towels in the hot water and wrung it out.

“I think it best you wash Molly up, Miss Dunne.”

Respectfully, he turned aside and shook out the sheets while Rachel washed the drying blood off Molly. The maid was too weak to protest, though she had sufficient energy to glare. Rachel slipped off Molly’s stained chemise, found a clean one in the chest, and helped the girl into it. Dr. Edmunds handed her a sheet and Rachel replaced the old one, Dr. Edmunds assisting as she lifted the mattress to hold the sheet in place. Molly closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Exhausted, Rachel’s knees gave way and she dropped down onto the lone chair in the room. She clutched her robe tight around her neck. The maid’s color had evened out, her breathing steadied. Molly had passed through the worst.

“Molly shall recover,” she stated.

Dr. Edmunds finished saying a prayer and tucked the clean sheet around Molly’s arms, untangling her braid from beneath it to lie out upon the dimity sheet, a rope of brown against white.

“She’s strong.” He ran his fingers through his hair, curling and wild. “Too strong, perhaps. She didn’t lose the baby, which I gather was what she was trying to do.”

“She purchased a tonic, and I think this was her second attempt to use it.”

He gathered up the dirty towels and threw them atop the stained sheet.

“So you knew what she was planning.” He tied the linens into a bundle for laundering later, his hands jerking the knot secure. “Is this household keeping any more secrets from me?”

“I was not completely certain until this afternoon what Molly intended to do,” Rachel answered in defense.

He swiveled his head to look at her. “Yet you suspected she was pregnant. You suspected and decided not to tell me.”

“I knew she had been meeting a man, but I promised her I would say nothing to you. In return for her not revealing what she had learned about my trial.”

“If ever there was a time to break a promise, this would’ve been it, Miss Dunne. You might have saved her this failed abortion. If she’d taken more of whatever concoction she purchased, she might not be lying there asleep. She might be lying there dead from blood loss or poisoning.”

“You think I do not realize that?” Shaking with anger, Rachel stood. “If I had told you, you would have dismissed her immediately and she would have gone off to rid herself of the child in some dark, squalid room elsewhere. The outcome would have been no different.”

“I know of a small charitable institute for girls in her condition. I would’ve sent her there, which is what I still intend on doing once she has recovered. She’ll be well taken care of and the baby will be adopted out. Presuming it lives, after what she’s done.”

“I suppose she will be thankful to be dismissed and have her child taken away from her,” Rachel hissed, trying to keep from screeching and rousing Molly or the rest of the household.

“Is there something else you would rather I do for her, Miss Dunne?” Vexed, red-faced, the doctor towered over her. “Such as keep her on, take her to Finchingfield House with me? An unmarried house-maid large with child. How would the people of that town treat her, do you think? Don’t answer, because I know how they would treat her. And so do you.”

Rachel’s face burned. “That was unkind, Dr. Edmunds.”

His jaw flexed again, but he didn’t apologize for reminding Rachel of her treatment in Carlow. “I’ll try my best to ensure that Molly finds a position elsewhere, once the baby is born. Somewhere in the country, perhaps. Far away.”

Far away . . . as far as London was from Carlow, perhaps. Distance seemed the only cure for women like Molly and herself.

“Sending Molly away is the best course open for her,” he continued. “The best I can do. You’ll see.”

“I will not see. I am leaving in the morning, Dr. Edmunds. First light. Remember?”

“This episode with Molly changes everything. Someone will have to take over Molly’s task of packing the bedchambers. Mrs. Mainprice and Joe are too busy with their work. You’ll have to stay.”

“What if I refuse? I have the right to. You have dismissed me, after all, and I am no longer in your employ.”

The look he gave her was that of a father scrutinizing a disobedient child. She had lost so much that day—his admiration, his trust. All that was left of his caring.

“Please stay, Miss Dunne,” he ground out. “As further compensation, I will pay you your entire salary plus another crown for having to do Molly’s tasks in addition to your own. I think I’m being more than fair with you.”

She sucked in a breath, let it out quickly. He was bribing her, but she had no reason to refuse, besides pride. Pride, however, had swayed her too often in the past and God had punished her for her arrogance.

“Yes, you are being fair,” she replied, because pride was a luxury she could no longer afford.