The Irish Healer

Chapter 24





The next morning, Mrs. Woodbridge sailed into the garden like a ship of the line scuttling before a gale wind. Amelia toddled behind, arms overflowing with dolls, her dandelion-colored dress a moving beam of sunshine.

Rachel rose from where she had been squatting among the herbs and garden greens. “Good morning to you, Mrs. Woodbridge. Amelia. I was just collecting some maidenhair to make up a tea for Mrs. Mainprice. She awoke a trifle hoarse today, and this will help—”

“Yes, yes. Most interesting. Though I’m sure James could prescribe a pill that would be far more effective than your Irish country remedies.” Mrs. Woodbridge took a seat on the bench beneath the plum tree, its shade dappling her coal black dress with darkness and light. “Amelia, dearest, your dollies might like to play by the fountain.”

Amelia obeyed and arranged her dolls in a half circle on the ground.

“Your dolls are very lovely, Amelia,” said Rachel.

“Would you like to play with them, Miss Dunne?”

“She is too busy, dearest.” Mrs. Woodbridge’s tone froze the warm summer air.

Rachel knelt to pluck a handful more of the maidenhair from the edge of the kitchen garden. She would quickly dry the leaves over the fire then steep them in hot water. As good a remedy as any pills.

The other woman fluffed her bombazine skirts. “I recollect that you are related to the Harwoods, Miss Dunne. Am I right?”

The correct amount of herb gathered, Rachel stood. “They are my cousins.”

“As I thought.” Mrs. Woodbridge produced a book from the deep pocket hidden within the folds of her skirt and peered at Rachel over its top. “I admit I’ve been curious as to why they did not take you in upon your arrival in London. Having to do servant’s work must be humiliating for a young woman with such respectable connections.”

Rachel tucked her basket tight against her waist as though the woven straw might shield her body from Mrs. Woodbridge’s contempt. “I would not dream to ask them. I want to make my own way in this world.”

“Your own way?” she scoffed, making Rachel’s intentions sound ludicrous and pitiable. “As what?”

“I have interviewed for a position as a teacher.”

“Noble enough, I suppose. I also suppose you expect my brother-in-law to provide you with a character reference.” Mrs. Woodbridge gazed along the length of her patrician nose, her eyes two chips of obsidian honed to slice. “Ah well, James is a good man and likely shall. Sometimes, though, his heart is far too soft. He has a tendency to pity the unfortunate and downtrodden. The wretched of this world.”

Rachel bristled. “He is not providing me a character reference out of pity, Mrs. Woodbridge. I have done good work and deserve his recommendation.” Though she had feared he would refuse for reasons she would never tell Sophia Woodbridge.

“I cannot judge the quality of your work. I must leave that to James, but I do worry—you must understand, Miss Dunne—about the soundness of his judgment when it comes to a pretty face like yours.” Her eyes flashed like the edge of a blade. “He can be lonely in this house and deeply misses the companionship of his wife. James loved Mariah, my dear sister, more deeply than words could ever describe. She was the best of women, the loveliest, the most accomplished. Any other woman could only pale in comparison.”

Such as me?

Rachel returned Mrs. Woodbridge’s stare. “I have occupied too much of your time, Mrs. Woodbridge. I have a tea to make.”

Gathering her skirts in her fist, Rachel hurried back into the house. Awful, spiteful creature. The woman was just being mean because she despised the Irish. Delighting in telling Rachel that she was inferior to Mariah Edmunds. So smug, so cruel. Didn’t she realize Rachel already knew she could never expect to gain Dr. Edmunds’s affection?

Rachel raced through the back door and collided with Joe on the other side, her basket slamming into his chest.

Joe reached for her arms to hold her steady. “’ey there, miss, now, what’s wrong ’ere?”

“That woman is dreadful,” Rachel spat through gritted teeth.

His brows jerked high and his mouth quirked. “Miss Guimon’ used to b’lieve so too.”





There. That made the last.

James closed the file and packed it in the box with the others. He had updated every patient file and placed each one in its appropriate stack—some bound for Dr. Calvert, some for Thaddeus, some even for young Hathaway. He would appreciate that.

Standing, James rubbed the stiffness out of his back and made a circuit of the room, inhaling the long-familiar smells with a twinge of nostalgia. Foolish, really, to be bittersweet about the room. Soon he would never again have to worry if the aroma of camphor bothered his patients, especially the more delicate ones. Or if the settee was comfortable enough. In three days, London would be fading into the distance and the clear skies of Finchingfield—not misty soft like those of Ireland, but blue enough for him—would be on his horizon.

He glanced at the boxes of notebooks and ledgers, rising on his desk like headstones to his medical career. The moving agency was collecting the first crates today and everything was ready. The momentum propelling him forward was unstoppable now, a force like water rushing over a falls, months’ worth of planning fully engaged. He was going to walk away from it all. He was going to become a gentleman farmer at last.

So why the unnerving certitude that, just around the next bend in the path of his life, he would encounter a brick wall?

Lord, help me come to peace with this decision.

James shut the office door behind him and tossed the key upon the entryway table. It would go with the other keys Thaddeus would be collecting soon, when he came to take temporary control of the house until the new tenant arrived.

Mrs. Mainprice was humming as she scrubbed down the hallway wainscoting in Peg’s absence—probably the last time that task would be required of any member of his diminishing staff. She lifted her head as he passed.

“Miss Amelia’s in the garden, sir,” she said, a statement he could either interpret as a warning or encouragement.

“I should see how she is doing today.”

“Do you wish me to bring lemonade out to you, sir?”

“I won’t be out in the garden that long, Mrs. Mainprice.” He wouldn’t push himself just yet. One step at a time. And with the grace of God, each step getting easier as he took it.

Sophia was reading beneath the pear tree while Amelia danced her dolls across the rim of the fountain, the sunlight warm on her bright curls. They composed a lovely familial tableau, as charming as any painting. Yet here he was, little more than an observer. Excluded from the tiny circle Sophia had drawn around her and Amelia. The circle he had permitted her to draw Asked her to draw.

“James.” Sophia looked up from her reading. “It is most pleasant out here. I’m glad you could join us. Aren’t you, Amelia?”

“Yes, Aunt Soph,” she said, eyeing James with cautious curiosity. Determining that her father wasn’t going to scowl at her and wasn’t going to hug her either, Amelia resumed playing with her dolls, singing an off-key tune for their awkward dance steps.

An urge to crouch down next to the girl—his daughter—rose in James’s body, twitched along his feet to move him forward. He should go play with her, ask about her dolls. He had every right. A right he had never bothered to exercise before, though. Those brief visits at Christmas and for Amelia’s birthday had been staid affairs where James had maintained his distance, close enough to observe Amelia but not close enough for the girl to penetrate his heart.

The earlier urge withered like a spring flower beneath summer’s hot sun. There would be time enough in Finchingfield to play with Amelia. If the girl even wanted his attention, something she had done without all of her life. James looked away, over to Sophia, but his ears continued hearing—the tiny childish murmurings Amelia made while she pretended to hold ladylike conversation, the pauses when she stopped to have the dolls curtsy or shift their positions along the gravel pathway.

“I thought I would come out and see how you two are getting along,” James said.

“Well enough, though I’m not sure Amelia slept well in that chilly attic room. She seems a trifle out of sorts this morning. I am somewhat peaked too.” Sophia sighed and pressed a palm to her forehead. “Perhaps your little assistant could make up a healing tea for me.”

“Are you intent upon discussing Miss Dunne with me again?”

“No, James. That topic of conversation has been suitably dispensed with.”

He frowned and tucked his thumbs into his waistcoat pockets. “Mr. Jackson informs me he has located rooms at an inn near Finchingfield House for you and Amelia. You’ll find them to your liking.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “An inn to my liking?”

“You would not enjoy sleeping in the drawing room, Sophia, while repairs are underway.”

“True.”

James doubted she would even enjoy sleeping in the bedchamber he’d chosen for her. All of them at Finchingfield House were smaller than what Sophia was used to. “He expects all the work to be finished within the month. Good progress.”

“Excellent.” Sophia gave one of her thin-lipped smiles. “Amelia shall be so happy in the countryside. Won’t you my dear?”

“Em, yes, Aunt Soph . . .” A sudden grimace twisted Amelia’s face. “Em . . .”

“What is it, sweeting?” Sophia asked, setting down her book.

Amelia wobbled, as if the ground had gone liquid beneath her feet, and she sank to the gravel. Her doll slipped from her fingers. “I feel bad.”

James rushed to his daughter’s side.

“Amelia!” Sophia dropped to the ground next to her, black skirts ballooning, swallowing up the doll. Her fingers swept across Amelia’s forehead. “Sweeting, what is it?”

Easily, James lifted Amelia, her small body trembling against his chest. The heat of fever radiated off the child through his sleeves to scorch his arms. The trembling became contagious and spread to James. “She’s burning up, Sophia. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“She was restless but ate breakfast this morning,” she said, her gaze never leaving Amelia. “I would have told you if I thought she was unwell.”

Amelia’s watery eyes blinked up at him. “I feel sick.”

“You’ll be all right, Amelia. Trust me.” But why should the lass trust him at all?

Sophia’s face crumpled with panic. “Agnes has infected her with the cholera. My precious darling.”

“Let’s not presume the worst.”

James stumbled back into the house, carried the girl up the stairs, his sister-in-law hurrying to keep up. Fear chasing them both.





“How is Amelia, Dr. Edmunds?” Rachel peered into Molly’s old room. The cramped space smelled of sickness. “I heard from Mrs. Mainprice she was taken ill.”

Dr. Edmunds slouched at the child’s bedside, his waistcoat and cravat discarded, the sleeves of his linen shirt rolled up to his elbows. His face had aged, the weight of anxiety carving grooves across his face like a heavy downpour gouging fissures in soft dirt.

“She’s resting easy.” He flattened his palms against his knees and stood. “The fever she had earlier has abated and she’s not been ill again.”

“So it is not the cholera.”

That was what Mrs. Mainprice feared. She’d said Mrs. Woodbridge was so certain Amelia was ill with cholera, the woman had fainted in the drawing room and needed to be helped up to her bedchamber.

“I keep telling myself it isn’t.” Dr. Edmunds swept his hands through his hair, mussing it.

“Do you need any help?”

“Are you offering to sit with her, Miss Dunne? I know how difficult that would be.”

For you . . . I would sit with her for you. She had guarded her feelings from Mrs. Woodbridge, but Rachel could not hide them from herself. James Edmunds scattered her wits like the first fall of leaves upon a stream, carried away to the farthest reaches of the sea, and made her fear she would never be rational again.

“If you need me to tend her, I would.”

“I won’t ask you. There’s no need for both of us to suffer.” He grabbed up his cravat and waistcoat, came out into the hallway where Rachel waited, his movements as slow and laborious as a prisoner climbing a treadmill. “Until my sister-in-law feels up to the task, Mrs. Mainprice has offered to stay with Amelia for the remainder of the day.”

Up close, the lines were even deeper, extending into the corners of his eyes. He had to be Amelia’s father. There would be no reason for him to be so distressed otherwise.

“You are very concerned about Amelia,” Rachel said, prevaricating. Ask the question you really want answered. But she was afraid to hear the truth, for what it might reveal about his failings.

“I am concerned about any young child stricken with this horrible disease. Watching a child die . . .” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “There is no worse torment.”

Rachel’s memories, bristling like a thistle, caught and snagged her heart. “None worse.”

“You understand me, Rachel.”

The sound of her Christian name on his tongue made her shiver. She didn’t correct him.

“I understand loss and trials and difficulties, Dr. Edmunds. I understand struggling to hold onto hope that tomorrow will be better than today. I understand how hard it is to watch a child suffer and feel powerless to help her. I understand wanting to believe that God will perform a miracle and feeling lost and disillusioned when He does not.” Old, sad bitterness tainted her words. “That is what I understand, Dr. Edmunds.”

His gaze searched her face, looked directly into her eyes, straight into her soul. “So what do we do now?”

Confused by his question, Rachel answered the only way she could. “We go forward.”

“But what if you don’t have the strength to go forward? What if you don’t have the courage?”

“Somehow, you have to find it.”

Slowly, he nodded, lifted a fingertip to trace her jaw, the contact both sweet and agonizing. “You are strong, Miss Dunne. I envy you for it.”

Before she pressed her face into his hand, closed her eyes, and let the contact linger, Rachel stepped back. “I promised to help Joe bring down the trunks from the attic. Please excuse me, Dr. Edmunds, but I must go.”





“Eh, what is it now, miss?” Joe cocked his head, the lamp they’d brought up to the attic dancing shadows over his face like the lamplight of a busker’s show, making his expression of concern almost comical. “Still upset over Moll, are ya? Or maybe Miss Amelia? Ya look sorta sick, or somethin’.”

“Perhaps I am.” Heartsick, if nothing else.

Joe jerked back as if what she had might be contagious. The lantern swung drunkenly. “Truth an’ all?”

“It’s nothing catching, Joe. It’s just . . . so much has been happening lately. I wonder that I can make sense of life at all anymore.”

“Me mum would say not to bother. Jus’ live it, s’all we can do.”

“And she was right.” Rachel smiled at him to erase the worried frown from his face. “Now do you want me to help you move these trunks, or shall I go about doing what I had originally planned and search for that box of black crepe?”

“Now don’ get all touchy on me. ’ere. Take this one.”

She grabbed the handle and shuffled backward, depositing the trunk in the hallway beyond the door.

“You’d think we was movin’ lead bars,” Joe complained as they shimmied the next one across the floor. “All jus’ to give what’s in ’em to charity before we go. Shoulda left ’em with the ’ouse for the next tenant to deal with.” He grunted as his shoes slipped on the dusty floorboards. “I mean, who’da thought clothes could weigh so much?”

“You have obviously never worn stays, petticoats, and a woolen gown before, Joe.”

“Well, I ’ope not!”

The trunk caught on the lip of the doorframe and they doubled their efforts to give it a mighty shove. It toppled over, the latch breaking and the lid flying open to spill its contents.

Rachel fisted her hips. “Do help me put this back to rights, Joe.”

“It’s all women’s underthin’s, miss!”

She glanced up at him. Joe was blushing. “Then I shall protect your sensibilities and repack the items myself. Search for black material in the trunks while I am doing this.”

Rachel clambered over the trunk to its opposite side. Chemises, corsets, and stockings lay in a tangled mess of pale silk and linen, the private clothing of a woman she had never thought much about. Other than Mrs. Woodbridge’s pointed mention of her sister, it had been easy for Rachel to overlook the late Mrs. Edmunds. Aside from the furnishings in her room and the untended garden, the house had been as thoroughly purged of her memory as if a maelstrom had obliterated them. Here she was now, though, revealed by the most intimate items, the ones she had worn next to her skin.

Rachel lifted a corset, the faded aroma of patchouli clinging to it. The scent was sweet, musky, spicier than she’d imagined the wife of Dr. Edmunds to be. The sort of woman he would marry would be God-fearing, a woman of his class, handsome and respectable. Much as Mrs. Woodbridge had described her. A woman who would never stand in a dock in an Irish courtroom or feel hunger or have stains upon her gown.

He truly must miss his wife. Only deepest sorrow would explain why he had allocated every memento—here was a padded velvet box for jewelry, her silver brush and combs, the gem-studded pins for her hair—to a dark room where he would never encounter them.

Rachel bit her lip and stuffed the clothing into the trunk as quickly as she could. She was making a mess of it. The clothes had been tightly packed and weren’t submitting to being clumsily forced. A gold chain dropped out onto the floor, tangled in a stocking. She unwound it from the silk, cautious not to rip the material. It was a locket, engraved with the letter M. The latching mechanism had been jostled, and the lid wasn’t completely closed. Rachel fumbled with the tiny latch, trying to get it to catch, and accidentally sprung the lid. Within, the locket framed a miniature portrait of Dr. Edmunds when he’d been younger and less careworn, his expression full of pride and anticipation. Had his wife worn this near her heart, where she could lift the locket to gaze upon his face whenever the need took her fancy? Had she rubbed her thumb over the smooth gold surface, a meager replacement for the feel of his cheek beneath her fingers, as Rachel did now?

“Is this ’ere what yer lookin’ for, miss?” Joe dangled a length of black crepe from his hand.

She blinked at him through tears that stubbornly filled her eyes. “Yes, Joe. That is perfect.”

“Ya know what else I found? Come ’ere.” He beckoned to her to join him. “A bunch o’ family pictures, it looks like.”

Lifting her skirts out of the way, Rachel stepped over the trunk, the locket gripped tightly in her fist. Against the wall were stacked a handful of paintings. They’d been exposed when Joe had pulled one of the trunks into the center of the room. She leaned closer, her stomach dropping out beneath her, her head seeking to deny what her eyes so clearly saw.

“What do ya think?” Joe asked.

The woman in the painting was young and dainty in her high-waisted dress of deepest cobalt blue, her hair the color of goldenrods around her face. The best of women, the loveliest, the most accomplished.

With a face so like Amelia’s only a blind man could miss the resemblance.

“I think Mrs. Edmunds looks precisely like her daughter.”