The Irish Healer

Chapter 27





Relief registered on Mrs. Mainprice’s face when she came down the stairs and saw Rachel standing just inside the front door, removing her bonnet. “Thank heavens Joe found you, miss.”

“Joe said you needed me,” Rachel said, her voice quivering less than she thought it might.

“The lass needs you, Miss Dunne.” Mrs. Mainprice gave a gentle smile. “Dr. Calvert has been purging the child, and he’s sent for a surgeon to bleed the lass. Poor wee thing.”

“We have to stop him.”

“Don’t think I haven’t been trying.”

A man, round and soft—rather like a mound of pudding, as Joe had said—appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Mrs. Mainprice, we need more blankets.” He peered at Rachel. “Better yet, send the servant girl there. I need you at the patient’s bedside.”

“My name is Rachel Dunne, Dr. Calvert. I am Dr. Edmunds’s assistant. I have come to nurse Miss Amelia. If you require my aid,” she added with a humble smile, summoning all that charm Joe seemed to think she possessed. Hoping the expression masked her tremors.

Dr. Calvert looked down his considerable nose at her, his heavy sideburns bracketing the uncertain frown on his face. “You have some experience in these matters?”

“I have an extensive knowledge of herbal remedies and have been sitting at the bedsides of the ill since I was ten. I have nursed people through dropsy and typhus and croup.” With only one death—no, three—that haunted her.

His thick eyebrows rose in unison. “You sound most accomplished. Edmunds never told me he’d hired an attendant to replace Miss Guimond.”

“He was afraid someone might snatch Miss Dunne away if they found out, sir,” interjected Mrs. Mainprice. “You know how hard it is to find a good attendant, and Dr. Edmunds was a wee bit possessive of our Miss Dunne.”

“Was he now? Well then, in that case, I believe I can trust you with the care of our patient. I left a very important function at Lord Wellsley’s and must return immediately. My duties here are concluded for the moment, anyway. It is time for the surgeon to ply his trade.”

“You can trust me to follow whatever instructions you provide,” Rachel replied. “I shall attend to Amelia’s care until the surgeon arrives.”

“Mrs. Mainprice knows what needs be done. My directives must be followed to the letter. Am I understood? The child must not come to harm because of incompetence.”

“I understand completely, Dr. Calvert,” said Rachel stiffly, keenly aware that if he lost a patient, he would never suffer the accusations she had endured.

“I see I’ve made myself clear, then. Good evening, Miss Dunne. I shall return once my schedule permits.” He retrieved his medical bag and marched out of the house.

Rachel hurried up the stairs as soon as the door closed behind him, the housekeeper wheezing as she hastened into Amelia’s room with her. Mrs. Woodbridge was nowhere to be found.

Rachel stripped back the heavy blankets covering Amelia, beet-red from fever, pulled out the warmed brick at her feet. The child stirred and moaned. She didn’t open her eyes, though. She had obviously been dosed with laudanum.

“The doctor said sweating her was the proper thing to do,” Mrs. Mainprice explained.

“She is already burning up. She needs less heat on her body, not more.” Rachel dropped a nearby clean rag into the basin of water. “When was the last time you thought to cure a fever by laying heavy blankets and hot bricks all over a person?”

“Exactly never. Cordials, spirit of niter, and cool wet cloths usually work best. If anything does.” Her eyes softened, moistened with tears. “Poor lass.”

“We had best make some of my tonic.” Rachel wrung out the cloth, the excess water splashing into the basin. “We have to get some down Amelia as soon as we can rouse her from her sleep. Tonic and cordials and anything else you can think of.”

“I agree, Miss Dunne.” Mrs. Mainprice punctuated her assent with a crisp nod, her cap ribbons flapping.

“We should also tell Joe to prevent that surgeon from crossing the threshold of this house. Instruct him to tell the man anything, that we’ve had an outbreak of the plague if necessary, but keep him away. And we should not let Mrs. Woodbridge in this room. She would not approve of my tending to Amelia.”

“Dr. Calvert dosed Mrs. Woodbridge with laudanum as well. She was rather hysterical when he arrived. I’ve a feeling she won’t be rising for many an hour.” A wry smile twisted the housekeeper’s mouth, and she hurried off to fetch the tonic.

Rachel turned back to Amelia, and her heart sank as fast as an anchor tossed over the side of a ship. The poor child was so very ill. She squirmed from the fever and the pain that gripped her. Damp cloth in hand, Rachel gently wiped it over Amelia’s limbs.

“Amelia, do try to wake up. Please. You need to take some medicine.”

Mrs. Mainprice returned, a steaming mug of tonic in her hands. She helped Rachel spoon a small amount past Amelia’s lips. The child spluttered, the liquid dribbling onto Rachel’s arms.

“Please drink some, sweeting,” Rachel cooed and clamped her fingers around the spoon to stop their trembling. Amelia’s eyes drifted in and out of focus, fighting against the effects of the laudanum. Rachel noticed anew that they were the most incredible blue, a rich color, like precious sapphires. Her heart swelled until she thought her chest would burst. “Yes, Amelia. Good girl. Concentrate on me and try to swallow some of this. It will make you feel better.”

“I can’t. I hurt.” Amelia moaned, a piteous sound that tore at Rachel’s heart. Mary Ferguson had moaned just the same that afternoon, in between wrenching coughs . . .

She spilled tonic onto the sheet, a circular stain of greenish liquid.

“Here, miss.” Mrs. Mainprice leaned across her, wiping at the spill with a clean cloth. “Let me get that.”

“I want Aunt Soph.” Amelia’s legs churned beneath the sheets, fighting off the pain consuming her, wasting her away. “I want Papa. Papa now!”

James, you need to come home. Your daughter is dying.

“He will be here very soon, Amelia.” Rachel forced a smile, the tears swimming in her eyes to blur the child’s features. If she let them fall, they would drain away her last ounce of courage. “But until he gets here, I will take good care of you. I promise.”

Amelia sipped more, until the effort to drink exhausted her beyond where she could resist the laudanum. Rachel rested the child’s head, its mass of shiny curls, onto the pillow and let her sleep.

“Oh, miss.” Every wrinkle in the housekeeper’s face creased. “She looks so dreadful sick.”

“She is dreadful sick.”

Wearily, Rachel stood, her back stiff, and went to the room’s window It looked out over the garden, late afternoon shadows mantling the paths, the fountain, the pear tree in darkness. A face peeked through the stable window Joe. He would patiently wait to hear what happened with Amelia, no matter how late it grew or how bad the news.

“We should pray, Miss Dunne,” said Mrs. Mainprice.

Would prayer do any good now, when it had failed before?

“Do you know what I used to pray for as a girl, Mrs. Mainprice?” Rachel pressed her fingers against the window frame as if she might shove the glass away and fly through, freed from this room. “I used to pray that God would make us rich, that God would help my father learn how to make money” Rather than fritter it away. “Well, that never happened. When I was older, I prayed God would not let my father die. But of course, he did die. Then, so many times, I prayed for the people I tried to heal. Sometimes God listened. Many times He did not. When He let Mary Ferguson fall ill and then die . . .” Her fingers pushed against the wood. Pushed hard. “She was only a wee child, Mrs. Mainprice.”

“Mary Ferguson was a child?” Rachel heard the surprise in the housekeeper’s voice, the sudden worry.

“Younger than Amelia. So frail and helpless. She had an angel’s face and the greatest misfortune to be born in Craigue, near the stink of the tanneries and the filth of the streets.” Rachel’s breathing came in ragged shudders. “She was innocent and sweet, in spite of her drunken father’s mistreatment, a resilient blade of grass springing up after being repeatedly trod down. I prayed hard for her. Neighbors came and prayed too. When she died, I knew God was not watching over the least of His sparrows. And when I was accused of her murder, I knew He had abandoned me for good.”

Silence stretched. Rachel’s fingernails dug into the wood frame, risking a splinter.

Skirts rustling, Mrs. Mainprice stood and rested her hand, a touch light as purest down, upon Rachel’s shoulder. “God has never abandoned you, child. But He doesn’t always answer our pleas the way we expect. It doesn’t mean He doesn’t love us.”

Rachel met the other woman’s gaze. “Forcing me to witness another death hardly seems like love. Especially the death of another innocent child.”

“Who ever promised life would be easy?” Her dark eyes flashed with the challenge she was laying out. “God gave you and Dr. Edmunds a special gift—the gift to care for the sick. The gift to heal. I saw what you did with Joe’s arm. I remember how you rushed to help the apple seller when she was injured in the street. A young girl, mind you! You’re a healer and you cannot turn away from that calling. That’s why God sent you to us. That’s why you’re here now, why you had the courage to chase Dr. Calvert off. You know you’re a healer. Help the lass. She needs you.”

“I cannot,” Rachel insisted. “I do not have the ability or faith anymore to help Amelia.”

“I think you do. If only you would let yourself realize it.” Mrs. Mainprice’s hand squeezed, willed strength into Rachel. “If only you’d release the anger, the disappointment. If only you’d forgive yourself for what happened in Ireland. For what happened with Molly. If only you’d give yourself over to God.”

Rachel looked into the other woman’s eyes. Could she forgive herself? Could she trust a God she had blamed for so long?

She turned to gaze down at Amelia, the girl’s limbs stiffening from the cramps that seized her body, her breathing strained, her plump cheeks flaring with red. She was so small, so helpless, lost in the middle of that bed. The tiniest of human creatures. A mustard seed in the crush of humanity. God, can You even see her? “I am so very afraid.”

“’Tis natural to be afraid, miss, but God is with you. Whom shall you fear?”

Myself. I fear myself.

Trembling, Rachel laid a hand upon Amelia’s chest, felt her racing heart thrum beneath her fingertips, the source and echo of life. She had to help this child. There was no other course. She was a healer, like her mother had been. And if she failed . . . she had to accept that. Stop blaming herself. Stop blaming God for not listening. Leave the outcome in His hands.

Where it belonged.

God, forgive me. I have been so filled with arrogance and pride. They have blinded me from the truth. Help me now to be strong. And, if You choose, through the work of my humble hands let Your healing flow.

Rachel reached for Mrs. Mainprice’s hand. “Stay with me. Pray with me. I cannot do this alone.”

“You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, Miss Dunne.”

“Then let us pray to Him.”

She closed her eyes and began to recite every prayer she could think of. She was joined by Mrs. Mainprice until both their voices grew hoarse and the hours ticked onward into the dead of night.





“Dash, Edmunds, I’d have come sooner if I’d known.” Hathaway fingered his top hat. The buttons of his overcoat were misaligned and his cravat disheveled. “I was at the club celebrating my engagement, but I neglected to tell my landlady where I’d gone. Not that she’d have remembered even if I had.”

“It’s quite all right. The worst is over.” For Mrs. Blencowe, if not for Amelia.

Mrs. Blencowe’s labor had taken hours, but she had delivered the child. A tiny boy, alive, if puny and blue-tinged. A rough massage had revived the infant, though James feared for his long-term health, as well as the health of his mother. Drained, she had bled fiercely. James and the monthly nurse had swabbed her with vinegar-soaked rags until the flood had stopped. If she didn’t fever, she might live. A large if.

James tugged his gloves over his fingers. “Congratulations on your pending marriage, Hathaway.”

“Say you’ll come to the wedding. Oh, bless me, Edmunds, she’s a veritable angel and my parents adore her. I couldn’t have found better.”

Memories pressed, their load like ropes dragging James down. “Be true to her, Hathaway, and don’t fail her. Don’t fail anyone.”

“I’m not intending on failing her.” Hathaway blinked, his bliss dimming like a candle flame ruffled by a breeze. “Are you quite all right, Edmunds?”

No. God in heaven, no. “My congratulations again, Hathaway, but I can’t delay. I must go. Good luck here.”

James slipped out of the house. From nowhere, a fog had lifted off the streets to muffle the sounds of carriages passing in the dark night. What hour had it become? He withdrew his watch. Almost eleven in the evening. The hour’s lateness ached in the small of his back, painfully stiffened the muscles at the base of his skull.

He pocketed the watch and marched on, down Pall Mall toward Belgravia and whatever awaited him at home. Hackneys passed without stopping at his signal, filled with customers bound to happier prospects. James passed the rows of clubs, candlelight yellow in their windows, their front doors exhaling smoke and the baritone rumble of men’s voices. The one he occasionally frequented was just a few doors down. He might step inside and say a final good-bye to the colleagues he would find there, enjoying their chops and the endless gossip about theater women or politics or the mean-spiritedness of their wives. Drift along on a current of topics far removed from his own problems.

Be an idiot.

The fog swirled in his path as he strode along, like ghosts chasing him. The ghost of a woman he had married in order to please his father, a man impossible to please; the specter of his medical career, which he’d pursued with a single-minded ambition that excluded everyone around him, until the losses grew so great he couldn’t bear them anymore; the apparition of his only child, held at such a safe distance that she feared him and treated him like a stranger.

I was going to make it all up to you, though, Amelia . . . tomorrow.

Always tomorrow.

The bell of a church tolled, followed by another and another, all of them striking eleven. They sounded like a death knell to James. He had received the news about Amelia over five hours ago—forever to a cholera victim, who could perish in hours or just minutes, like Agnes’s sister who had collapsed and died outside the chophouse. Even Thaddeus, with all his training, would find it hard to halt the momentum leading toward collapse. One moment the patient would be only vaguely ill, the next . . .

A shudder overtook him, and James jerked his coat collar up around his neck, the wool rasping across the stubble sprouting on his chin, unable to fend off the chill. Impossible to get warm when the chill was coming from deep within, crystallizing like hoarfrost to coat his heart with ice. God, grant me Your mercy; give me strength.

He tripped over a break in the pavement and grabbed the iron railings surrounding a churchyard to arrest his fall. He was exhausted, couldn’t recall when he’d last eaten, and now he was stumbling about like a drunken man. The gate to the yard hung open and James went inside, collapsing onto a bench set against the iron fence. He would pause for just a moment, long enough to quiet the pounding of his heart, jittering like a fly entrapped in pitch. Ancient trees and twisted headstones rose ethereal and white, picked out by the light of the moon, monuments to others’ losses, others’ heartbreak. He rested his head against the fence and closed his eyes, pressed his skull into the hard metal as if the pain might serve as atonement.

Heavenly Father, I have failed everyone who counted on me. All those patients he hadn’t been competent enough to save; Mariah; Rachel, whose friendship he had sacrificed rather than reveal his miserable truth; Amelia. It had to be over for the child, and he hadn’t been there. So very likely she had drawn her last breath without him to witness it, her tiny hand clutched in Sophia’s, her aunt’s name the last word she would likely utter.

Because James had made so very certain the girl would never call for him.

Just as my father had not called for me.

He sobbed out his sorrow, tears that coursed hot on his face, the cold moonlight doing nothing to ease the burn. I have even failed You, God. I’ve attended church, done my duty as a good Christian, but where has my heart been?

“Merciful Father, help me though I’m undeserving,” he pleaded, turning his gaze to the heavens, dark and indecipherable above his head. “Help me see my way through these trials, as only You can. I am sorry for everything I’ve done wrong, all the people I’ve hurt. Forgive my stupid selfishness, my weakness. Give me the strength I lack. Help me accept Your will if it’s Your decision to let Amelia pass into the kingdom. Help me . . .” His voice broke as tears strangled him.

No God, don’t take Amelia. I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t lose her too.

Dashing his tears from his cheeks, James pressed his palms against his thighs and stood. No more delay. The time had come to face what he had avoided for too long.

James turned down the next road and headed toward Belgravia, his feet moving him inexorably toward home. He picked up speed the closer he got, his pulse racing in time with his steps, until he was running, his heart thudding in his head.

Lord, dearest Lord, let it not be too late for Amelia. Get me there in time to hold her close one last time . . .