The Irish Healer

Chapter 6





Mary. Mary. Wake up.

She’s so cold, so cold. And blue . . . Mary!

“Miss Dunne, what’s wrong with her? What’s happened?”

She is gone. I gave her the decoction of hawkweed with honey, but it did not save her. God, what did I do wrong?

Mary! Wake up. Just wake up . . . Wake up!

“Miss Dunne. Are you all right?” Mrs. Mainprice’s voice was insistent, loud enough to penetrate the wood of the chamber door.

Rachel bolted upright in bed, her skin clammy, heart hammering. She’d had another of her nightmares. Why could they not leave her alone, stay in Ireland where they belonged?

“Miss Dunne!”

“Yes, Mrs. Mainprice. I am coming.” Jumping up, Rachel threw on her thin robe and pulled open the door.

“Are you all right, child? I heard you calling out.” Worry creased the older woman’s face.

“I . . . talk to myself in my sleep. What time is it?”

“Near seven, miss.”

“I am going to be late!” Rachel grabbed her brush and began dragging it through the stubborn tendrils of her hair.

“I brought you breakfast.” Mrs. Mainprice held out her tray—toast, an egg, and coffee on its lacquered surface. “But you might not have time. Master’s in the library already. Waiting.”

Not good. “I shall not be late again. I promise.”

“No need to promise me, miss,” she answered, leaving the tray teetering on the bedside chair.

The clock rang seven as Rachel turned the corner of the first-floor landing. Dr. Edmunds was outside the library, waiting for her as advertised.

“Ah, Miss Dunne, there you are,” he said, his voice steady and calm. “Did you sleep well?”

A strand of his dark hair had fallen down over his brow, curled boyishly, so incongruous on that serious face. She noticed anew how handsome he was, possibly the handsomest man she had ever seen, especially when he wasn’t frowning at her. Which he wasn’t.

Thank heavens.

“I did sleep well, Dr. Edmunds. Apparently too well. I am sorry if I am late. That is not my habit.”

“Don’t worry. You’re just on time. Come along.” He shoved the errant strand of hair off his forehead and entered the library, moving across the carpet in long strides. She hurried to keep up. “I’ve a large collection of books, some of which I inherited from my father, many of which are duplicates of what I previously owned. I need them all logged so I can decide which I should keep and which I should give away.”

Large barely described the endless rows upon rows of books, shelves not sufficient to contain them all. Some rested atop a corner table; others were stacked in a neat pile. Could he or his father possibly have read every one? Or did he own them simply because he could, a rich man’s habit?

“There are . . . so many” She felt inadequate in the midst of such an obvious show of wealth.

“Do you find the quantity daunting to catalog, Miss Dunne?”

Rachel confidently squared her shoulders; she could ill afford him to think her incompetent. “There are simply more books than I have ever seen, is all. I am up to the task.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Let me show you the system I’ve devised.”

Her responsibility was straightforward: classify the books by topic and log them accordingly. Organizing his collection would be tedious but simple, bookkeeping of a sort she understood. She nodded as he spoke. Yes, she could separate the books of poetry from the works of botany and track them separately. Yes, she understood that he wanted common topics merged—all books on travel in England maintained apart from those discussing Europe.

“Not difficult at all, Dr. Edmunds.”

His eyes seemed to brighten, as though a smile was captured within them but was unable to escape. She could stand there for some time, looking at those eyes, so harsh and beautiful and captivating at the same time, like the heart of a storm cloud.

“You will also need to assist in packing some of the household things, in addition to the contents of my medical office,” he said. “My plan is to close down my practice in a month and leave for Finchingfield, where I’ve inherited my family’s small estate. As a result of the short time remaining and the sudden absence of my attendant, the staff needs your assistance. Which is why I took you on.”

“None of the work should be difficult, Dr. Edmunds.”

“Excellent.” He offered a brisk smile, and Rachel soaked up his approval like a bone-dry cloth soaking up water. I should like to see him smile more often, and more fully. He would look less stern and forbidding if he did.

He turned on his heel. “Now for the office. There is a great deal to be done in there.”

Swallowing down a burst of nerves, Rachel followed him out of the library. “You need me to pack all of the contents?”

“Yes, but not for me to take along when I move. I’m retiring from the practice of medicine and becoming a gentleman farmer.”

Rachel knew surprise had to show on her face. He was too young to retire. “You are no longer going to be a physician in Finchingfield?”

“No, I’m not. A friend of mine who attended medical college with me, Dr. Thaddeus Castleton, is taking over my practice, along with most of the contents of my office. I’ve already transferred many of my patients to him.”

Did Dr. Edmunds sound regretful of his decision? She couldn’t tell.

They arrived at the rear ground-floor room he used for his consultations. Dr. Edmunds extracted a key from his waistcoat pocket, turned it in the lock, and went inside. The room was cool, shadowy like much of the house, and smelled of camphor. The aroma bit into her nose and tightened her throat, but it drew her in nonetheless, her curiosity beckoning.

He lit a lamp upon his desk. “I keep the room shuttered against the outside. I’ve always felt the quiet helps calm my patients.”

The room was as neat and tidy as he was. A sturdy oak desk filled most of the space, the forgotten remains of his breakfast fighting with orderly piles of paperwork for space upon its surface. His chair stood behind and another in front, padded with several thick pillows, while a narrow sofa was positioned against the wall with a small drop-leaf table at its side. Shallow bookshelves on the opposite wall bracketed a glass-fronted cabinet. Rachel peered inside and found it contained what any healer would need—powders and pills for the stomach, ointments that would treat rashes or sties of the eye, fever mixture, styptic water. Laudanum. She could smell their aromas without unstoppering a bottle or opening a packet—the acidic bite, the odd sweetness.

She straightened, curiosity satisfied. Those aromas belonged in her failed past.

“I did not expect to find the space so sparsely equipped.” She had never been in a physician’s office before. Her family could not afford the services of a doctor. Neither could most folks in Carlow, leaving them to the care of the apothecary, or women like her mother and herself.

I tried so hard, Mary. Though none of the Fergusons had believed that.

“I require little more than what you see,” he said. “As a physician, I don’t need saws or bottles of leeches. And I do not stock more than a minimum of medicines in that cabinet. It’s easy enough to obtain preparations from a nearby apothecary. There’s no need for me to keep much on hand in the office, aside from simple instruments such as my stethoscope.”

Crossing to a table against the far wall, he opened an intricately inlaid walnut case polished to a dizzying sheen. He pulled out three pieces of pale wood tubing, one bell-shaped on its end, and began fitting them together.

“It’s a device to aid in listening to the heart and lungs, Miss Dunne,” he continued. “I purchased it last year in France. When I hired Miss Guimond, in fact. It’s quite simple yet elegant. Would you like to examine it?” Pride lifted his voice.

“No. Thank you, Dr. Edmunds.” At one time, she would have been intrigued.

Returning the stethoscope to its case, he pressed his hand gently upon the lid to close it, running his fingertips across the top of the case until they slid off the nearest side. A strange little gesture, bittersweet. Clearly regretful.

“On these shelves and in my desk are where I keep my patient files . . .”

Rachel crossed to his desk to follow his instruction when her gaze settled on a medical text atop it, previously hidden from her view by the stacks of paper. Pages lay open to a small illustration of the inside of a swollen throat.

In a flash, she was back at Mary Ferguson’s bedside, her face the oddest shade of blue . . . Wake up, Mary. “Oh,” she muttered. Every ounce of blood left her head to pool in her feet.

“Miss Dunne, you are unwell.” Dr. Edmunds clutched her elbow to keep her from falling. What did he see on her face, in her eyes? A woman who had failed at the one thing she’d long believed herself most competent at—healing? “Why didn’t you tell me?”

His hand shifted to feel her pulse, brushing back with his thumb the cuff banding her sleeve. At the gentle touch of his hand, her blood came rushing back, a wall she ran into full force.

“Doctor . . .” She jumped back, jerked her sleeve down over her hand. “I . . . Dr. Edmunds. I assure you I am not ill. I missed breakfast, that is all, and am still weary from my journey. You need not examine me.”

He looked almost as startled as she felt. “I didn’t mean to upset you. My apologies again for being overly familiar. It seems I cannot help myself. A physician’s habit.”

“I . . . I need to go outside.” What was wrong with her? She was made of sturdier stock than what she was exhibiting. Irish stock. Timelessly strong, weathered but never beaten, the blood of Celtic warriors in her veins.

Too late to wish for her hastily discarded sachet. “I must catch a breath of air.”

“Let me escort you. If you faint, you might strike your head and hurt yourself.”

His words echoed down the hallway after her, because she had already fled.





“Miss Dunne looks unwell, sir.” Depositing the morning newspapers on the office desk, Mrs. Mainprice peered at James, the corners of her eyes creasing until her skin looked like the pattern of cracks in a glaze of sugar. “I passed her in the hallway, rushing headfirst for the garden, white as a ghost.”

“She nearly fainted in here. Something in my medical text upset her.” It lay open to a section on throat diseases. He’d been advising Dr. Calvert on the treatment of a patient suffering from diptheritis, and the picture of swelling and excess membranous tissue, though unpleasant, was far from the worst. Although the illustration had certainly bothered Miss Dunne. “I suppose I should have listened when she told me she’d had a bad experience with illness. Whatever happened, it’s made her apprehensive. She hasn’t told you anything of her past, has she, Mrs. Mainprice?”

“Very little, sir. Just that times were hard back in Ireland and she came here in search of work. The girls tried to get her to say more, but she’s closed tight as a mussel shell. Not a happy past, I’d warrant. She’s borne something unpleasant, but ’tis that not true for most of us?”

His housekeeper’s eyes, which always reminded him of pure country earth, were filled with sympathy. As much for him as for the newly arrived, and increasingly intriguing, Miss Dunne.

James flipped shut his medical book. “I wonder if Miss Dunne is going to be able to do what I need from her, after all.”

“I think Miss Dunne wants to be helpful, and I trust she’ll work hard.” She swept up his dirty dishes from breakfast, loading them into her arms. “Besides, she’s got a good heart.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“There’s not much gets past me, sir.”

He knew how true that was. Mrs. Mainprice had served his family since James had been a boy, and she’d always been keenly observant. Father had relied on her advice when hiring other servants and James had done likewise, because she could see through the hardest of shells right down to the meaty core of a person. He suspected she was seeing right down to the core of him at that moment too.

“I suppose I should go out to the garden and see how she’s faring,” he said.

“Miss Dunne might appreciate a kind word, sir.”

“Then I dare not dawdle.”

Once she departed with the dirty dishes, James headed out through the rear door of the house and into the murky London morning. He averted his eyes from the tattered condition of the flower beds. He hadn’t come out here to remember former days.

Miss Dunne heard the crunch of boots upon the gravel walk and looked over. Hastily, she stood. “Dr. Edmunds, I did not mean to spend so long in the garden—”

He halted her with a raised hand. “Take as long as you need.”

The color was returning to her cheeks. She was very lovely, fresh and bright in a way so many of the young women of his acquaintance weren’t, their faces already dulled by cynicism and self-obsession. Even Louisa Castleton, only nineteen and jaded.

“I am certain you would prefer I got to work in the library,” she said. “You are not paying me to enjoy the flowers.”

What little was left of them. “I’m not, but I’m also not paying you to endure situations that make you ill. Don’t feel badly over what occurred in my office. If you aren’t comfortable attending to my patients, I understand. I shall be able to manage them on my own, I’m sure.”

“Thank you for your kindness, Dr. Edmunds.”

“It isn’t kindness to recognize when a member of my staff is unsuited for a particular task. It is an investment toward a well-run household.”

“Nonetheless, I do not like to cause a commotion or be a bother.”

But she already had caused a commotion, if the surprising way he felt when he touched her hand was any indication. Selfishly—or stupidly—he was looking forward to discovering what further surprises were in store.

“I believe, Miss Dunne, you would never be a bother to me.”