The Irish Healer

Chapter 7





I am truly sorry, Mrs. Mainprice, but I cannot attend services this morning. My head is splitting,” Rachel fibbed, padding the horrible untruth with an apologetic smile. She did not have a headache yet, but she would if she had to face God in His house.

“Another bad night’s sleep, miss?”

“No, not at all.” Thankfully, last night had been free of nightmares. “I simply do not feel well. I must still be adjusting to London and all its noises and whatnot. I hope Dr. Edmunds will not mind.”

“If you need a powder, I keep some in the pantry off the kitchen.”

“I might just sit in the garden for a while. Sunlight and fresh air should cure it.”

“We’re off to St. Peter’s, then.” She bustled out of Rachel’s room. Rachel heard the front door closing downstairs. She let a few minutes pass before she headed out to the garden.

The garden was just as quiet—and just as sad-looking—as it had been yesterday. Weeds intermingled with flowers, many of which were exotic types she did not recognize and certainly would never see in Ireland. The gravel paths needed new rocks and the stone milkmaid fountain standing guard at the center sprouted a growth of black mold along her skirts. Even the bricks in the wall needed fresh mortar. It had to have been beautiful once. If it were her garden, the roses would still be blooming and scenting the air with the rich perfume Mother so loved. Instead the roses grew spindly, dead blossoms choking the ends, their promise of beauty and hope faded and gone.

She and the roses were kindred spirits, Rachel thought as she sank onto one of the iron benches, and why she found the garden strangely consoling. It had certainly settled her mind yesterday, after that disaster in Dr. Edmunds’s office. Or had it been his sudden thoughtfulness that had calmed her?

“Eh, there, Miss Dunne.” Joe’s voice, followed by the slap of the rear door shutting, interrupted her thoughts.

“Oh, Joe. Good morning. I thought you were at church with the others.”

“Too many chores today. Don’ tell Dr. E.” He winked. “You all right, then? Heard your ’ead was botherin’ you.”

“It is much better, out here in the fresh air.”

“I guess it’s fresh,” he said, pushing back his cap to scratch his head. Joe sniffed the air. “I think it smells like the ’orses out in the mews.”

She grinned at his comment. Thank heavens someone in this household could lift her spirits. Someone besides Dr. Edmunds on the rare occasions when he smiled or told her she would never be a bother.

“What are you about this morning?” Rachel asked, nodding at the thin-bladed saw hanging from his hand.

“I’ve come to trim the branches of the pear tree there. It’s ’alf-dead. Though it seems awful late an’ all to be trimmin’ the trees in ’ere. The garden’s gotten so tattered, were it a cloth a rag-picker’d want nothin’ to do with it.”

“Why was it permitted to go to such ruin?”

Joe shrugged. “Dr. E stopped anyone from tendin’ it after ’is wife died. Reminded him of ’er, I s’pose. Was ’er garden, an’ all. But it’s not like ’e was gonna do the work ’imself. Coulda hired a gardener to keep it trimmed and tidied. I woulda done the work meself,” he stated, dropping the saw beneath the sickly tree and wandering off to retrieve a ladder propped against the rear wall.

Dr. Edmunds’s wife’s garden. Her death must have pained him deeply, for him to have ignored the garden so as not to be reminded of her.

“It is a shame, even for that reason,” she said when Joe returned.

“That it is,” he replied, setting up the ladder. “I coulda got those lilacs bloomin’ again.”

“You really would like to be a gardener.” She tried to imagine Joe, scrappy and streetwise, hunkered down among pansies and ladies’ slipper.

“I grew up in the stews, but I still remember the first time I saw Hyde Park. So green it made your eyes ’urt.”

“You would like Ireland, Joe. It is a green like you might never imagine here in London.” Here, the colors were muted by the soot and fog, like clothing that had been washed one too many times. “The sky overhead can be soft and blue like ducks’ eggs or ruffled with scudding clouds. And when the heather blooms purple, there is nothing sweeter on this earth than to lie down among its scented flowers. My little sisters love to bury their faces in the blossoms and breathe deep . . .” Oh, this was making her heart hurt worse than thoughts of church services. She had to stop.

“So ya see why I like bein’ out ’ere. It were pretty, when I first got ’ere, a few months after the missus died. Not anymore.” He shook his head and started climbing the ladder.

“Why not go ahead and tend to the garden yourself?” Rachel asked. “I doubt anyone would stop you.”

“I’m the boy, Miss Dunne. I know my place and my place knows me. I don’ aspire to better than what I got.”

“Is it so wrong to aspire to greater? I always wanted . . .” Rachel stopped before she voiced her wants. Any dreams she’d once owned had died in a cramped and filthy room back in Carlow.

“Wanted what, miss?” Joe asked, sawing away at a dead branch.

At one time she’d intended to write a book on everything she had learned about herbs and medicines and nursing. Too many women had to rely on word-of-mouth and unreliable recipes handed down by family members. A straightforward book written in plain words would be helpful to many. But no one would seek to purchase medicinal recipes written by someone accused of killing a patient. Unless they anticipated such a treatise would teach them about poisons.

“Nothing, Joe. I have had to put my lofty dreams away in favor of a more practical reality. I came to England to find a position as a teacher.” I shall be good at it, and teaching will not require nursing skills. “To me, there is no work more fulfilling than helping children.”

“Teacher, eh? That sounds right good, miss. I’ve never ’ad learnin’ meself.”

“Maybe I could tutor you a little while I am here.”

“Naw. Books an’ all scare me.” Joe grunted as the saw blade stuck in the branch.

“But a gardener who can read would be very valuable. It would make it easier to reach your dream, Joe.” Her dream might be dead, but his needn’t be.

“Me mum always said not to give up until God shows us our end an’ they’re shovelin’ dirt on top our coffins.” Joe worked the blade back and forth on the branch, trying to free it. He glanced over at Rachel. “But look what good dreamin’ done for ’er. Died of the pox.” He suddenly groaned and let fly a curse as the blade whipped loose, throwing him off balance. Arms wheeling, he fell from the ladder and thudded to the ground. The saw skidded across the gravel.

“Joe!” Rachel ran over to him, crouched down. His cap had flown off and she felt along the back of his skull, her hands moving with long practice that required no thought.

He winced as her finger found a lump. “It’s nothin’.”

“Does anything hurt? Your head? Your legs? Back?”

“No. It’s nothin’.”

He tried to sit up, but Rachel pressed him back onto the ground. “It is not nothing. You have a bump on your head and you cut your arm with the saw. Press your hand to the wound and lie still. Do not move.” She gave him a shove on the shoulder to keep him down. If he had broken or strained anything, movement would only aggravate the injury. “I will fetch something for the cut.”

The office door was locked tight, and Dr. Edmunds had not entrusted her with the key. Rachel rushed down to the empty kitchen. Mrs. Mainprice had mentioned she kept headache powders. Maybe she would have other medicines as well.

Rachel located the housekeeper’s supplies. After a few moments of searching, Rachel found dried cuttings of the mushroom known as agaric of oak but no sticking plaster. The agaric would quench the bleeding. Her binding would have to seal the wound shut.

Snatching up a clean rag from a pile lying next to the sink, then dipping a mug into the pitcher of fresh water standing nearby, she hurried back out to the garden. Joe had followed her directions and remained stretched out on the ground. However, he looked peevish.

“Ya know what yer doin’?” Joe eyed her as she tore the rag into two halves.

“Lie still. I am going to wash your wound then apply agaric of oak to it. The bleeding should stop. I will have to tie a rag around your arm until sticking plaster can be obtained to keep the wound closed.”

She worked quickly, carefully, probing the wound for any gravel or dirt stuck within, picking out what she could and pouring the clean water over the cut. Thankfully, the saw had not penetrated far. A deeper cut would require more serious medicine than what she had brought.

“Mrs. M would say God’s watchin’ over me, to ’ave you on ’and to patch me up. I coulda been out ’ere screamin’ for ’elp till I bled to death. That’s what I get for not goin’ to services.”

God. Him again. “I do not know that my presence in the garden was any blessing at all.” Crushing the dried mushroom, she pushed it into the wound and wrapped the cloth around his arm, sealing it shut. “It’s my fault the blade slipped and you fell. I distracted you with my silly conversation about aspirations.”

“Naw. Don’t be blamin’ yerself, miss.”

But she did. Of course, she did.

Finishing up, Rachel helped Joe lean against the tree trunk. She settled back on her heels. And nearly collapsed onto the rocky path when she realized what she’d just done. Poor Joe. Had she cleaned the wound well enough? The cut might get infected; she had seen shallower wounds fester and blacken, resulting in amputations. Without his arm, Joe would be useless as a servant . . .

Rachel lurched toward the bench and pulled herself onto the seat while she gulped air and fought lightheadedness. Breathe in. Breathe out. Do not faint.

Startled, Joe sat up. “The cut’s not that bad, is it, miss?”

“I do not believe so.”

“Good! Cause as green as you look, I’da thought my arm were gonna fall clean off.” His eyes widened. “’ey, wait now. Where’d you learn to doctor like this?”

He’d taken longer than she had expected to ask the question. “I learned bits here and there about herbs and tending. Mostly from my mother. Things any woman might know.”

“Not jus’ bits an’ not jus’ any woman, miss.”

Standing on legs as wobbly as a newborn colt’s, Rachel snatched the damp rag and mug off the ground. She needed to get away before he asked any other questions and she had to come up with more answers. “I need to get back to my work now, Joe. Rest there until you feel stronger.”

“But, miss!”

She hurried toward the house. Dr. Edmunds was destined to hear how his new assistant, who had claimed to have no knowledge of medical things, who had nearly fainted in his office, had known how to tend Joe’s wound. There would be more questions and more prevarications from her, adding to the stack growing like a refuse pile.

Oh, Rachel, your soul is going to be black as a charred pot bottom before all is said and done.

She suppressed the voice, reached for the rear door latch, and stepped into the cool darkness, away from Joe’s quizzical gaze.





On the Monday after Miss Dunne had been too unwell to attend church services, James wandered down the hallway toward the library, a bundle of patient notes he had been consulting tucked in his hand. He needed to discuss with Miss Dunne how he wanted the paperwork handled for this particular patient—a crotchety old gentleman who his father had tended before handing him off to James. He paused before entering the library. How many times precisely had he found an excuse to come up here today? The first occasion, he’d come to check that she had fully recovered from yesterday’s headache. The next had been to relay some information on when the packing crates would arrive. Another had been to review her progress on her first full day of working in his library. So that made two . . . no, three times.

Three times? Surely I’m too busy to keep finding reasons to talk with her.

After all, he was not the sort of man who was normally intrigued by women he barely knew Especially those who worked for him.

James peered into the library. Miss Dunne leaned over the ledger spread across his desk, a curling tendril of coppery hair come loose from her chignon to fall along her chin, and chewed her bottom lip as she concentrated on her entries. Who was she really? he wondered. She was well educated, her voice betraying only a trace of her Irish heritage, and she held herself as if she were used to possessing authority and being respected. But her clothes were worn, the material shiny in spots where it had rubbed against surfaces, the hems of her two dresses taken down more than once. Poor and Irish, Sophia would say with a disdainful sneer. Words that went together like cold and winter. Or patent medicine and unreliable.

Miss Dunne backed away from the desk, retreating to the far bookshelves, and James inched closer to the doorway not to lose sight of her. She was humming quietly, some Irish country tune perhaps. She must miss home; he suspected she had never been away before.

She brushed back the loose strand of hair, tucking it behind her ear. Her fingers were long and elegant, and she kept them meticulously clean. A habit James had as well, vitally necessary when treating disease every day. An unusual habit for someone in her situation, though.

“Sir?” Molly’s voice jerked him back from the doorway. Her eyes narrowed as they glanced between him and what she could see of the library. “Is there something you’re needing, sir?”

“I was going to instruct Miss Dunne on a patient’s files,” he explained, waving the papers as proof even though he didn’t have to provide any reason to his house-maid for loitering outside his library.

“Are you wanting me to help with your patients today?” she asked hopefully.

“No. Miss Dunne will help if I need any assistance. You may continue with your chores up here.” He nodded at the dirty bed linens bundled in her arms.

Her expression went rigid. “Yes, sir.”

Briskly, James turned on his heel and headed for the stairs, his forgotten papers dangling from his hand.