My face burned as he raised their expectations even higher. I wished there was a cure to rid a room of Mr. Braddock.
“Good morning, Miss Wyndham,” she greeted me as I stepped closer to the bed. Despite her sickness, Miss Lodge was an exceptionally pretty girl. Large, luminous gray eyes, a perfect upturned nose, and lovely golden hair that was probably even brighter when she was healthy—now it was plastered against her damp forehead. It was the shade of her skin that seemed strange. Oddly dark, yet unhealthy and at odds with her light eyes and hair.
Her parents informed me that Cushing was at my full disposal for all necessary medicines and supplies and they would only return to check on Miss Lodge’s progress whenever I deemed it fit. They exited with hope lingering on their faces. I silently cursed Mr. Braddock for putting me in such a position. Deciding to curse him out loud, I asked him for a private word.
“Mr. Braddock, you are a very unthinking person to give these people false hope!” I whispered when we stepped into the hall. “I don’t even know what this disease is!”
“I know you don’t believe me about your abilities,” he replied. “But I don’t believe it as impossible as you say. And we have an agreement.”
“Fine, I shall honor it by attempting to use my ever-so-magical powers to cure your friend of this affliction I know nothing about. But if you want your friend to actually recover, I suggest you start looking for my sister now. She is the only one who might begin to help.”
“I told you already, I do intend to help you even if you are unable to cure Miss Lodge,” he replied, frowning as though I had assumed otherwise. “I’ll leave you to it now. If there is anything that can lessen her pain . . .”
“I will do what I can, but that is likely nothing!”
“Just please, try . . . holding her hand, measuring her pulse, anything. As mad as it may sound, I beg of you—I believe it works through direct contact.”
I faltered, thrown by his apparent sincerity. Reluctantly, I nodded.
He continued: “I understand you feel quite thrown into a difficult situation—”
“A sterling observation.”
He smiled determinedly and continued, taking a small step closer. “So truly, thank you. Thank you for even coming today. I will not forget it.”
I had the clever response of opening my mouth and letting air run through it. The small space between us seemed to fill with a strange vibration. I finally just nodded again. He wished me a good afternoon and descended the stairs. My hands found the doorknob, and my feet brought me back into Miss Lodge’s room, half dazed.
The first order of business was to liven up the dismal space. Rose detested the propensity to leave a sick person’s room somber and miserable. She called it an early concession to death. I began by tying up the drapes, flinging open the shutters, and letting the light flood in while my patient observed me silently. Soon, the pale light of rainy London bathed the room in a soothing gray.
A paper and pencil in hand, I sat in the chair next to her bed.
“Miss Lodge. How are you feeling today?”
“Better than most days . . . I was nauseated earlier this morning, but it passed. Thank you for seeing me, Miss Wyndham.” She smiled serenely, quite willing to have my presence in her sickroom. I smiled back, completely unsure of what to do next.
“I am happy to do what I can. Now, can you tell me your symptoms?”
She listed them in such rapid succession that my hand struggled to keep pace. For the past month, she frequently suffered from nausea and vomiting, fatigue, lack of appetite, weight loss, and a change in skin color. The extreme weakness kept her confined to bed the past two weeks. The last doctor to see her said she would be lucky to survive the winter.
Truly, this strange disease dwarfed anything Rose and I had ever dealt with. Miss Lodge’s calm disposition helped cover it up, but when she went quiet, tightly squeezed her eyes shut, and lay back down as a wave of dizziness overtook her, I wondered how much pain she was silently enduring. Calling for Cushing, I quietly asked him for willow bark and boiling water. He observed me curiously, surely doubting the country remedy, but he held his tongue and left to fill my request.
Returning to my patient, we sat in an uncomfortable silence for a moment, smiling politely at the bed linens. She was the one to break it by asking me about Bramhurst in her calm, inviting voice, and we slowly slid into exchanging the typical questions and answers of new acquaintances. The details and description of Bramhurst quite enthralled her, reawakening her childhood memories of the times spent in her grandmother’s old countryside home with her brother, Henry. And drawing on our mutual acquaintance, she began to regale me with stories of Mr. Braddock and their many misadventures.
“And there was the day I almost jumped off the roof,” Miss Lodge said with a giggle and shrug, as if it were some small matter.