Chapter 27 #2
By the time Dr. Andrews arrived, the valet and a total of three footmen had succeeded in carrying Thomas upstairs to his room, one man for each limb, and a chambermaid guarding his head.
“You’ll stay with him, won’t you, Jackson?” Harry called after the valet.
“He will, my lady,” Whitson said.
At Harry’s insistence, Dr. Andrews first went upstairs to examine her husband.
He returned and reported to Harry that Thomas would have a headache in the morning but would otherwise be tip-top.
Harry felt just a little tightness go out of her chest. She hadn’t even realized the tightness had been there until it dissipated.
Her husband would be fine. But would he really be fine?
What about . . . ? She would have to find a way to ask Alasdair privately.
Dr. Andrews made Harry go into the dining room after the staff had lit all the candles in the chandelier and rolled up the carpets. It was the best light available at night, he explained. Harry then tried to get Whitson and the others to go to bed.
“Smythe can get everything Dr. Andrews needs.” She smiled because she knew smiling reassured others.
“’Twill be the work of several hours,” Dr Andrews said as he examined Harry’s hand.
“There are nae injuries to major vessels, and, see, the bleeding has slowed. Miraculously, I think perhaps only two metacarpal bones and two phalanges have been broken, but the hand will need extensive cleaning. I will need to examine and repair any tendons that may have been lacerated, and of course, all glass must be removed and the skin lacerations closed. Only then can I set the bones and splint the hand.”
“And then I’ll be good as new.” Again, Harry smiled at the staff.
“Some of these tendons can be very tricky, my lady.” Dr. Andrews looked worried. Harry clapped him on the shoulder with her good left hand.
“I believe in you, Alasdair.”
Whitson dispatched the kitchen maid to make more coffee.
Harry’s maid Smythe would stay and fetch what Dr. Andrews needed, including more towels and candles.
Whitson himself would stay in the kitchen so as to be available at a moment’s notice.
The horses could be stabled, and the rest of the staff could go to bed until it was time for Dr. Andrews to leave.
“But Jackson will stay with Lord Drake?” Harry asked again.
Whitson exhaled heavily and said, “He will, my lady.”
The next hours were some of the most agonizing Harry had ever spent.
It wasn’t really the pain of having her hand probed and washed and finally sewn.
It was the tedium. She had so much energy right now.
She drank cup after cup of coffee with her left hand, trying to keep her right hand as still as possible for Dr. Andrews.
Finally, Smythe fell asleep sitting bolt upright in a chair against the wall.
As Dr. Andrews peered at her hand in the flickering candlelight, Harry looked at the gilt-framed mirrors lining the walls of the dining room, reflecting the light over and over again.
“You know, Alasdair, if you had a curved mirror, you could reflect an intensified light onto something you needed to look at.”
“Mmmph,” Dr. Andrews said and pulled a sliver of glass from Harry’s hand.
“You could have an assistant who would hold the mirror and an assistant who would hold a lamp.”
“’Tis a lot of assistants for a country doctor, Harry.”
“If you held the mirror, and the patient held the lamp, you wouldn’t need the assistants.”
“I need both my hands for this type of work.”
“Or the lamp could be on a table.”
“Aye.”
Smythe snored.
“May I ask you a question, Alasdair?” Harry said in a lower voice.
“Aye.”
“It won’t distract you?”
“Nae.”
“Oh, good! You see, I have a question about men.”
“Men?” He peered at her face but then ducked his head to go back to her hand.
“Yes.” Harry sighed. “I suspect it is a rather shocking question, but you are a physician, and I have no one else to ask. I can’t ask Smythe; she would have an apoplectic fit and faint.
I can’t ask his lordship since he is unconscious.
I just wondered if there might be a reason that a man, some man far away from here, er, might not be able to . . . function as he should.”
“Function? In what way?”
“Perhaps it is just a part of him that will not function.”
There was a pause, and the doctor nodded. He took a deep breath. “Harry, there are many reasons.”
“Does it signal a deficiency in him?”
“It could . . .” The doctor seemed unsure of what to say next.
“Does it signal a deficiency in the woman?”
“Nae,” the doctor said quickly.
At that moment, Whitson came into the dining room.
“How does it progress, Doctor?” Whitson boomed. Smythe started awake at the sound of Whitson’s voice.
“It goes well. Lady Drake is very brave and has borne the pain with ne’er a single complaint.”
Whitson continued to stand just over Harry’s shoulder, watching the doctor work.
Harry was silent.
“Er, Lady Drake, have ye read William Shakespeare?” the doctor asked.
Harry thought this was a curious turn in the conversation, but she answered, “I haven’t, although Lord Drake has read me the sonnets. And my stepmother often took us to see the plays in London, but I usually used that time for working through a corollary or a lemma in my head.”
“Are ye familiar with Macbeth?”
“Macbeth?” Harry examined her memory. “I have seen a play with that character in it. And also a Lady Macbeth. The Scottish play.”
“Aye, ’tis set in Scotland, my lady. I think ye should read that play.”
“Oh?”
“I recommend ye read it and pay particular attention to the comic characters.”
Whitson snorted. “I didn’t know doctors were also Shakespearean scholars.”
Dr. Andrews smiled and threaded another piece of catgut onto his needle.
“Everyone should read the Scottish play. Especially the third scene of the second act.”