Chapter 14
The next morning, Anne slept in a bit later than usual. When she awoke, she lay in bed for a few luxurious moments, stretching and reflecting with pleasure on her evening spent talking and dancing with Dr. Finch, even as questions about him and Rosa lingered, and despite Mr. Palling’s news.
Then, with a glance at her watch pin, she rose and set about her morning routine: counting Lady Celia’s pulse and observing any changes in her symptoms, walking Louie, retrieving Lady Celia’s breakfast, administering her morning dose of digitalis, and bolstering her with pillows to ease her breathing.
Later, she went down to the stillroom to prepare more of the juniper-and-dandelion diuretic and another batch of headache pills for Miss Fitzjohn.
Finding herself almost out of willow bark, she looked in on Lady Celia once more, then put on bonnet and gloves for a quick walk to the druggist’s shop, taking Louie along for extra exercise.
When Anne returned sometime later, the housemaid met her at the side door and offered to take Louie belowstairs for water and a treat.
“Thank you, Jane.”
“Lady Celia already rang for tea while you were out,” Jane added. “But I can deliver her luncheon tray in a bit. I’ll be coming up anyway.”
“That will save me a trip. Thank you.”
Anne climbed the stairs, removing her bonnet and gloves as she did, and went through Sir Herbert’s room to stow her things on her way back to her patient.
She heard the moaning even before she opened the dressing room door. Another bad dream or something worse?
Anne threw down her things and ran to Lady Celia’s bedside. The woman groaned and sat up, twisting the bedclothes around her.
“My lady, what is it? Not more shellfish?”
“No, no fish.” She peered around the room. “Everything is yellow.” Her gaze landed on Anne. “You are yellow. Are you jaundiced?” She squinted. “And you are wearing a halo.”
Anne’s heart thudded hard, her stomach tensing in fear.
Lady Celia sank back, hand to her chest. “I feel so odd. . . .”
Anne put her fingers on the woman’s wrist and counted. Her pulse was too slow and irregular in the bargain.
How had it happened? She had measured carefully and correctly—she knew she had.
Then why was Lady Celia showing signs of digitalis overdose?
“Rosa! Rosa!” Anne shouted.
The lady’s maid came running, no doubt hearing the frantic note in Anne’s voice. She pushed through the door. “What is it?”
“Please run and summon one or both doctors—whoever can get here the fastest.”
After a wide-eyed look toward the sufferer on the bed, the younger woman hurried away to carry out the request.
Then Anne set about doing all she knew to try in such a case. She used a mustard-and-water emetic along with a throat feather to induce vomiting. She followed that with a course of castor oil.
Dr. Marsland came bustling in a short while later, black bag in hand, face red with exertion. Dr. Finch followed on his heels.
She quickly explained Lady Celia’s symptoms and the measures she had taken so far.
The physicians took over from there.
When things had calmed down and Lady Celia seemed to be stable, Dr. Finch gave her a sympathetic look and departed for an appointment he was late for—he was expected at Damsell’s to attend an ailing Mrs. Cox.
When it was only the two of them, and a sleeping Lady Celia, Dr. Marsland and Anne spoke quietly together near the fireplace.
“How did it happen?” he asked, his tone gentle, even kind.
“I don’t know. I always measure so carefully. I looked at the syrup bottle after you arrived. The level is lower than it should be. I keep the bottle in the dressing room where I sleep but I don’t have a key to lock that door. Anyone could have gone in and found it.”
He frowned. “What are you suggesting?”
“That someone could have added some to her teacup there on the side table while I was out and she dozed.” The teacup, Anne noticed, was now empty.
“Who? Who would do that?”
“I don’t know.” She recalled Jane saying she had taken up tea but surely the housemaid would not do such a thing.
His eyes turned down at the corners. Sad. Pitying. “Is not the more likely explanation that you gave her too large a dose? We all make mistakes, Miss Loveday. Let us be grateful this one was not more serious.”
Had she made a mistake? Somehow given Lady Fitzjohn too large a dose or an additional dose, forgetting she had already done so? She didn’t think she had. At least, she hoped not. God have mercy. . . .
He added, “To be safe, I will replace that bottle straightaway with a new one. For if she did not consume too large a dose, then what she did consume might have been tainted or incorrectly prepared somehow.”
“Oh. Yes, good idea.”
Anne was rather surprised Dr. Marsland did not dismiss her on the spot. Probably would have, were there another qualified person available. She was relieved she did not have to leave in disgrace.
Anne had been gaining confidence in her role as sickroom nurse. She told herself this was only a setback. It did not mean she would end a failure. Anne was grateful she had been given another chance, and she would make sure nothing like this happened again.
Alerted to the situation by Dr. Marsland, Lady Celia’s daughter and nephews came upstairs with him, faces tight with concern.
Anne felt as though she faced a firing squad.
Unease and embarrassment flooded her, making it difficult to meet their wary gazes. Yet she knew she had done nothing wrong.
Had she?
Katherine asked a few questions, as did Jude, looking skeptical and suspicious. Worse yet, her old friend Jasper looked disappointed as well.
Dr. Marsland needed to go and see another patient, but he pressed Miss Fitzjohn’s hand and told her to send for him if her mother took a turn for the worse.
The nephews followed him out while Katherine remained. She and Anne sat together at Lady Celia’s bedside. Eventually Rosa brought them something to eat, although neither had much appetite.
Dr. Finch returned that evening after attending his other patient and came upstairs to look in on Lady Celia once more.
He listened to her heart with his wooden tube and counted her pulse using his pulse watch. “Heart rate is still irregular,” he said. “Pulse still slow but improving. Both should return to previous levels in a day or two.”
Miss Fitzjohn said, “Dr. Finch, I wonder if you might do us a great favor?”
“Anything. If I am able.”
“Would you stay here tonight with Mamma? Just until we are sure she is out of danger?”
“Well, I . . . I suppose I could. If, well, if perhaps Miss Stark might go to Valley View and let my housekeeper know?”
“I don’t see why not. It’s not as though either Mamma or I shall need a lady’s maid tonight.”
“Very well,” he said. “In that case, I shall stay.”
An hour or so later, after Rosa had gone to Valley View Lodge and returned to let him know all was well in hand there, Dr. Finch sat in one of the two armchairs near the fire.
In the bed, Lady Celia slept on, her body clearly taxed by the surplus of digitalis as well as the measures taken to counteract it.
Anne brought him a blanket. “You know where the water closet is, I believe, and I’ve left a towel and extra teeth cleaning supplies for you. What else do you need?”
“I will be fine, thank you.”
“I am sorry about this. I truly don’t think I gave her more than prescribed, but I can’t prove it.”
“I know you are careful and diligent, Miss Loveday. Perhaps when Lady Celia is more herself, she might remember something that will help us figure out how it happened . . . not with an eye to blame, but to avoid another such occurrence, for her sake as well as yours.”
Anne nodded, grateful for his compassion and encouraging words.
She said, “It is good of you to stay, especially when I know you have . . . responsibilities at home.”
He nodded. “That’s all right. We’ll all manage. For one night.”
“Anything I can do to help, just let me know.”
“Thank you, Miss Loveday.”
Anne returned to her own room, changed into a nightdress, unpinned her hair, and lay down. But thinking of him in the next room, sitting in one of the armchairs all night, Anne could not sleep. She rose again, wrapped her dressing gown around herself and stepped back into Lady Celia’s room.
The patient slept on while Dr. Finch sat reading by firelight and the low light of the green-shaded lamp.
He’d removed his cravat but was otherwise fully dressed.
At her step, his head lifted, and his gaze followed her, lingering over her nightclothes and the long plait of hair hanging over one shoulder.
“I’ve just had another listen,” he said softly, “and her heart and pulse are stable and her breathing regular. Go to sleep, Miss Loveday.”
“I don’t feel right, you sleeping in a chair. You could have my bed, and I could sleep in the dressing room. I can’t put you in there, in case Lady Celia should need the commode in the night, but I could sleep there.”
“Kind of you to offer, but I don’t think it would be . . . quite the thing . . . to sleep in your bed.”
Anne felt heat rush to her face. “I suppose not.”
He nodded toward the second armchair near the fire. “You might . . . sit with me for a time.”
Anne hesitated only a moment. “Very well.”
He offered her the blanket.
“Keep it. I’ll find another.” She retrieved one from her room and then sat in the armchair near him.
They were quiet for a time, staring into the fire, and then he said in a low voice, “This must be especially difficult for you. Miss Fitzjohn mentioned you nursed your own mother before she passed. Could you . . . tell me about it? About her?”
Anne hoped Miss Fitzjohn had not told him to cast more doubt on her capabilities. At the moment, Anne felt too weary to defend herself even if she had.