Chapter 15
The next day, as Anne returned from walking Louie, Rosa met her in the hall. Distress marred her pretty face.
“Lady Celia is sending me to Gloucester! To her favorite modiste there. Now that she’s spending so much time in bed, she wants me to select a new dressing gown for her, like a man’s banyan.
And a new lace cap. I suggested she send Toby, but she insists I go along.
I suppose she’s right that a footman knows nothing about women’s garments. Still . . .”
“I would think you’d be glad for an excuse to go into the city.”
“I don’t want to be gone so long.”
“Gloucester is only six or seven miles away.”
“Even so, the trip there and back will take a few hours. Maybe longer. She wants us to stop at her solicitor’s office while we’re there and apparently Toby has a list of things to gather for Mrs. Pratt as well. What if something should happen while I’m gone?”
“I will be here.”
“No, I don’t mean with Lady Celia. I mean . . .” She groaned. “I do wish he had not made me promise.”
“Who?”
Rosa swept a glance at her from under her lashes, then away again. “Are you someone who prays?”
Anne blinked at the unexpected question. “Yes, although not as often as I should.”
“Will you pray for . . . someone very dear to me? He is not feeling well. Probably nothing serious, but—”
“Is Dr. Finch unwell?”
“No. Not Dr. Finch.” Rosa sighed. “Just pray while I’m gone, will you?”
“Of course I will. I don’t have to know the details.” Though Anne certainly wished she did.
After Rosa left, Anne returned to her patient’s room to take care of Lady Celia, reading to her and helping her to the commode during Rosa’s absence.
A few hours later, Anne took a wriggling Louie outside again. She was just returning to the house when Dr. Finch hurried up the drive, looking harried.
“I need to see Rosa,” he said, following her inside.
“I’m afraid she is not here. She went to Gloucester on an errand for Lady Celia.”
He grimaced. “What? When will she be back?”
Anne glanced at her watch pin. “In another hour or so, I would expect.”
He muttered something under his breath and ran an agitated hand over his face. “Then will you come? I need help with—” he darted a glance around the hall—“a patient.”
Questions spun through her mind. Then why ask for Rosa? And what patient? Remembering Rosa’s distress, Anne thought she knew.
“Your young . . . ward?”
He swallowed. “Yes.”
“I will be happy to help. Just let me see if Jasper or Miss Fitzjohn is available to sit with Lady Celia.” She started up the stairs, and Louie followed.
The doctor called after her, “Bring your medicine case, please. Might save a trip to the druggist’s.”
Leaving Dr. Finch pacing in the hall, Anne hurried to Lady Celia’s room, Louie at her heels. She found Jasper already there with his aunt, book again in hand. “Oh good,” Anne said. “Would you mind staying here till I return? Dr. Finch needs help with a patient.”
“Not at all.”
She looked at Lady Celia. “That is, if you don’t mind, my lady?”
“Go on.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Flit in and out as you please. Never said I needed a dedicated nurse.”
The tart tone stung, but recalling the panic on Dr. Finch’s face, Anne forced a smile, thanked her, and took her leave, diverting briefly to the dressing room to retrieve her case.
She descended quickly to Dr. Finch’s evident relief, and together they hurried out of the house. Anne nearly had to jog to keep up with his longer strides.
As they hurried down Tibbiwell Lane—the two of them rushing along together, medicine case in hand—people turned to stare.
In a quiet aside, she said, “May I suggest an alternate route?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s stop here first.” She gestured to her grandparents’ former home.
“I don’t . . . Why would we?”
“A slight detour. We will arrive quicker this way than going all the way around.”
Anne knocked, and a moment later, kindly Mrs. Baylis answered the door.
“Miss Loveday, a pleasure to see you again. And Dr. Finch, I believe? I’ve only seen you from a distance. Excellent constitution. Never sick a day in my life.”
“Then perhaps today’s the day.” Anne said in a rush, “Would you mind terribly if we took a shortcut through your back garden? There’s something of an emergency at Valley View Lodge.”
Comprehension dawned.
Mrs. Baylis looked past them to the street, where a neighbor and the passing postmistress were watching.
“Of course.” Mrs. Baylis opened the door to them. Then with another glance at the curious onlookers, she gave two loud coughs and closed the door.
Anne squeezed her hand. “Thank you.”
Mrs. Baylis led them to the back of the house. Dr. Finch looked out through the rear windows, eyes widening. “I did not realize anyone had such a good view. . . .”
“Never mind. Best hurry. Heard that poor lamb crying from here.”
“Thank you again.”
The two hurried out and across the garden, reaching Dr. Finch’s back door within moments. He sent Anne a sidelong glance. “I will explain everything later, but let’s see to the child first.”
She nodded her agreement.
Inside the house, they found a woman in an apron bouncing a sobbing baby to no avail. His housekeeper, she assumed.
“I returned as soon as I could,” he said. “This is Miss Loveday, nurse to Lady Celia, come to help. Miss Stark was not available.”
“Good idea. It’s time we had reinforcements. Can’t get him to stop crying.”
“Thank you for trying, Mrs. Tufley.”
He took the child from her and carried him to another room, saying, “When Mrs. Tufley’s daughter came down with a cold, I resigned myself to Robbie contracting the same. But all this crying? I fear it is something worse—a fever. He’s very warm.”
“And no wonder he’s warm, upset as he is.” Anne regarded the child crying inconsolably, nose running, hand to his head.
“Might he have an earache?” she suggested. “One of my half sisters often suffers from them when she has a cold or other respiratory complaint.”
“He certainly seems to be in pain. Many physicians prescribe a mercurial application like quicksilver with sulfur, and purging or blisters on the nape of the neck, but I hate to subject him to those measures when he is already miserable.”
“Good heavens. We don’t need to resort to all that.” She opened her case, shifted through the contents, and lifted a bottle. “Drops of my father’s own making: oil of mullein with garlic and other herbs.”
“What shall I do?”
She took the crying child from him. “Fetch a cool, damp cloth and milk in whatever vessel he’ll take it from.”
When he returned a few minutes later, she gestured toward the rocking chair in the corner. “Sit there.”
He complied, and she handed the child into his arms. “Lean back at an angle, so the drops can penetrate and remain in the ear canal.”
He did so.
She knelt beside the chair and unstopped the lid. Gently tugging on the little boy’s earlobe, she administered a few drops into his ear canal, and rubbed the area to help the oil work its way down. Meanwhile the child continued to cry.
“It will take some time to take effect,” she assured the troubled man.
She offered the child the feeding bottle, which wasn’t so unlike an invalid feeding pot.
As the little boy drank, Anne laid the compress against the sore ear, and Dr. Finch held it in place.
A few minutes later, the child’s cries began to lose their vehemence and volume. And blessed relief, after a few more minutes he settled against Dr. Finch’s chest in relieved slumber.
“Oh, thank you, Lord. And thank you, Miss Loveday. You really are a wonder.”
“Not a wonder. I am simply my father’s daughter. And half sister to four young children who regularly come down with all the usual childhood ailments.”
“I am still grateful. And I value your experience.”
Watching him tenderly hold the child, Anne’s heart warmed even as a question rose to the tip of her tongue, begging to be asked.
She pressed dry lips together, then quietly ventured, “Is this your son?”
“No.” He took a deep breath. “Though he isn’t who I led you to believe he was either.”
Ernest Finch exhaled a long sigh. Then, still gently rocking, he explained, “When Dr. Marsland pressed me about the child living here, I said I was caring for my sister’s child, left as my ward.”
“You told me the same.”
“It was partly true. My sister and her husband did leave their child under my guardianship. Though it’s not Robbie, here. I am not good at deception, but I felt I had to protect his mother. Protect us both, if I’m honest.”
Recalling Rosa’s worry over an ailing loved one, Anne asked, “Is Rosa his mother?”
He hesitated, then replied, “Yes.”
“Are you and she . . . ?”
“She is my niece.”
“Niece?” Anne heard the incredulous note in her voice.
He nodded. “My sister is ten years older than I, and her daughter ten years younger. When Mary and Robert sailed off to India, they left Rosa in my care. Many parents choose to leave their offspring to be educated or married in England when they go to foreign parts. I blame myself that things went awry. Rosa was sad when they left, so I tried to cheer her up. Took her and a school friend to Cheltenham for some diversion. That’s where she met him.
I never guessed she might . . .” He swallowed hard.
“To me, she was still little Rosa, sitting on my knee and calling me Uncle Ernest.”
“Did you meet Mr. Dalby in Cheltenham too?”
His brows lifted in surprise. “You guessed?”
“I overheard them talking.”
“Ah.” He lifted his chin in understanding.
“I saw him there, but we were not introduced. Apparently, he was there for the horse racing. He danced with Rosa and her friend at the assembly rooms, attended the same concerts. It never crossed my mind that when she and her friend told me they were going shopping or to the Well Walk or gardens, Rosa was really meeting a man while her friend waited alone in the confectioner’s.