Chapter Six
Doctor Fleming will come today,” Lady Catherine announced at breakfast the next morning.
Anne immediately dropped her fork. “But, Mother, I am doing so much better, surely there is no need!“
“There is every need,” her mother said. “He has been absent these past weeks due to a prior commitment in London, but now that he is returned, he must come and assess your current state of health.”
Georgiana listened to the interchange with wide eyes. “But Anne is not ill, Aunt Catherine,” she said. “Anyone can see that she is just rather weak.”
“Have you studied medicine, Georgiana?” Lady Catherine asked, tartly.
“No, of course not, but –“
“Then let us leave any diagnosis to the men who have, shall we?” And with that, the subject was closed.
***
Anne had been so upset by the prospect of the doctor’s visit that she had eaten nothing whatever after her mother’s announcement. By the time Doctor Fleming arrived, black bag in hand, she was pale and tired.
Greetings were exchanged, Georgiana was introduced. The doctor apologised for his long absence, saying only that he had had occasion to visit with some colleagues; Lady Catherine graciously accepted his apology.
Anne asked, timidly, “Might my cousin stay with me while you examine me, Doctor?”
“Certainly,” he said, smiling. “I do not doubt that her presence will make you more comfortable, Miss de Bourgh.”
Mrs. Jenkinson insisted on being present as well, so the four of them ascended the stairs to Anne’s room.
The doctor was old and moved slowly, but they eventually reached their destination.
The doctor had Anne lay on the bed so that he might test the strength of her limbs by moving them about, and then he listened to her heart with a funnel-shaped device that he placed against her chest; the other end was a tube that he inserted into his ear.
He felt her neck, but went no further down than Anne’s collarbone; he also felt the skin behind her ears. “Swelling may occur here if there is illness,” he explained to Georgiana, who was watching closely.
He then took Anne’s wrists and placed his thumbs on the blue veins that could be seen on them.
“You seem a bit stronger than when last I was here,” he told Anne. “Nonetheless, I believe that I should bleed you so that any accumulated humors do not take up permanent residence.”
Anne groaned at this, but she knew there was no point in arguing.
Georgiana had never before seen anyone bled though, of course, she had heard of the treatment.
The doctor took a jar from his bag; he opened it and applied a leech to the inside of Anne’s elbow. Anne winced.
Georgiana could not just stand by and watch Anne suffer.
She flew down the stairs, ran into the library, and found a novel.
She was back in Anne’s bedroom not a minute later.
She opened the book and began to read aloud.
In her interest in the trials of the fair heroine, Anne soon forgot about the leech, and when the sated creature dropped off her arm, Anne scarcely noticed it.
Georgiana slammed the book shut and tried not to glare at the doctor. He would not have noticed in any case, as he was busy packing up his bag, the leech now wrapped in a cloth.
***
Anne was quite weak for the remainder of the day.
Georgiana asked for trays for both of them to be sent to Anne’s room, and the two stayed together all day.
Georgiana finished reading the novel by bedtime.
Her voice was hoarse by the time it was done, but she thought it worthwhile if it helped distract poor Anne from such an experience.
Anne had indeed been distracted, and she had immediately developed a fine taste for novels, despite the fear that they would injure her moral character.