by Julia Quinn
First Lines of the Practice of Physic by William Cullen, M.D. Thus far she’d only managed to get through the preface and the introduction. Fifty-two pages in all, though, so it wasn’t as if she was being a layabout. The material was fascinating, but she’d never read anything like it before, and it required far more of her attention and time than her usual reading choices.
She’d also discovered that Nicholas had given her only the first volume. Of four.
She’d be reading this for months.
Then she thought of all the other books he had on his shelf at the boardinghouse. Had he read them all? Was it even possible for a human being to do so?
She wondered if Dr. Simmons, the man who’d treated her asthma back in Kent, read books like First Lines of the Practice of Physic. According to her copy, the original publication date was 1777. Dr. Simmons was easily in his sixties. He would have completed his medical training well before 1777. Had he continued his education on his own? Was he required to?
Who kept track of doctors once they finished their studies? Anyone?
Georgie had questions.
But these could wait. Instead, she busied herself with the book. She flipped to the first page of Part I.
Of Pyrexiae, or Febrile Diseases.
Fevers. This would be interesting.
She finished that page fairly quickly, then turned to the next.
Book One.
Wait, Book One of Part One?
She continued.
Chapter One.
She blinked. Chapter One of Book One of Part One.
Good heavens.
At least Dr. Cullen had broken his text into even smaller portions, most not even half a page long. The white space on the page seemed to make it easier to separate each topic in her mind. Chapter One began with portion eight, one through seven having been taken up with the introduction.
Out of curiosity she flipped ahead to the end of Book One. Two hundred and thirty-four separate portions!
How was it possible there were two hundred and thirty-four different things to know about fevers?
She was beginning to develop new respect for Nicholas’s studies, which was saying something, as she’d already respected it a great deal.
Georgie read for about an hour, looking up every now and then to watch the countryside roll past her window. She couldn’t help it. She needed to give her eyes a break. Maybe that was why Dr. Cullen had broken his text up into so many smaller portions. Maybe he understood that human beings couldn’t focus their attention on such difficult material for more than half a page at a time.
How could something so interesting be so difficult to read? She was on portion forty-four, which began, somewhat discouragingly: “This may be difficult to explain . . .”
She sighed. It was also difficult to understand. Maybe she needed to take a rest. She closed her eyes.
Just for a moment.
Just for long enough to clear her mind for a few minutes before diving back into the textbook. Just a little nap until . . .
“Ma’am? Mrs. Rokesby?”
Georgie opened groggy eyes. Were they already in—
“Ma’am,” Jameson said, looking up at her through the open carriage door, “we’re here. In Edinburgh.”
So they were.
Georgie blinked herself awake, rubbing her forehead inelegantly as she peered out the window. They were parked just outside of the university lecture hall. They wouldn’t be able to leave the carriage there for a long period of time. The plan was for her and Jameson to get out while the driver took the carriage to the square where he’d waited earlier in the week.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she gathered her things. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“It was a smooth ride, ma’am,” he said.
And a long book, she thought.
He held out his hand to help her down, and then, once the carriage had departed she turned to him and said, “You need not come into the building with me.”
She was quite certain Jameson would rather stay outside. The last time they’d been within earshot of the lecture he’d gone a bit green about the gills. Marian had later told her that he’d confessed that he sometimes fainted at the sight of blood.
But he shook his head. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but you can’t go in by yourself.”
“I will be just fine,” she assured him. “I know exactly where to go. And there is a bench right outside the lecture theater. I can sit quietly while I wait for Mr. Rokesby to emerge.”
Jameson did not look convinced. “I don’t think Mr. Rokesby would approve.”
“He won’t mind at all,” Georgie said, which was only a small fib. Nicholas would almost certainly prefer it if Jameson accompanied her, but he wasn’t likely to be angry if he did not.
“I will be sitting right outside the room,” Georgie continued. “If something happens, all I have to do is raise my voice, and Mr. Rokesby will come running.”
But Jameson would not be swayed, so the two of them walked into the building together. Georgie brought the large green textbook with her, thinking it might make her look as if she was meant to be there.
Obviously she wasn’t meant to be there—the University of Edinburgh accepted no female students—but maybe she’d look like someone’s assistant, or a visiting dignitary.
Still unlikely, but she felt better with the book. Academic armor, so to speak.
They walked in, and Georgie took a seat on the bench, right next to the open door to the theater. Jameson stood across the hall, but she had a feeling it wasn’t far enough away to keep him out of earshot because he started to look ill within minutes.
It wasn’t surprising. Today’s lecture topic had something to do with wound care, and the professor had just begun talking about worms.
And maggots.
Georgie wasn’t sure she understood the relevance, but that was the least of her concerns. Jameson’s skin had gone gray and pasty and he was clutching the wall. Surely he would do better outside. “Jameson,” she whispered, trying to get his attention.
He didn’t hear. Or possibly he needed to focus all of his energy on remaining upright.
“Pssst. Jameson!”
Nothing, but he swallowed a few times.
Georgie’s eyes widened. This did not look good.
“Jame—” Forget that. She stood and hurried over. “Jameson, I think you shou—”
“Urg uh blear . . .”
Oh, God. He was going to—
“. . . uharff!”
Everything—and Georgie meant everything—that was in Jameson’s stomach came out of his mouth.
She jumped back, but she wasn’t fast enough to avoid it all. It hit her shoes, and probably the hem of her dress, and—Oh dear God he must have eaten fish.
Her own stomach started to turn. Oh no . . .
“Oh, Mrs. Rokesby,” Jameson groaned. “I don’t think I can . . .”
Apparently he hadn’t expelled everything the first time around because he heaved again, this time spewing the dregs of his breakfast.
Georgie clamped her hand over her mouth. The smell. Oh, God, the smell was making her sick, too.
“I have to go outside,” he moaned.
“Go!” Georgie clutched at her own roiling belly. She needed him gone. If she could get away from the smell she might be able to keep her own breakfast down. “Please!”
He ran out, just as men poured forth from the lecture theater.
“What’s going on?” more than one demanded.
“Is someone ill?”
“What is—”
Someone slipped in the mess on the floor.
Someone else crashed into her.
They all wanted to be of service, to be the doctor who would save the day.
“Are you ill, ma’am?
“Are you fevered?”
They kept pushing forward, and none of them were Nicholas, and she couldn’t get away from the smell . . .
She tried
not to breathe.
She took a gulp of air.
And another. But it smelled terrible, and she gagged.
And then she tried for another, but it didn’t seem to come.
She gasped.
“Miss, are you—”
“Nicholas,” she wheezed. “Where is—”
She couldn’t breathe. She opened her mouth, and she thought she was pulling in air, but it wasn’t reaching her lungs.
She couldn’t breathe.
She needed air.
Everyone was so close.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t breathe.
Nicholas almost always sat near the front of the lecture hall. He had a sneaking suspicion that his eyesight was not what it once was—probably from all the close reading he’d had to do these past few years—and he’d found his attention was less likely to wander if he could see the expressions on his professors’ faces as they lectured.
Today he was in the second row, which was why he was among the last to realize that something odd was happening just outside the lecture hall. Most of the students near the exit were gone by the time he turned around, and several more had jumped up from their seats and were hurrying out.
Nicholas shared a glance with the man seated next to him. They both shrugged.
“Do you know what’s happening?” Nicholas asked.
“I think someone fainted in the hall,” another student said.
“What was someone doing in the hall?” yet another asked.
Nicholas shrugged again. The hallway outside the lecture theater was usually vacant while class was in session. Sometimes a tardy student rushed through, hoping to slide into one of the back seats without being noticed, and he supposed that occasionally people waited on the bench for class to get out. That’s what Georgie had done when she’d come a few days earlier, before her maid had insisted on waiting outside.
“Dr. Monro!” came an urgent holler.
The professor, who had been watching the exodus with visible irritation, set down his notes and bounded up the steep steps.
“Should we get up to help?” the man next to him asked.
Nicholas shook his head. “It’s too crowded. We’d only get in the way.”
And then, in the split second after he stopped speaking and before anyone else began, a panicked yell rang through the building.
“SHE’S NOT BREATHING!”
She?
Nicholas rose to his feet. Slowly at first, as his brain caught up with his legs.
She?
There were no women here. There were never women here, except when . . .
When Georgie . . .
He ran.
He tripped past the man sitting next to him, stumbling his way to the aisle.
Georgie was here. He didn’t know how he knew, but he did. She was here, and she needed him.
He ran up the steps and pushed his way into the hall. A knot of people were surrounding someone on the floor.
“Out of the way,” someone yelled. “Give Dr. Monro room!”
Nicholas shoved his way forward. “That’s my wife,” he said, even though he couldn’t see her yet. “That’s my wife.”
Finally, he made it through the crowd, and there she was, sitting on the floor, gasping for breath.
“Lie her down!” Dr. Monro said. He spoke with the authority of a doctor who had been practicing for decades, who knew what to do.
Except the minute he lay her back, her body began to spasm.
“Stop!” Nicholas yelled. “She can’t get enough air like that.”
“Get him away from me,” the doctor snapped.
Nicholas grabbed him by the arm. “She’s my wife.”
Dr. Monro turned to him with a sharp expression. “If you value her well-being, you’ll back off and let me do my job.”
Nicholas swallowed and took a step back, watching as his professor—one of the most well-known and respected doctors in Great Britain—began his assessment.
“She has a history of spasmodic asthma,” Nicholas said, hoping it was true. Everything Georgie had told him indicated this diagnosis. And that was certainly what he saw when he looked at her now. Georgie’s inhales seemed more like gasps, her lungs convulsing as they tried desperately to fill.
Dr. Monro gave a curt nod.
“Sir,” Nicholas said, “I believe she needs to sit up.”
Georgie’s eyes met his. He could see she was trying to nod.
The doctor grunted but helped ease her into a sitting position. Georgie took a gulp of air, but Nicholas could tell it wasn’t enough.
Please, her eyes seemed to say. She thrust her hand out, toward Nicholas.
He shoved forward. Maybe the doctor needed room, but Georgie needed him.
“What did I just say?” Dr. Monro snapped.
“She wants my hand,” Nicholas replied, fighting to keep his voice calm. “She needs comfort.”
The doctor gave a single brisk nod, then said, “How often does she experience dyspnea?”
“Not often in adulthood,” Nicholas answered. “Far more frequently when she was a child.”
He looked to Georgie for confirmation. She gave a tiny nod. She was breathing more regularly now, but every exhale made a wheezy, whistling sound.
“It sounds as if she is improving, sir,” Nicholas said. He looked at her carefully as he put an arm around her shoulders to support her. “Are you getting more air?”
Again, another tiny nod. “It’s . . . better.”
“I’m not satisfied yet,” the doctor said grimly. “I’ve seen cases where the patient seems to improve but then relapses. Especially young women prone to hysteria.”
“She’s not prone to hysteria,” Nicholas said stiffly.
“I know—what—” Georgie tried to say something, but she was having too much trouble catching her breath.
“Don’t speak,” Nicholas said. “You need a bit more time.”
“But—he—”
“We need to bleed her,” Dr. Monro said.
“What?” Nicholas looked at him in shock. “No. She’s already improving.”
“And this will hasten her recovery.” He looked up at the crowd. “My lancets. Now!”
Several men scurried off. Dr. Monro took Georgie’s wrist and started taking her pulse.
“Sir, no,” Nicholas said. “She should not be bled.”
His professor gave him a look of utter disdain.
“She’s been bled before,” Nicholas said. “It does not work.”
He prayed this was true. He had not been there. He did not know the details. But Georgie had said it had not helped, and he owed it to her to trust her account of her own body, of her own health.
Dr. Monro ignored him. “We’re going to have to cut her sleeve to access the veins in her arm,” he said to the man next to him.
“You will not bleed her,” Nicholas said forcefully. “It does not work.”
“She’s alive, isn’t she?” Dr. Monro snapped.
“Yes, but not because she was bled. She said it made her worse.”
The doctor gave a snort. “Patients are notoriously unreliable, especially when recounting events from several years earlier.”
“My wife is not unreliable,” Nicholas said. He looked at Georgie. She was still pale, but her color had improved, and her lips had lost that terrifying bluish tint they’d acquired when the doctor had had her lie down. “Are you feeling any better?” he asked her. “You seem to be—euf!”
One of the other medical students pitched forward and knocked into him. They were all still crowded tightly around, eager to watch the great Dr. Monro at work.
“Back off!” Nicholas barked at the crowd. “She needs space.”
Georgie nodded. “They’re too close. I need—”
Another whistling wheeze.
“Everyone, take a step back,” Dr. Monro ordered. “I need room to work.”
“S
he needs room to breathe,” Nicholas retorted.
Dr. Monro gave him a sharp look before turning back to Georgie. “I have found that blood in the dominant arm has stronger circulatory properties,” he said, not to her but to the students gathered round. He flicked his eyes toward Nicholas. “I assume this would be her right arm.”
Nicholas gave a curt nod just as someone returned with a set of lancets. “But you will not be—”
“Excellent,” Dr. Monro said. “Now then, observe my selected blade. You want to choose one that—”
“No.” Nicholas jerked Georgie away.
“Mr. Rokesby,” the doctor said, “I advise you to move away from your wife.”
“No.”
“Mr. Rokesby,” Dr. Monro said sharply, “may I remind you that you are not yet a physician? And that your becoming one is predicated upon my approval? I will say it one more time. Move away from your wife.”
Nicholas did not hesitate. “No,” he said again. He gathered her in his arms and stood. “I’m taking her outside.”
“The colder air will be too much of a shock,” Dr. Monro said. “She needs to remain inside.”
Nicholas ignored him. “Clear the way,” he said to the assembled crowd.
“This is a bad idea,” the doctor warned.
Nicholas didn’t even look at him.
“If she dies,” Dr. Monro said, “it’s on you.”
“You’re not going to die,” Nicholas said to Georgie as he strode down the hall.
“Not today, anyway,” she said with a weak smile.
Nicholas gave her a tender smile. “I would scold you for such a joke, but under the circumstances, I’ll take your humor as a sign of improvement.”
She nodded, and when she exhaled, there was less of a whistling sound than there had been earlier.
“Please say I’m doing the right thing by taking you outside,” he said.
“It was too crowded.” She took a few breaths. Nicholas could see that she was focusing on slowing her inhales.
“And the smell,” she added as he pushed through the front door.
Nicholas had noticed that, too. “Did you vomit?”
She shook her head. “Jameson.”
“Jameson vomited?”
“It was the lecture. He’s—” She coughed. “He’s very squeamish.”