by Delia Parr
“I would.”
“Anything else today?” He glanced down at the case again. “We just got a shipment of fine Belgian lace and some hair combs. Just in time, with Uncle Thomas’s shindig next week,” he suggested. “Guess you heard about that.”
“Indeed,” she murmured, wondering what his mother, Thomas’s sister, would say when she heard about the betrothal. “Just the slippers for today.”
While he took the slippers to wrap them, she heard the bell tinkle again. She turned and saw Rosalind enter the store. She walked directly toward Martha, but her troubled expression did not raise any hopes that Webster Cabbot had dropped the charges against Burton Andrews.
“I wonder if we might talk. Privately,” she whispered.
Martha took her package and nodded toward the door. “I was just leaving.” Curious as well as concerned, she followed Rosalind outside.
Instead of pausing to explain, Rosalind simply said, “Please. Come home with me. I can’t discuss this here, where someone might overhear us.”
Fearful that Rosalind had somehow learned about the discovery of the watch and Martha’s role in returning it to Webster Cabbot, however impossible that might be, Martha did not relish explaining what she had done or why, or offering Rosalind any rationale for not coming to her at once so she could clear her husband. Martha was still confident she had done the right thing by going to Cabbot directly. Whether or not he would reward that confidence was still an issue that had Martha praying about it daily.
Once they reached Dr. McMillan’s house, Rosalind ushered Martha into the kitchen and bolted the front door closed. “It’s Dr. McMillan. He’s very ill,” she gushed in a whisper.
Martha was so surprised she could scarcely find her own voice. “Dr. McMillan? Ill? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. He’s been upstairs for several days now. He won’t come out of his bedchamber, not even to eat. I leave his trays at his door with clear broth and tea, just as he asked, but he barely touches them. Beyond emptying his chamber pot, I just don’t know what else I can do for him. I thought maybe you could . . . well, maybe you can talk to him. Find out what’s wrong and make sure he’s all right.”
Relief that she had misjudged the purpose for Rosalind’s invitation to talk was short-lived. “Does he know you came for me?”
Rosalind’s eyes widened. “No.”
“I don’t normally treat men. It’s not entirely proper,” Martha ventured.
“But there is no one else,” Rosalind argued. “I’m very worried about him. He wouldn’t even answer my knock this morning, and he hasn’t touched his tray and he could be very ill. If not, I know he’ll be upset with me for fetching you, especially if this isn’t something serious, but what else could I do? I can’t just let him lay in there, not knowing for sure—”
“I’ll try,” Martha offered. She was as concerned about Rosalind’s frazzled state as she was about Dr. McMillan, although she was reluctant to step over the boundary that separated her calling from that of the physician. She removed her outerwear and laid everything on a chair next to the table, along with her package. “Where’s his bedchamber?”
“At the top of the stairs. The room is all the way at the front of the house.”
“At the very least, I’ll see if he will take some tea. Can you heat some fresh water?”
“Right away. Is there anything else?”
“No. I’ll have to see him first.” Martha left the kitchen and mounted the stairs. She would not be able to explain away her visit as just a neighborly call, not if she appeared at his bedchamber door, and there was little she could do to protect Rosalind. Right or wrong, Rosalind had every reason to be concerned, a point Martha intended to stress to the doctor if he became upset with either one of them.
When she reached the door to his bedchamber, she took a deep breath, knocked on his door, and called his name.
No response.
She tried again. Harder. Louder.
Still, no response.
Growing more alarmed with every thud of her heartbeat, she turned the knob and eased the door open. The room was too dark to see much of anything beyond the muted shadows of the figure abed. The distinctive scent of illness was strong, but it was the sound of his labored breathing that shoved aside her reticence and pulled her into the room.
“Dr. McMillan? It’s Martha Cade,” she offered as she entered.
He groaned. “I’m sick. I can’t . . . can’t help you. Not . . . today.”
“I’m here to help you,” she countered, and tied back the drapes covering both the front and side windows. Daylight flooded the sparsely furnished room. There was little furniture beyond the bed, a single dresser, and a chair.
The young doctor covered his eyes and burrowed his face against his pillow before she had a chance to really see him. “Go away. I’m a doctor. I can treat myself. I don’t need a . . . a midwife,” he spat. His vehement protest set off a coughing spell that racked his body.
She approached the bed and put her hand on his shoulder. “Sometimes it helps to get a second opinion. Just tell me what’s wrong. Maybe I can help.”
When he dropped his arm away from his face and turned toward her, she caught her breath and held it. Of all the illnesses she might have envisioned, she would never in the space of two lifetimes have suspected this. When she leaned closer, he pulled back against his pillow.
“Take a good long look, if you must,” he murmured. “Then leave me in peace.”
29
Martha leaned closer, but even with a clearer view, her original diagnosis stood firm. A swarm of angry red blisters covered his entire face as well as his hands. His eyes were swollen shut, and even his eyelids bore the telltale blisters. Some were quite fresh; others had cracked open and dried into crusty scabs.
Though she had treated few cases like this in adults, she had no doubt about the illness that was ravaging his body. “You have the chicken pox,” she exclaimed.
“I do not,” he argued. “I had them as a child. This is . . . this is just a severe case of impetigo. Nothing more. Now, if you’ll just leave . . .” He wheezed again and again, unable to argue further.
“You may or may not have had the chicken pox as a child, but you certainly have them now. How long have you been coughing and wheezing like that?” she asked, fearful he had developed lung congestion as a complication.
“Since yesterday. It’s nothing serious,” he assured her. “Now, if you’d be kind enough to get out of my chamber—”
“What medications are you taking?”
He turned away and presented her with his back before scratching at his arms. “They’re on the dresser, not that it’s any of your concern.”
She checked the three bottles on the dresser. She could read the names of each medication, but she had not heard of any of them before and had no idea whether or not they would be effective against chicken pox. She did, however, know precisely what herbs would help to relieve the itching and soothe his skin, although there was no herb to ease the sting in his pride.
Of all the things for a young doctor trying to establish himself in a new community as a competent physician to contract, chicken pox was probably the worst. It was a miserable childhood disease that was far more serious in adults and quite embarrassing for a man to endure.
“What about the congestion in your lungs?” she asked.
He sighed. “Too tired. Later,” he murmured, and drifted off to sleep.
She laid her hand on his brow. His forehead was hot. Too hot. “Later may be too late,” she whispered, and tiptoed out of the room.
Downstairs, she met Rosalind’s worried look with a troubled look of her own. “He has the chicken pox. A right good case, too. As uncomfortable as he is right now, that’s not my major concern. He’s developed complications. His lungs are very congested, and his fever is raging. We need to make it easier for him to breathe, so we’ll need lots of water. Both hot and cold. I need to make poultices to hel
p ease the itching, too, which means I need to get several herbs from home.”
“Will he . . . will he be all right?”
Martha donned her cape and bonnet and grabbed her package from the general store. “I expect he’ll recover quite well, but he’ll need lots of care for the next few days. I’ll tell Lydia I’ve been called to a patient, but that’s all. We’d do well to keep this to ourselves. Once Dr. McMillan recovers, he’ll forgive us both, eventually, but not if we breathe a word of this to anyone.”
Rosalind’s eyes widened, and she instinctively scratched at her arm. “It’s contagious. I’m going to get the pox!”
Martha frowned. “It’s unusual to get them twice. You’ve had them before as a child, I’m sure.”
To her amazement, Rosalind shook her head. “No, I never did. My brothers all did, but . . . oh, no,” she whimpered. She dropped into a chair and held her head with her hands. “Not the chicken pox. I can’t. It’s too . . . too . . .”
“Embarrassing?” Martha prompted.
Rosalind nodded.
“Then perhaps you can understand why Dr. McMillan was loath to diagnose chicken pox on himself or to let you see him. You’d recognize the blisters at once. There’s still a good chance you won’t contract the disease, but little we can do about it now. Get the water started. Find some cloth in his office I can use for poultices when you’re done. Now, Rosalind. We’ve got no time for self-pity. He needs both of us,” she urged in a stern voice when the woman seemed to be ignoring everything Martha had to say.
Rosalind wiped her face with her hands and rose from her chair. “Of course. I’m sorry.”
Once Rosalind was bustling around the kitchen, Martha hurried out the door and toward home. If she truly meant to keep the nature of the doctor’s illness and her intervention secret, she would have to stay at his home until he was well on his way to recovery so no one would see her coming and going. While she walked, she made a mental list of the herbs she would need and the clothing she would have to pack. She did not want to ask Lydia and James to watch Bird again, so he would simply have to come along, too.
Why the good Lord had put her in this awkward position was a mystery—a gift she did not accept gracefully. The young doctor was not her responsibility. He was her competitor, a threat to her place in the community, yet time and time again, she seemed destined to be almost his mentor, guiding him along his journey to becoming a competent, experienced physician.
Now she actually had to step beyond the well-recognized boundaries separating her work from that of any doctor, which was sure to cause gossip if anyone learned she was treating a grown man. Add to this mix of trouble one very reluctant patient who had little respect for her or faith in her abilities, and she had one big problem on her hands.
“Why me?” she grumbled as she entered her room. In her heart, the question echoed again and again, but no answer came whispering through her mind. Only the question, again and again.
Why me?
Late Saturday night, Martha kept vigil at the doctor’s bedside. Low burning embers in the hearth provided light, gentle enough to not disturb her patient’s sleep yet strong enough for her to observe him.
Had she been tending one of her usual patients, either a woman or a child, she would have been wearing her nightdress and robe, along with her new blue chamber slippers. For propriety’s sake, she still wore her day dress, but she could not resist wearing her chamber slippers anyway.
The room carried the heavy scent of the Labrador tea she had used as a poultice on his trunk and limbs to relieve the itching. The doctor had been asleep for several hours now, thanks to several doses of catnip tea, which also helped to alleviate the congestion in his lungs. His fever had spiked in late afternoon, but the cool poultices had helped to bring it down again.
All in all, she was quite satisfied. Rosalind had proven her worth as a capable and compassionate assistant, which only made Martha feel worse for harboring her secret about the watch. Her treatments had begun to take effect, just as she had hoped. The doctor had been too sick to offer much physical resistance to her role as his healer, but he was not too ill to be rather vocal in his mockery of her methods.
Dr. McMillan was hands down her most ornery patient, even considering all the children she had treated over the years. Not for the first time in her years as a healer, she was quite eager to leave the treatment of men to doctors.
Bone weary, she still kept propriety in mind and sagged against the back of the chair instead of crawling into the cot Rosalind had insisted on bringing into the room. She folded her hands on her lap and sighed. Worry for Victoria weighed most heavily on her heart at night while the rest of the world was sleeping.
Nearly five months had passed now, with not a single letter to tell her where Victoria had gone or when she might be coming home. Was she actually performing onstage with that theater troupe? The very thought made Martha shiver. More likely, Victoria had taken up her pen, but she had never expressed any interest in writing plays. Was she in London, or had she gone to Charleston? Did she lay awake at night thinking of home, or was she too enamored with her newfound freedom to care one whit about the mother she had left behind?
Why me?
The question loomed in Martha’s mind again. “Why me?” she murmured. “Why me?”
And in the stillness of the night, in the depths of her pain, in the hollow of her heart, she searched, but found no answer.
“W-water. Please.”
Startled out of her reverie, she turned toward her patient.
Dr. McMillan moistened his cracked lips and looked at her through slits of blistered flesh. “Please.”
She rose, went to the dresser, poured a glass of cooled catnip tea, and returned to him. She helped him to lift up his head and offered him the drink. He barely took more than a few awkward sips before he closed his eyes, and she let his head sink back against his pillow.
“Feeling any better?” she asked as she patted his chin dry with a fresh cloth.
“I feel . . . like a mummy,” he responded.
She chuckled. “As a matter of fact, you do resemble one. The poultices should help with the itching, though.”
He let out a long breath. “Do I taste mint?”
“That’s the catnip tea.”
He cracked open one eye. “Did you say catnip?”
She grinned. “Grandmother Poore always swore by it. Cures all kinds of ailments like fever, lung congestion, and coughs, just to name a few you just happen to have.”
He slammed his eye shut. “Dare I ask what that . . . that smell is coming from the poultices? No, never mind. Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. I suppose you find all this rather amusing, don’t you?”
She cocked her head. Pride stiffened her backbone. “Illness is never amusing.”
He chuckled, coughed a bit, and sighed. “Actually, I find this all highly amusing,” he murmured.
She glared at him and huffed. “Pray tell me! Is it because you’re at the complete mercy of a lowly midwife? Or is it entertaining for you to have the woman you believe to be so ignorant and incompetent as the person helping you now? In either case, I should leave you to suffer your own incompetence! Impetigo, indeed! Where did you receive your training?”
He laughed again. “So you have a temper, too,” he teased, and scratched at his face.
She knocked his hand away. “Temper enough. Especially when my patient mocks me. I have a good mind to go to meeting on Sunday and ask the entire congregation to pray for the good Dr. McMillan, who will no doubt bear any number of scars because he won’t stop picking at his scabs.”
“They itch!” he whined.
“They’re supposed to itch. They’re chicken pox, you fool. Now, lie still and don’t scratch at your face again. I can make another poultice for your face. That should help, which is what I tried to do earlier, when you rejected the idea.”
He cracked one eye open again. “I have medicine on the dresser you seem t
o enjoy ignoring. I can barely breathe as it is, and I’m afraid you’ll suffocate me if you cover my face with a poultice.”
“Don’t tempt me,” she snapped. “Either let me use the poultice or suffer in silence.”
He opened the other eye and stared at her.
She stared back.
Stalemate.
He twitched one cheek, then the other. He balled both hands into fists and stiffened his arms.
“Suffering enough yet?” she taunted.
He squared his jaw. “Get the poultice before I tear the skin off my face,” he gritted through clenched teeth.
She accepted his surrender, grinned, and prepared several narrow strips of cloth lined with Labrador tea leaves. Gently, she arranged the poultices across his brow and eyelids and the bridge of his nose, as well as his cheeks. “Try not to move,” she cautioned.
He chortled. “Move? I’m trussed up like a Christmas goose.”
“Precisely. Kindly remember that before you whine and complain about my treatment. I haven’t abandoned a patient. Ever. But there’s always a first time, and you’re in no position to stop me if I choose to leave you here.”
“You don’t have to be so grumpy,” he countered. “I’m sick. I have an excuse, but you’re supposed to be compassionate and caring and gentle and—”
“And I’m not?” she asked, highly insulted that he did not recognize she had had almost as little sleep as he had.
He yawned. “Indeed you are. In fact, you’re not at all what I expected. That’s what I find so amusing—my ability to be wrong as often as I am,” he murmured, and drifted off to sleep, leaving her with only her conscience to measure the full impact of his words.
30
By Tuesday morning, the doctor was remarkably improved, although he would not be able to resume his practice for several weeks. “I’ll stay until nightfall, then I’ll be going home,” she informed him.
He nodded. “I think I slept through most of Sunday and yesterday. Did you attend meeting?”