Blackwell's Homecoming (Blackwell's Adventures Book 3)

by V. E. Ulett

  “The day and time is fixed, ma’am. Mr. Blackwell has had a reply from the Herschels. Tomorrow at noon Doctor Lally and I will attend you.”

  “Sit down, Doctor Russ, if you please.”

  “I know you must feel a great disturbance of spirit. I want to speak to you of the actual operation. Tell me, did you cry out, did you scream when your children were born?”

  Mercedes blanched a little before his stare, before that question.

  “My children were born aboard ship, Doctor. Men-of-war. No sir, I did not cry out.”

  “You must have no such scruple tomorrow, ma’am. I must absolutely charge you to scream, to do otherwise would be detrimental to your constitution. You must expect to suffer, I do not want to deceive you — you will suffer — you will suffer very much.”

  “I know, Doctor, you have already warned me. It is the reason I insisted dear James and the children go away. Even the servants.” Mercedes added in a small voice, “Even Tio Severino.”

  “I shall be with you, Mrs. Black—”

  “Call me Mercedes, please sir, we are about to be very intimate.”

  Doctor Russ flushed beneath his swarthy skin tone. “I will be with you, Mercedes. You must tell yourself you shall endure it and you will recover from it. Our minds have a power far greater than our feeble shells.”

  “My mind is all confusion at the moment, and my feeble shell fairly quakes.”

  “No, ma’am, no. You are made of tougher stuff. I should know, I too was bred of it.” This last Doctor Russ said to her in Spanish, surprising her.

  Tears came into Mercedes’ eyes with memories of her mother, and the wasting away and suffering at the end of Arabella de Aragon’s life. Surgery would be a terrible blow, but she meant to live. Mercedes rose and fetched several folded sheets from a small desk in the corner, and gave them into Doctor Russ’s hand.

  “Here is the document I prepared after your kind suggestion, may you put it into the hand of the Notary, if you please, sir. And these are letters, for James and the children, in case...I understand it is the custom, before going into action.”

  Doctor Russ gave Mercedes a long appreciative look. He took her Will and letters, and put them in his pocket without a word, and in a short while the doctor took his leave.

  It was not a restful night for any of them. Captain Blackwell stayed in Mercedes’ bedchamber at her request. He could really only lie on his left side comfortably, and Mercedes on her right. They were a pair. Even her left arm ached, one more part of the general malaise. She would have liked Captain Blackwell to love her, but with all the will in the world, neither could manage it.

  Morning came too soon, and with it the difficult task of taking leave of them. Captain Blackwell embraced her and whispered, “I love you with all my heart and soul. Don’t…don’t leave me.” She and Emma could do nought but cry and cling to one another. Edward was last to embrace her. “We need you, Mama. Be strong. Survive.”

  Mercedes sat still, stunned, and stupid after they departed for Windsor. She’d meant to use the time before the doctors arrived to write James and each of them little billets, to add to the letters she’d enclosed with her Will. But for a time she could not move, and she was grateful to have written her letters when her mind was more composed. She had a terror of the operation, but forced herself to rise after a time and walk about the empty house.

  She ended in the library, where she stood in fascinated horror before the sea chests over which the doctors had layered several old sheets. Both being military men they were accustomed to operating on such a surface and had chosen to stay with what they knew. Leathern straps with buckles were fixed to the trunk that would in a short while restrain her. A quantity of linen, compresses, and bandages was neatly arranged on a table. Mercedes felt if they did not come soon she would climb out a window, in her dressing gown as she was, and run away.

  The doctors called her from the library, pounding on the street door. She was obliged to answer herself, clad as she was. Mercedes was infinitely glad Doctor Russ had thought to engage a nurse, a big competent looking woman he presented as Mrs. Mulvaney. She wanted a woman to support her, to hold her hand, and arrange and cover her when she could not do it herself. There was no lack of women friends she could have called upon, but she could not bring herself to expose any of them. And Emma, the woman she most wanted in such a crisis, least of all.

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  Mercedes gave Doctor Russ the empty glass, that had contained a wine cordial laced with laudanum.

  “Come, Ma’am.”

  Doctor Russ led her to the operating table. Mercedes was trembling, even before she was told to remove her dressing gown. She lay down upon the hard surface, naked except for a pair of bloomers such as the Captain once teased her about. Doctor Russ buckled the leather straps over her thighs and midsection. He gave her a look of great compassion before he laid a large cambric handkerchief over her face.

  Mercedes did not know if they were aware she could see through the fabric. Both doctors immediately came close and bent over her, but they did not speak. Instead an unspoken communication took place. Doctor Russ lifted her left breast and made a motion underneath it in the area where the lump was most felt. Doctor Lally shook his head, and made a circle with his finger.

  “Mrs. Mulvaney, hold this breast, if you please. Jesus, Joseph, and Mary!” he cried.

  The nurse had turned and fled from the library.

  “Mrs. Blackwell, I beg your pardon. I was assured she was a reliable person,” Doctor Russ said.

  “I will hold the breast for you, Doctor. It is just here,” Mercedes touched her breast and indicated the part underneath, “from where the pain starts, and from there reaches into every other part.”

  The doctors heard her very gravely, but then Doctor Russ took her gently by the shoulders and arranged her again as before. He laid the veil over her face, and turned to Doctor Lally. The French physician inscribed a circle, and then an X through the circle with his finger. Doctor Russ nodded, and took a scalpel into his hand. Mercedes shut her eyes as the doctor bent over her. She screamed, a prolonged shriek that lasted as long as the first incision.

  The pitch of her screams rose when he withdrew his cold instrument and the air met the fresh wound. A million raw nerve endings felt on fire. The scalpel bit in again on the other side of the breast. Doctor Russ paused; Mercedes thought the surgery might be at an end and she opened her eyes. No. The surgeon was taking hold again, slicing all the way round the breast. She screamed, panted, and writhed on the table. It either must be over soon or she would die there.

  She opened her eyes and watched the doctors’ pantomime. Doctor Russ motioned Doctor Lally forward. He came and craned over her trembling body, pursed his lips, and pointed to an area where he perceived yet some offending tissue. Doctor Russ’s scalpel came down again, Mercedes felt it scrape against her breastbone. She fainted, and when she became conscious once more the handkerchief had slid off. Doctor Russ bent over her, his face blood splattered, and underneath the gore a grieved, almost horrified expression.

  “How I pity you, Doctor.”

  No one answered his knock and finding the door unbolted, Aloka walked in to the house on Curzon Street. He stopped dead in the vestibule as a scream jolted him, sending a cold spike of fear through him. He’d heard the cries of wounded men before. This was much worse, the shriek of a woman under torture. He was paralyzed where he stood.

  When the agonized animal shrieking stopped, Aloka forced his steps forward, his heart thudding. He stood in the open doorway of the library, gazing at two old men bending over Mercedes. They were bandaging her, carefully and methodically layering bandages and lint, and wrapping the whole tight round her. Mercedes had fainted and the doctors were lifting her gently as they worked.

  “I am glad she is insensible, the poor dear creature. How we are to move her to bed upstairs, I cannot tell.”

  “Shall we send for the Captain’s servants? That
ill-looking steward told me they would be just down the way at the Pig and Oaks.”

  “I have a notion the Captain would not like it above half, and they are nearly as old as we, colleague.”

  “I shall carry her.” Aloka advanced into the room, his heart still pounding. “Aloka Blackwell, gentlemen, at your service.”

  Doctor Russ turned to him and actually smiled. He was a gruesome sight, with blood on his face, apron, and sleeves.

  “Mr. Blackwell, you are come at the opportune moment, sir. Lieutenant Blackwell, is it not? I am William Russ, and may I present Doctor Lally.” The doctor meanwhile gazed long and keenly at Aloka, particularly at his face. “We shall be ready for you in a moment, sir, we must just complete the dressing.”

  The two doctors went back to work, titivating the bandages to a degree Aloka found old womanish and over fussy. He wanted to step over and cover Mercedes, he knew it would be what she would want. At last he was called forward.

  “May we wipe this blood from her other side, Sirs? And where is her nightdress?”

  Aloka found Mercedes’ dressing gown over a chair while the two doctors sponged her right breast. He spread the gown over her front and was directed to lift her from her right side. The doctors had bound Mercedes’ arm against her left side so as not to disturb the wound. She felt insubstantial in Aloka’s arms, like a child. He carried her upstairs, Doctor Russ plodding at his side with his chin upon his breast.

  “I’m so sorry you should have returned at such a time,” Mercedes said, jostled awake.

  Aloka felt his throat constrict with emotion. “Hush, dear Ma’am. You must do no more now than recover.”

  “God bless you for what you did for your father. Has he been sent for?”

  “I shall do, just as soon as your doctor gives me leave. And you know I should not dare come home without the Governor, you would not have me.”

  “Nonsense. You are always welcome here, come what may.”

  He set her gently down on her bed, backing away with tears in his eyes. Doctor Russ moved in immediately and arranged Mercedes, offering her a draught he had prepared and just at hand. The doctor spent some time sitting beside Mercedes, taking her pulse, checking her pupils, and speaking softly to her. Aloka waited near the door, his legs apart and his hands clasped behind his back.

  Doctor Russ stood up. “You may send for Captain Blackwell, sir, if you please.”

  “You will stay with her?”

  “Of course I shall, sir,” Doctor Russ answered sharply. “Do you think I should leave my patient during this critical time?”

  Aloka saluted before he could stop himself, received his father’s direction of the doctor, and went out without another word to arrange a messenger to Windsor. On his way home he called at the Pig and Oaks to collect McMurtry and Mr. Martinez. When he returned to Mercedes’ bedchamber at last, Aloka found both Mercedes and the doctor asleep. Doctor Russ was slumped in an armchair at her bedside. Aloka woke the doctor.

  “Sir, why do not you lie down? I understand you are to remain overnight, in Edward’s chambers. I shall sit with her and call you if she wakes, or at any other indication you care to name.”

  Doctor Russ led Aloka to just outside Mercedes’ doorway and gave him a list of changes in her he was to watch for, and specifically when he should be summoned.

  Aloka listened attentively. “May I beg, sir, that room downstairs be cleared before m’father and Miss Blackwell return. And forgive me, sir, but if you could change your shirt and wash your face I am sure you shall spare them a…Well, you shall spare them.”

  “We must have a private word, sir, sometime in future.”

  The doctor bowed and went away. Aloka had expected a sharp retort, learned men do not like to be told their business. Doctor Russ’s remark was inscrutable, and Aloka wondered if the doctor, old as he was, meant to call him out.

  That absurd notion was given no further thought as he sat down beside Mercedes’ bed. She slept on, whimpering or moaning now and again, and Aloka thought it must be a drugged sleep. He pondered why the doctor had not given her such a dose beforehand to lessen her suffering. Aloka stared at the little, unassuming woman in the bed, so very much a part of each and every one of them.

  Some while later McMurtry opened the door a crack. “Mr. Al, sir, a word if you please.”

  Aloka met McMurtry in the hall, softly closing Mercedes’ door behind him.

  “It’s a caller, sir, as won’t go away. Captain Lord Cochrane. I told him the family wasn’t to home, but he insists he will wait Captain Blackwell’s return. A matter of the first importance.”

  “Hell and death.” Aloka gazed down the hallway as though he might see Lord Cochrane appear. “I shall speak to his lordship. Pass the word for Mr. Martinez to sit with the Missus.”

  “Which Severino is abed, sir. He’s what you might call paralytic. This here was too much for him, it being the second time round like.”

  “Very well, wake Doctor Russ.”

  “Oh, no, sir. Not me, that wicked man will rip me a new—”

  “Wake Doctor Russ, McMurtry, that’s an order. I shall await the doctor before I see Lord Cochrane.”

  McMurtry slumped away, setting his own evil countenance to the task of jerking the doctor from his slumbers.

  After he’d yielded his chair to Doctor Russ, drooping with fatigue but clad in a clean shirt, Aloka went down to wait on Lord Cochrane.

  He found him in the vestibule, pacing. No one had offered that Lord Cochrane should come farther into the house.

  “Lord Cochrane, sir, how do you do? I regret to say you have called at a most inopportune time—”

  “It cannot be helped. I must speak to Captain Blackwell and Miss Emma on a matter of the first importance.”

  Aloka was astonished to hear Emma named, and he stared at Lord Cochrane. He’d frankly never seen him in such a state; no, not during the hottest part of a battle. His lordship had lost his usual calm reserve.

  “Captain Blackwell and Miss Blackwell are not at home, sir. Nor could you see them to-day if they were.”

  “What the deuce mean you by that, sir?” Lord Cochrane cried.

  “I beg you will lower your voice, sir. Mrs. Blackwell is unwell upstairs.”

  “I don’t believe it, that is merely a rumor put about—”

  The street door opened and Emma walked in. They were all three struck dumb a moment. Aloka thunderstruck by Lord Cochrane’s words and behavior, Emma with a look of horror on seeing the two of them standing there together, and Lord Cochrane with choler and surprise.

  Lord Cochrane recovered first. “Emma, I must have a word with you.”

  Emma evaded him, moving quickly to stand near Aloka.

  “Sir, I don’t remember giving permission for use of my Christian name.”

  That brought Lord Cochrane up, and he spluttered, “Where is Captain Blackwell?”

  Captain Blackwell had been outside paying the hired coach. He walked in with such a look of anxiety and concern, anyone who knew him would not have crossed his hawse. He and Lord Cochrane were not so well acquainted.

  “Not now!” Captain Blackwell anticipated Lord Cochrane, and held up a hand.

  “She’s upstairs, Father,” Aloka said.

  Affronted, Lord Cochrane moved as though he would block Captain Blackwell’s path to the stairs. Aloka checked him. He did not put his hands on his lordship, but he threw him a good body block all the same. Captain Blackwell reached out in passing, and he and Aloka gripped forearms in the native manner. Low, in Hawaiian, Captain Blackwell said, “See to your sister.”

  He ran up the stairs, two at a time, for all his injuries and age.

  Apparently even aristocrats can sense when they are about to get punched in the face. Lord Cochrane held his peace until Captain Blackwell was out of sight.

  “I don’t know what can excuse Captain Blackwell’s behavior. If he will not see me, I really must insist on a private word with you, Emma. I came here today o
n a matter of honor.”

  “No one gives a damn for your honor, sir!”

  Aloka stepped in front of Emma at this juncture, and she even took his hand.

  “I came here for you!” Lord Cochrane declared. “To offer for you, and save your reputation after what was done in my name and without my knowledge. But I find honor is thrown away here, where the entire family are nothing but Sava—”

  “Enough of that infernal noise, sir! There is a sick woman upstairs.”

  Doctor Russ hadn’t spoken loudly, but his sudden presence, his quelling looks, instantly subdued them all. Aloka might have done some punching of his own if the old doctor hadn’t intervened, and that would not have served any of them.

  “Doctor Russ, I beg your pardon, I—”

  “Your lordship.” Doctor Russ acknowledged Lord Cochrane with a brief bow. “Miss Blackwell, if you will come with me, I will acquaint you with your mother’s present condition.”

  Emma took the arm Doctor Russ offered and he led her away. For a few seconds Aloka and Lord Cochrane considered one another, emotions running high, with the uppermost, for Aloka at least, a sincere desire to knock the other’s head in.

  “I thought Mrs. Blackwell being ill was a story put about to explain Emma’s absence from society, and to recall Captain Blackwell as soon as possible. But if the Physician of the Fleet—”

  “No ruse here, sir. No joke.”

  Lord Cochrane had the good grace to look ashamed. Aloka seized the moment and moved to open the street door.

  “My reasons for calling have not changed. I really must have a word with Captain Blackwell and Em—ah, Miss Blackwell, under calmer circumstances. If I were to call again…”

  “She might be out of danger in a fortnight. Or perhaps you’d like to ask the Physician of the Fleet?”

  Lord Cochrane gave Aloka a sour look, jammed his hat on his head and took his leave without so much as a ‘good day’. Aloka would have liked to give the street door a resounding slam behind him, but he was conscious of Mercedes’ fragile state, as she lay abed upstairs. Aloka closed the door. In the short time he’d been home he’d witnessed a terrible thing done to the dearest woman in the world, and managed to insult and offend his former captain and the Physician of the Fleet.