All Things Beautiful (Uncharted Beginnings Book 3)

by Keely Brooke Keith

  “Still at home.”

  Lydia set the book on the doily-covered table beside Isabella and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Aunt Isabella.”

  “Be careful, child.”

  “I will be,” she assured her great aunt then dashed out of the room. Two lanterns burned brightly on the kitchen table. She held up a finger as she passed Mr. McIntosh by the door. “I’ll just grab my bag from the medical cottage and be on my way.”

  Mr. McIntosh followed her, wringing his hat in his hands. “You’ll find my boy in the back bedroom. Rebecca was making him gray leaf tea when I left. He’s bleeding very badly. Please, hurry.”

  Lydia dashed out the back door of her family’s home to her cottage and grabbed her medical bag, which she always kept right inside the office door. “Father will saddle my horse for you,” she said to Mr. McIntosh, who was standing beside his chestnut mare between the house and cottage. “I’ll take your horse.” After buckling her medical bag to Mr. McIntosh’s saddle, she jumped onto the mare’s back. “Don’t worry, Mr. McIntosh. I will do everything in my power to save your son.”

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  The Uncharted story continues in The Land Uncharted (Uncharted, #1). Tap here to download it on Kindle. Continue reading for a sample chapter.

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  Chapter One

  Lydia Colburn refused to allow a child to bleed to death. Pulling a sprig from a gray leaf tree out of her wind-whipped hair, she rushed inside the farmhouse and found the injured boy sprawled across the bed exactly as Mr. McIntosh had said she would. She dropped her medical bag on the floor beside Mrs. McIntosh, who was holding a blood-soaked rag against young Matthew’s lower leg.

  The globe of an oil lamp provided the only light in the dim bedroom. Matthew’s breath came in rapid spurts. Lydia touched his clammy skin. “He’s still losing blood. Get the pillows out from under his head.” She slid her hands beneath his fractured limb and gently lifted it away from the mattress. “Put them here under his leg.”

  Mrs. McIntosh’s thin hands shook as she moved the pillows. “I gave him tea from the gray leaf tree as soon as his father brought him in the house.” Her voice cracked. “I know he isn’t in pain now, but it hurts me just to look at all this blood.”

  “You did the right thing.” Lydia opened her medical bag and selected several instruments. She peeled back the bloody rag, revealing the fractured bone. Its crisp, white edges protruded through his torn skin. “You will be all right, Matthew. Do you feel any pain?”

  “No, but it feels weird.” His chin quivered as he stared at his mother with swollen eyes. “Am I going to die?”

  Mrs. McIntosh drew her lips into her mouth and stroked his head. “You’ll be fine. Miss Colburn will fix it.”

  When Lydia touched his leg, he recoiled and screamed. It wasn’t from pain since he’d taken the gray leaf medicine, but even the most miraculous medicine couldn’t stop terror.

  With his fractured leg tucked close to his body, he buried his face into the pleats of his mother’s dress. Instead of mustering her courage and making her son cooperate, Mrs. McIntosh coddled him.

  Lydia couldn’t reach his wound with him curled up on his mother. Though every physician appreciated a nurturing parent, this was no time to help a child hide. She had to separate them. “Matthew, your mother is right. You will be just fine.” She reached for his leg again. “You don’t have to look at me, but you must put your leg on the pillow. Matthew? Let me straighten your leg.”

  Mrs. McIntosh glared at the bloody wound and began to weep. “Oh, Matt, I’m so sorry. My baby!”

  “Mrs. McIntosh?” Lydia raised her voice over the woman’s sobs. “Rebecca! I know it’s hard, but please be strong for your son’s sake. I need you to help me. Can you do that?”

  Mrs. McIntosh sniffled and squared her shoulders. “I’ll try.”

  It was a start. Lydia lowered her volume. “Good. Thank you. First, I need more light. Do you have another lamp in the house?”

  “Yes, of course.” She wiped her nose on her sleeve and scurried out of the room.

  Relieved that Mrs. McIntosh was gone, Lydia caught the boy’s eye. She touched his foot with both hands. “Matthew, you must lie still while I treat your injury. You won’t feel any pain since you were a good boy and drank the gray leaf tea your mother made, but now you have to be brave for me. All right?” She was prepared to hold him down while she worked but loathed the thought.

  He allowed her to move his broken leg back onto the pillow. She worked quickly and methodically until the bleeding was under control, the instruction of her mentor, Dr. Ashton, playing audibly in her mind. If only she’d known how to treat traumatic injuries a decade ago, maybe then she could have saved her mother.

  Mrs. McIntosh’s footsteps clicked down the hallway. Lydia wasn’t ready for the anxious woman’s return, so she called out, “Please, bring cold water and a few clean rags first. I need them more than I need the extra light.”

  The footsteps receded.

  She cleansed the torn flesh with gray leaf oil then looked into the open wound and aligned the bone, trying to complete the job before Mrs. McIntosh returned. Matthew’s eyes were squeezed shut. Her heart ached for the pallid and broken boy. “I heard you had a birthday recently, Matthew. How old are you now? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

  He opened his eyes but stared at the ceiling. “I’m seven,” he slurred through missing teeth. His respiration had settled; the gray leaf’s healing power was taking effect.

  “Ah, I see you’ve lost another baby tooth.” She cut a piece of silk thread for suture and kept the needle out of his sight while she threaded it. “Soon you will have handsome new adult teeth.”

  He closed his eyes again and lay still.

  Mrs. McIntosh walked back into the room with a pitcher of water in her hands and a wad of kitchen towels tucked under her elbow. She set the water jug on the floor beside Lydia’s feet and bundled the rags on the bed. “Is that enough?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “I’ll be right back with the lamp,” she said as she vanished from the room again.

  Lydia covered the stitches with a thick layer of gray leaf salve. While she wrapped his leg loosely with clean muslin, the front door slammed and a man’s worried voice drifted through the hallway.

  Mrs. McIntosh spoke to her husband in a hushed tone and then returned to the bedroom holding a lamp. She sighed. “Oh, thank heavens you’re done.” She lit the lamp and placed it on a cluttered table by the bed. As she sat on the edge of the mattress beside Matthew, she whispered, “He’s asleep.”

  Lydia slathered her hands with the disinfecting gray leaf oil and wiped them on a clean rag. A mud stain from the hasty ride here had spotted the hem of her favorite day dress. It would come out if she washed it as soon as she got home. At least it was dark enough out that if she passed someone in the village, they wouldn’t notice the imperfection.

  As she gathered her medical instruments, Mr. McIntosh stepped into the bedroom, holding his wide-brimmed hat in his hands. “Is there anything I can do?”

  She stretched her tense neck muscles. “I need two thin pieces of wood to splint his leg.”

  Mr. McIntosh nodded and left. While he was gone, Lydia cleaned and packed her instruments, arranging them neatly just as Dr. Ashton had taught her. Surely her work here tonight would convince the village elders to award her the title of Doctor.

  Soon, the boy’s father returned with two flat wooden shingles. She used them to splint the boy’s leg, then gave the McIntoshes instructions for bandaging and cleaning their son’s wound. She offered Mrs. McIntosh a jar of gray leaf salve—her own special blend that was more potent than what Dr. Ashton used when he could still work. “Use this twice a day on the wound. With rest and proper care, your son should heal completely in a few days.”

  After one last check on Matthew, she followed the McIntoshes out to
the porch. Stars crowded the clear sky, and crickets’ intermittent chirps pierced the cool night air. Her spotted gray mare snorted as Mr. McIntosh gathered the reins and walked toward her.

  Mrs. McIntosh fanned her face with both hands. “Thank you, Lydia.”

  “Send for me if you have concerns with his wound. I’m always available to help, anytime day or night.”

  Mr. McIntosh wiped his brow with a cotton handkerchief. “It seems too dangerous of a job for a woman—taking the forest path alone at night like you did to get here.” He slapped his hat back on his head and dabbed at the sweat on his neck. “I’m grateful you got here in time to save my boy, no doubt about it, but the way you rushed down the forest path instead of taking the main road worried me. Granted you beat me back here by twenty minutes, but still it’s too dangerous at night to—”

  “I haven’t seen a night dark enough to keep me from my duty.” She stepped around him and strapped her medical bag to the saddle, then paused to give her favorite horse a slow stroke down her blond mane. “Good girl, Dapple.”

  He nodded. “That’ll be the last time Matthew climbs to the roof of the barn.”

  “Yes. Please see to it.” She tugged on her riding gloves, ready to be back in her warm, safe cottage on her family’s property.

  Mr. McIntosh handed her the reins. “I heard your family will gather tomorrow to celebrate Isabella’s seventy-fifth birthday. How about I deliver a lamb roast as your payment?”

  “That would be excellent, thank you. I’ll tell my father to expect you.” She mounted Dapple and settled into the saddle. “Aunt Isabella will be glad to have roast lamb at her party.”

  “A lamb it is. Thank you, Miss Colburn. Oh, and do take the road back to the village. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you on your way home.”

  * * *

  Lydia arranged the dishes on the buffet in the kitchen to make room for the lamb roast. Her father nestled it into place at the center of the bountiful spread. John Colburn’s grin was as bright as sunrise at the shore. “I heard you well and truly earned this last night. Good work. And it looks delicious.”

  She inhaled the savory aroma rising with the roast’s steam. “It smells delicious too.”

  The lamb fit perfectly between the dishes of scalloped corn and buttery mashed potatoes. She carefully aligned the dishes on the buffet and laid a silver server next to each platter. Once everything looked flawless, she squeezed around her sisters and their children and the ladies from church who were all here to celebrate Aunt Isabella’s birthday.

  After untying her apron, she left the warm room that buzzed with familiar voices and soft laughter. A thrill of excitement tingled her insides. This was going to be perfect.

  As she walked through the parlor, she sent a secretive smile to Mandy Foster who was tuning her violin. The music would make the party everything Isabella had asked for. So why hadn’t the elderly woman come out of her room yet?

  Lydia straightened the turtle-shaped brooch pinned to her dress as she passed the staircase and knocked on her great-aunt’s bedroom door.

  “Come in,” Isabella answered with a gravelly voice.

  Lydia turned the glass doorknob and stepped inside. The dark room and the unmade bed struck a chord of sadness in her heart. She left the door open and the late afternoon sunlight that filled the rest of the house seeped into the room.

  Isabella sat in her rocking chair by the window, its thick curtains tightly drawn. Her knitting needles clicked in rhythm. “What is it, dear?”

  “We’re ready for you, Aunt Isabella.” Lydia smiled as she spoke, but her blind aunt’s face remained impassive. She wanted to run to her aunt’s chair like she would have as a child and tug on her hands, begging her to come into the kitchen.

  Isabella continued knitting for a moment then lowered the yarn and needles into the basket beside her chair. She reached for her cane. “I do hate a fuss. I hope you didn’t waste time on decorations. They are a frivolity.”

  Lydia stepped closer. “No, there aren’t any decorations, but the food looks wonderful. Mr. McIntosh delivered a roast lamb, and it smells exquisite. Everything is ready for you. Won’t you come to the kitchen?”

  “It does smell good.” Isabella’s fingers traced the cane’s curve. “Seventy-five. Isn’t that old?” She sounded surprised by her own age.

  Lydia put aside her childish eagerness and knelt beside her aunt, touching her arm. “I think seventy-five is lovely.”

  “Sweet girl.” Isabella patted the top of Lydia’s hand. “I’m blind and even I can see that seventy-five is old.” She leaned on her cane and stayed in her chair. Her lips twitched before she spoke. “I mostly thought of my mother today. I always do on my birthdays. I suppose that’s odd after all these years.”

  “Not at all.”

  “Yes, you understand. You miss your mother as much as I miss mine. You always will, dear. I assure you.” Isabella stood with stiff movements. “Have your father and Levi come in from their chores yet?”

  “Yes, they’re washed up and waiting in the kitchen. Maggie and Adeline made all your favorite dishes, and Bethany came straight home after school to help too. You should have stayed in the kitchen with us while we cooked. We had an enjoyable afternoon together.”

  “The four of you girls together in the kitchen all afternoon and with the little ones whining at your feet—” Isabella guffawed. “My years of finding that enjoyable have passed. Besides, I don’t like a crowd—not for long anyway.”

  “Maggie and Adeline and their families so rarely visit. I like it when we’re all together.”

  Isabella smoothed the front of her dress. “Is Mandy here? I want her to play her violin in the parlor while we eat so I can hear the music—but not too loud. Tell her not too loud.”

  “Yes, she knows. And several of your friends from church just arrived. They’re all waiting for you.”

  Isabella held her cane in one hand and found Lydia’s elbow with the other. “Which dress are you wearing?”

  “The maroon one with the white lace at the bottom.”

  “Your blue dress is softer.”

  “It isn’t cold enough to wear the blue dress.”

  “It will be cold soon; the equinox is coming. I can feel it. The atmosphere changes somehow on the autumn equinox. It always has. Do you have on your mother’s brooch?”

  “Of course.” Lydia touched the silver turtle pinned to her dress over her heart.

  Isabella took one step and stopped. She waved her cane in front of her. “I was born in this house, just as you were. After your grandfather and I were born, our father added this room onto the house. Then when your grandfather married your grandmother, they made this my private room. They added a new nursery onto the house when your father was born. Oh, how they hoped for many children, but neither of your father’s siblings lived past infancy.” Isabella sighed then smiled, causing Lydia to wonder if the nostalgic interlude was authentic sentiment or a stall tactic. “But when your father married your mother and they had the five of you children, well, that’s when the house finally felt full to me.”

  They inched out of the bedroom then Isabella stopped in the hallway. She faced Lydia, but her unseeing eyes didn’t settle. “I’ve lived seventy-five years in this house, and none of my time was wasted so long as I’m not a burden.”

  She hated it when her aunt talked like that. “You aren’t a burden to anyone. We all love you, and that’s why we are honoring you. Come now, everyone’s waiting.”

  Isabella straightened her posture as if readying herself for the crowd. “I can face another seventy-five years, so long as I make myself useful.”

  Lydia helped her aunt into the kitchen, even though she didn’t really need help. After everyone showered Isabella with birthday wishes, John said the blessing. Then, Lydia filled a plate at the buffet table and scanned the room for a place to sit. Unable to find a seat in the crowded kitchen, she took her plate to the staircase in the parlor. Fr
om there she could see into the nearby kitchen where her family and their guests crammed around the table with Isabella.

  One of Lydia’s brothers-in-law sat between his two small children at the table, and the other brother-in-law sat nearby on the edge of the stone hearth with his plate balanced on his open palm. Her two-year-old niece couldn’t reach the bread basket and began to cry. The men strained to keep their conversation going over the top of the other voices. The flurry of sound flowed into the parlor.

  Levi walked out of the loud kitchen and sat beside her on the staircase. Her brother handed her a napkin. She took it and offered him an olive. He popped the olive into his mouth and followed it with a forkful of potatoes from his plate. Then his expression changed as his gaze settled on Mandy who stood near the front door playing slow and soft music on her heirloom violin. Her eyes were closed as the notes flowed from the instrument. A blanket of auburn curls covered her back and danced along her trim waistline.

  Lydia glanced at her brother as he watched Mandy. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, and she knows it.” He looked down at his food.

  Lydia let it go. She took the bread roll from her plate and picked off one bite at a time as she listened to Mandy’s music. One tune ended, and another began. “This is the song she composed for the dance last year. I like it.”

  “It would sound even better if she played it on one of the new wood violins.”

  Lydia nudged his knee. “That might be true, but don’t let Aunt Isabella hear you say it. She has strong opinions about the new wood instruments.”

  Levi nodded then continued eating, watching Mandy all the while.

  When they finished their dinner, Lydia relaxed into Levi’s thick shoulder. Though ten months her junior, he had been bigger than she was since they were toddlers. People who didn’t know their family usually assumed he was older.

  “Come with me tomorrow and see the land I selected.” His voice held a secretive tone. She shifted and looked at him. His light brown eyes matched hers. His hair was the same light brown as hers, but his included lighter strands from days spent working in the sun. “I’m done with the land survey, and I started drawing plans to build.”