She poured a small basin of water and found a soft cloth. Sitting beside the couch, she dipped the cloth, wrung out the excess water, and laid it on Alexander’s brow. He did not move but for a deeper line between his eyes. She held his hands, hot as well, and attempted to cool them with more damp cloths.
At the doctor’s arrival, Isabelle requested to stay for the examination. For all other such assessments, she had removed herself for the sake of propriety, but Alexander wouldn’t be embarrassed about what he couldn’t see or hear, after all.
“I am sure the fever isn’t a positive development, but is this cause for worry?” she asked, looking earnestly at Doctor Kelley. His wrinkled hands slipped efficiently across Alexander’s forehead, shoulders, and arms. As he had each time he’d visited, he gave Isabelle a gentle and genuine smile. Not a large man, he seemed to fill the rooms he entered with a feeling of competence and confidence.
The doctor looked at her sideways as he continued to examine Alexander. “If the fever continues, there is much to concern me. If he doesn’t wake soon, there are likely far more troubling issues at hand.”
The forthright words did nothing to cover the doctor’s very personal concern. This was the man who had cared for Alexander’s family for several decades. Isabelle had learned over the previous days that Doctor Kelley had seen Alexander through childhood illnesses, quite a few accidents, and the death of the elder Mr. Osgood. He cared deeply about the outcome of this examination, and that care was apparent to Isabelle.
She tried and failed to keep a shaking out of her voice as she asked, “And why has he not awakened yet?”
He shook his head. “It’s impossible to say for certain. Many factors could be at play here. I believe the most likely situation is that Mr. Osgood has sustained an injury his body is attempting to heal and that healing can only take place while he remains at rest.” He turned to face her. “The body knows many secrets that we cannot imagine, and sometimes we have to trust it to heal itself.”
He adjusted a cushion under Alexander’s legs. “And you? Have you slept?”
“Of course.” Isabelle blushed. Was it so obvious that she’d spent several nights curled up on this parlor chair? “I am fine. Worry only about Mr. Osgood.”
“When he wakes, you may likely find yourself nursemaid to a difficult patient.” The doctor smiled at Isabelle. “I have set several bones for this one, and he fair denies the charge to sit still.”
Something about the doctor’s tone invited a deeper probing of this topic. “Did he break many bones as a child?”
The doctor shook his head as if remembering something uncomfortable. “His own and others’, I’m afraid.”
Isabelle gasped, and the doctor grinned at her. “Not from any malice, I assure you.”
“Is that typical of childhood in these parts?” she asked, playing into his obvious effort to relax her.
The gray head shook gently from side to side. “Ah, the stories I could tell.”
Isabelle laughed. “For a scone and a cup of tea, would you share one or two of them?”
The doctor picked up his bag. “Certainly, they’re all old news. Your husband surely told you all of his adventures.”
Surely.
Isabelle ignored the sting that assumption carried to her heart. Instead, she called upon Doctor Kelley’s obvious good humor. “But, sir, it would be a delightful diversion to hear them from your perspective.”
He looked at her as if to ascertain the sincerity of the invitation.
She would make it clear that she desired him to stay. “Please, sir? You could stay an hour, couldn’t you? We could visit, and perhaps by then his fever will have broken.”
“Would that it could,” he said. Then, possibly realizing that his comment sounded hopeless, he set the bag at the foot of a chair and turned to Isabelle, giving her his full attention. “Mrs. Osgood, it would be a great honor to share a scone and a cup of tea, not to mention impart a thing or two I’ve come to know about our Alec.”
Alec? She thought she remembered Mr. Kenworthy saying Mr. Osgood’s name thus, but she assumed he’d simply been rushing to get to the next words. Did Alexander have other friends who called him Alec? How odd that she had not known it. But, upon reflection, she realized that of her regular associates, she only ever heard the servants call him by his name; clearly, they would only ever refer to him as Mr. Osgood or sir. Isabelle tried it out in her mind. Alec. She thought she rather liked it. She wondered if she’d ever feel comfortable calling him by such a familiar name. After the many times over the past few days that she’d spoken his name and he remained unresponsive, it was still strange to think she’d never even addressed him as Alexander when he was awake.
After requesting tea, Isabelle took a seat on the chair next to Alexander’s feet. This way, she could glance over and see his face. But when the doctor sat in the chair near Alexander’s head, she saw that he’d made the more intimate choice. His hand immediately came to rest on Alexander’s hair, cupping his head in a gesture so gentle, so familiar, that it brought a tear to Isabelle’s eye.
“You love him,” she heard herself say.
“That I do, that I do.” The doctor stretched his legs in front of him, settling himself in. He readjusted his shoulders in his chair, making himself comfortable enough to stay as long as Isabelle chose to keep him there. “As I loved his father, rest his soul. Thomas Osgood was a decent, hardworking man, and if Alec has told you he was a hard man, he’d not have told you all.”
Once again, Isabelle squirmed under the assumption that Alexander had told her anything of his past, of his family. Isabelle had never even known Alexander’s father’s name had been Thomas.
If Doctor Kelley noticed her discomfort, he chose to speak over it. “Had a difficult journey of it, did Thomas. He owned a smithy in the village, a very successful one. He made a name for himself far and wide in a few years.”
The doctor’s gaze softened as though he were seeing Mr. Osgood’s smithy in his memory. “Men traveled a fair distance to receive services from Thomas Osgood, and he managed to save a good deal of money by the time our Alec came along.”
Doctor Kelley leaned toward Isabelle to emphasize his words. “Always wanted something different, something better for his boy. Sent Alec away to school, hoping an education would help him rise a bit further in the world.” The doctor looked sideways at Isabelle and cocked his eyebrow. “Bit revolutionary, that,” he said with a conspiratorial grin.
Isabelle nodded, well aware from her own father’s experience that a few decades ago, it would have been difficult to imagine anyone becoming more than he was born to.
The doctor continued. “When Thomas’s wife took ill, he cared for her as well as he could, working as much as possible while she rested. Near wore him down. Alexander was shielded from the hardest parts of his mother’s illness while he was at school, but Thomas had very little left of the nurture and compassion he gave to his wife to share with his son. Poor lad was raised without much of gentleness and motherly care.”
The doctor let his hand trail along Alexander’s hair for a moment. “And at the loss of his dear wife, Thomas turned to his work to bury his pain.” He looked at an indistinct something on the wall, lost in a memory. When he seemed to recollect himself, he sat up straighter and slapped his hands against his knees. “Well, and all of that to say that sometimes a man who appears cold or distant often has reason to seem so. Even if it’s not his true nature.”
Isabelle understood that Doctor Kelley was speaking of Alexander’s father but recognized reflections of her husband’s character in his words. It was possible that keeping himself so busy at the mill was a way to protect himself from something. Possibly, she allowed, even to protect her.
“Did you know,” the doctor continued, “that upon finishing his schooling, our Alexander became the pride of the whole valley here when he
purchased that ramshackle mill works up north? And nobody was more delighted than his old dad, though it was difficult for him to show it.”
With the doctor’s easy conversation, Isabelle relaxed for the first time in days. He continued to tell her stories he must have assumed she’d heard, about Alexander’s fortuitous purchase of the old mill that had been abandoned by its owners when modern equipment and facilities became more commonly available. She listened to stories of Alexander’s childhood exploits that left him with bone fractures and bruises enough to keep Doctor Kelley busy. She only realized she was nodding off when her head fell forward enough to jerk her awake.
Humiliated and horrified, she fluttered to set down her teacup and rise from her seat. Although the good doctor looked far from censure, she felt desperate to apologize. “Oh, Doctor Kelley. I’m so sorry. Please don’t consider my impolite response to your delightful stories as anything other than what I am beginning to realize is a deep fatigue.”
“My dear Mrs. Osgood, if I may be so bold as to address you as such,” he said, rising from his chair. “If I have done anything to ease your mind, your heart, or your limbs today, I will feel it a day doubly well spent.”
He touched Alexander’s forehead again, nodding. “I believe he’s still warmer than we’d like him. Allow me to administer another cooling salve, and then I shall let the two of you rest. With your permission, I’ll check back in this evening after dinner, but I guarantee you I’ll not overstay my professional welcome.” The wink with which he delivered his promise assured Isabelle that he was unoffended by her show of exhaustion.
As she showed him out of the parlor and to the door, the good doctor placed a paternal hand on her shoulder. “Of all the good fortunes our Alec has received, earned or unearned, you might turn out to be the greatest of them all. We shan’t let him overlook it, shall we?”
Isabelle was startled at the love that welled up inside her for this sweet man. Her gratitude for his time, his attention, and his hope ran deep within her.
He gave her instructions on how to carry on for the evening, as well as a notice of what she should watch for in Alexander’s responses, and then let himself out.
Isabelle returned to the parlor, where she took the chair the doctor vacated and placed her own hand on Alexander’s head before she curled her feet beneath her and allowed sleep to overtake her.
Isabelle awoke in the dark parlor with a vicious pain in her neck.
As she sat up from the chair, she sought for the sound that had awakened her. The fire’s embers glowed feebly, telling her it was quite late, as there had been a comfortable blaze when she’d closed her eyes. She rubbed her neck as her eyes adjusted and looked over at the still form of Alexander. Only when the sound hit her ears again did she realize that she’d heard him moan.
She flew from the chair and knelt beside him, grasping his still-unresponsive hand in hers. “Alexander?” she whispered. “Can you hear me?”
Barely daring to believe what she was seeing, she watched his eyes flutter open.
She smiled and held his hand between hers. Not knowing what to expect, she was nonetheless shocked and saddened to see a look of unmistakable fear come over him. Eyes widening, he looked as though he thought she had hurt him, and that she might again.
Perhaps, she thought, he is simply disoriented.
“There’s been an accident,” she whispered. “You were thrown from your horse, landing among some boulders in the field.” Hearing his shallow breathing and watching his eyes flit from side to side, she realized that this was too much for him to bear only seconds after waking. When the frightened, anxious look did not leave his eyes, she let go of his hand and backed away.
“I’ll call for Doctor Kelley,” she said. As she watched, the fear was replaced with something else. Not comfort, exactly, but something resembling peacefulness.
Of course, the idea of the doctor would be more appealing than the company of a woman he barely knew, particularly when he had no reason to trust her in a matter of health. She rang the bell for Yeardley and stood in the corner of the room, watching Alexander. He neither moved nor spoke. After a few seconds, his eyes closed again.
Yeardley came to the door, hastily tying the rope belt of an ancient-looking dressing gown. “Ma’am?” he managed, clearly still shaking away the clouds of sleep.
“He’s awakened,” Isabelle said. “Can you go for the doctor?”
“Oh, thank God,” he said. “Of course. Right away, ma’am.”
Alexander did not open his eyes again in the interminable minutes between Yeardley’s departure and Doctor Kelley’s entrance. Isabelle dared not light a lamp or move closer to Alexander, fearing to see that look of terror if he reopened his eyes. When at last the doctor arrived, Isabelle met him with a mixture of relief and anxiety. Alexander had not even shifted since she called for the doctor. Could she have dreamed his waking? Was it possible it had not happened at all?
But she thought she could not have dreamed that look in his eyes. Not even in a nightmare. When he looked at her, horror had overtaken him.
“He opened his eyes,” she whispered to the doctor. “Then he closed them again.” She felt the unhelpfulness of such a statement, but she wasn’t sure how else to contribute. Doctor Kelley patted her arm as he passed her on his way to Alexander.
“Did he speak?” the doctor asked over his shoulder. “Move at all?”
“No, neither. He made a sound that suggested discomfort, but he didn’t attempt to roll over or sit up.” She immediately felt foolish for using phrases that sounded like tricks one would teach a dog.
Doctor Kelley nodded and knelt beside the couch, his knees creaking as they bent. Isabelle was reminded that the doctor was likely far older than he appeared.
“Alec, my boy,” he said, leaning close to his patient’s ear. “You performed a mighty fine trick opening your eyes for the lovely Mrs. Osgood. You’ve thrown your wee household into quite a state, waking in the middle of the night. Suppose you do that again now I’m here to see it.”
His voice, gentle and paternal, carried vast emotion. Isabelle felt she was trespassing on an intensely personal moment between the two men, and she would have left the room could she bear to step away from what was happening or what might soon happen. The doctor lifted Alexander’s hand and let it rest gently again on the soft cotton blanket.
“Come now, Alec,” Doctor Kelley murmured. “Rouse yourself, lad. You’ll not want to be overlooking any of this excitement, considering how much you’ve already missed.”
Isabelle carried a taper from its holder and lit the lamp nearest the door, then stepped closer, waiting to see the doctor’s efforts pay out. He continued to speak gently, tenderly, and after a few minutes that felt eternal, Alexander let out another quiet groan.
“Ah, I hear you, boy,” Doctor Kelley said, placing a hand on Alexander’s shoulder. “And now I’d like to see those eyes open. Don’t you think you could do that?”
Now that she was standing nearer the men, she could tell that Doctor Kelley was moving his hands from Alexander’s wrists to chest to neck, and she assumed he was ascertaining the patient’s heartbeat.
Open your eyes, Alexander, Isabelle thought. Please. Desperate to know she hadn’t imagined him waking, while simultaneously desperate to believe he hadn’t been driven to terror by the sight of her face, she felt herself tearing in two. Wishing she could run, but not daring to step away from his side, she wrapped her arms around herself. She realized she was rocking softly side to side.
“Doctor, is there something I ought to be doing?” she whispered.
Without taking his eyes off his patient, Doctor Kelley responded in the same gentle voice with which he was imploring Alexander to wake up. “I’d not be averse to your offering a prayer.”
Isabelle’s arms tightened around herself. “Not exactly my specialty,” she said.
“That’s the best part of the arrangement, you see. God doesn’t seem to mind overmuch how well you feel you’re doing it. He simply likes to hear from you now and again.”
Isabelle nodded and mumbled a recitation from her childhood. When she was finished, she hoped it had comforted the doctor. Surprised to find that it had also given her a measure of peace, she continued to repeat the words in her mind.
She stared into the flame of the lamp, watching the flickering. In a moment, her attention was pulled back to the doctor when his tone changed.
“Ah, so there you are. Waking up now, are you?” The doctor again took Alexander by the hand, and the younger man’s eyes became riveted on Doctor Kelley’s face.
Opening his mouth, he moved his lips without making any sound. The wild and frightened look came back to his eyes, and Isabelle took a step back. She now realized his fear was not necessarily attached to the sight of her, but she didn’t want to see that fear become more pronounced when he looked in her direction.
“Give my hand a squeeze, won’t you?” the doctor said, holding Alexander’s unresponsive fingers in his own. Isabelle could not see any movement.
Alexander opened and closed his mouth again without making a noise.
The doctor laid Alexander’s hand back on the blanket. “Now, that’s a good lad. Don’t feel like you have to push too hard right at the first moment.” He continued to speak soft words until Alexander’s eyes closed again.
Isabelle felt herself exhale a breath she was unaware she’d been holding.
In the same encouraging voice, Doctor Kelley said, “I am not sure he’s not still listening. Our Alec might well be taking in all that we say.” He motioned to Isabelle, and the two of them stepped into the hallway.
Yeardley stood stiff and still in the darkened hall. The doctor asked him to stand beside Mr. Osgood for a moment. Yeardley gave a nod and glanced wordlessly at Isabelle, trying to summon a smile.
She tried the same.
Isabelle and Alexander Page 7