Vermillion (The Hundred Days Series Book 1)

by Baird Wells

  Louisa paused at the first entrance, fist suspended just short of the door, vibrating like a hummingbird. Kate shifted weight from one boot to another, leaning to see around Matthew in the candle light, wondering if they would ever go in.

  Finally, Louisa glanced at her party, looking resigned, and knocked.

  If a voice called out, Kate never heard it, but after a few seconds' pause something reanimated Louisa, who opened the door.

  “Matthew is arrived, my lady. With a... companion.” Her tone of voice crafted the word delicately as though it were a bad omen, the weight of which she did not yet want to impress upon her ladyship.

  Matthew turned quickly, pausing at the threshold and grasped one of her hands. “Truly, Louisa worries for nothing. My mother can be a force of nature, but you are just the person to do battle with her.”

  Kate admitted it was rather lovely, being the center of so much fuss and attention. It must have been years since the last time anyone took so much notice. There was a jest about it, resting on the tip of her tongue, but suddenly Matthew looked tired and exposed. She kept quiet and nodded.

  They moved single file behind Louisa, through a darkened anteroom. She was a paradox of regal carriage and hunched tension with each halting step toward the doorway. Inside the bed chamber, she darted immediately to a wide four-post bed, flitting from side to corner, tugging and smoothing ineffectually at the white lacework bed cover. If the rest of the house were a little spartan, efforts had clearly been concentrated to make the private rooms just the opposite. There was no color, just white textures of silk, muslin or lace. The bed, occupying the center of the room, was guarded by two spindly legged wooden tables. An overstuffed chair wedged into the corner between a side table and the fireplace looked to Kate like the perfect place to fall asleep reading a book.

  Lady Adelaide was exactly as she had pictured. Propped against a stack of pillows, she commanded the bed as though it were a throne. Matthew was her exact copy, except that her nose rounded at the tip where his was full, and her chin completed the doll-like oval of her face in opposition to his square jaw. They even shared the same black locks. Adelaide's tumbled in thick rings down her shoulders, and, despite a few silver threads, hers stubbornly refused to turn gray.

  “Mama, how are you?” Matthew leaned over, wrapping his mother tightly and planting a kiss at her temple. Kate ignored a small pang of jealousy at their embrace, reminded of how much she missed her own mother.

  “Matthew. It's absurd, you coming here in the middle of the night. I was afraid Caroline Lamb had come calling, or one of those dreadful bohemians.” Adelaide smoothed the deep ruffle at the yoke of her dressing gown. “Her mother is a lovely creature, but the girl makes me exceedingly tired with her antics.”

  Kate didn't understand the reference, but Matthew laughed, settling on the edge of the mattress. “If Byron has not come down, then neither will Caro. You are quite safe, mama.”

  Adelaide sat forward a bit, leaning past him, and Kate felt the woman’s' scrutiny fall across her with physical weight, it was so intense. “And who is this... person you've brought with you?”

  Kate admitted her surprise. There was no snobbery in the question. Adelaide sounded genuinely curious, if a little abrupt.

  Matthew straightened. She knew the pose well. He was preparing to argue a point. “Miss Foster is our surgeon's aide for the regiment. Her father was a physician and her mentor. I would like you to speak with her about what's wrong.”

  Adelaide's head snapped to Louisa, who was suddenly engrossed in poking the embers in the firebox. “What is wrong?”

  Still bent over the hearth, Louisa froze with awkward pretense, seemingly hopeful that if she didn't move, no one could see her. Kate stepped forward before the poor woman's nerves gave way.

  “I agree with your ladyship entirely. Our visit is an imposition. If I could quickly check you over, the general will be satisfied, and we can be off.”

  Lady Webb folded her arms and raised her chin, in a pose her son had inherited. “Do not attempt to manipulate me, Miss Foster. I am fifty-six years old and have lived far too long to be treated like a child.”

  The field suddenly leveled, Kate jumped to take a new tack.

  “I meant no offense, ladyship. My aim was to appease your son, since neither you nor I will have sleep until he is satisfied. My backside smarts as though I were stoned fleeing town, and I imagine we would both appreciate settling into bed before dawn.”

  Kate had given the proud woman an out, earning an appreciative sideways glance from Matthew.

  “You have the right of it. I know better than to think Matthew will be persuaded from anything when he's set his mind.” There was an exchange between mother and son, for only a breath, but Kate swore a sad tension radiated between the pair. She turned, unthreading the strap on her bag.

  “Louisa, have Mrs. Acre send up tea, and Matthew, you may take one of these chairs out into the hall, to be more comfortable.”

  Matthew drew up at the foot of the bed. “What do you mean, hall?”

  Adelaide waved a hand at her. “While you wait for Miss Foster to do whatever it is she's about.” She turned her head pointedly away from her son in a calculated attempt to shoo him off. “What is it Miss Foster? Cupping? I tell Doctor Eckman constantly that I do not enjoy the sight of blood. What is that vial in your hand...is that a powder?”

  “I am not waiting in the hall.” Fists balled instantly at Matthew's hips in almost childlike defiance.

  “You cannot stay in here.” Her warning was thick as steel.

  “I damned well will.” Matthew's boot struck the floor, but its impact was stolen, muted by the wool rug.

  By now Kate was cutting teeth into her lip, to fight a wave of laughter.

  Lady Webb clucked her tongue gently. “Do not swear, Matthew. Such a nasty habit.”

  “By God, if I see fit –”

  Kate tossed the medicine pouch back into her sack and slapped her hands together. “Really, you two! Civility or silence.” It had been her mother's favorite admonishment when she and Fann went through a spat of name calling and braid pulling. Sad that the first time she thought to use it was on two grown adults.

  Matthew's eyes fell desperately to her, and Kate knew what he was about to ask. She also knew, after five minutes in Lady Webb's presence, that he asked the impossible. There was no way, if he could not get his mother's cooperation, that she could. She was down to employing stealth, or at least an oblique attack, with both of them. First, she needed Matthew out. “General, why don't you go down and manage tea. We can give Lady Louisa some rest, and I can get better acquainted with my patient.”

  He did not like what she was saying. It was evident in the way Matthew stared, not making the slightest move to follow her direction. Kate widened her eyes. Likely faced with the realization that he was outnumbered by stubborn women, Matthew deflated with a sigh and stalked from the room.

  Adelaide relaxed against the headboard, smiling. “You manage him well, girl.”

  Kate smiled and nodded, opening her bag. “He's worried. And the best thing to do with a worrier is to keep him busy.” She dug a hand around, under the shawl she had hastily thrown into her bag, finding her small brown leather journal and the nub of her pencil. She grabbed the ladder-back chair propped against a rail by the door and dragged it near the head of the bed.

  She settled in, folding open the journal and moving to a clean page. “The general says your doctor has had a difficult time treating you.”

  “Cupping is his usual method, but I have refused his efforts since February. He tells me the process must be repeated until it is effective, but in truth I've felt better since it stopped.”

  Cupping was one of the stupidest, most universal treatments ever conceived of by medical knowledge. Anything and everything could be resolved by cutting a patient repeatedly and sucking blood to the surface. It was applied liberally, even when the patient began to decline. That, a cupping sort of
doctor would reason, was the fault of the illness and not his method. Stupid, she added again, shaking her head.

  Kate noted the date and treatment history on her small sheet of vellum. “Your body needs blood. It will replace what you've lost, so it seems silly to believe we are taking away an excess when someone is bled.”

  Adelaide's shoulders relaxed at the information. Kate closed her pencil into the book. “Do you have questions, before we begin?”

  Her patient picked at the lacework, shifting under her scrutiny. “I do not know what to say, truthfully. Is there something you can do that a physician cannot? I mean you no offense, Miss Foster, but that seems impossible to me.”

  “I am not the least offended.” Skepticism was the easiest form of resistance as far as she was concerned. She picked up Adelaide's hand, studying the palm and flipping it over to examine the nails of her slender fingers. “I believe there are many capable physicians and surgeons, some of whom I could never hope to surpass. But I challenge your ladyship to think about the care you've received during the whole of your life. I would feel confident saying you were offered leeches or laudanum, and it was just as likely they failed as succeeded. Hardly the fault of your doctors; they are only prepared by what the college of medicine teaches them.”

  Adelaide furrowed a brow. “Something other than what you have been taught, I gather?”

  “My father was a pioneer of battlefield medicine, and a family doctor for three towns. He cared for the natives around our home. The education I received from him, and the local medicine man, likely contained more useful information than a doctor receives in all his training.”

  “Do you have formal training? Besides the army.”

  “My father taught me as his apprentice. I began at the same place as every doctor, at least in America. My training is no different, but my knowledge is.” It was a fact, not a boast.

  “You cannot practice, Miss Foster. That is true in America, is it not?”

  “It is. Yet here I am.” She stared down Adelaide's challenge.

  “Serving with the army?” Lady Webb gave her head a little shake. “Most unusual. Are you a married woman?”

  “Widowed, like you,” said Kate.

  “Hmph.” Adelaide stiffened, as if trying and failing at resisting being in sympathy with Kate.

  They sized each other up, Kate feeling that her inquisitor was moving around a weighty issue, turning it over in her mind. Adelaide relaxed further back against the pillows, looking exactly like a wounded animal, only accepting care because she was too injured to bite or flee.

  Kate tapped the journal with her index finger, flipping back to her entry. “Let's begin with the simplest bit. What is wrong with you?”

  Adelaide worried her thumbnail, considering the question. “Malaise. I would say it came on rather suddenly, but Louisa insists she noticed after Christmas.” She avoided Kate's eyes, turning away to watch the fire.

  Kate scratched a note across the paper with one half of her brain, forming suspicion with the other. There was more to the story than she was being told. “Just fatigue, no other physical signs?”

  “Not particularly.”

  Kate noted that Adelaide did not say 'no'. “Fever? Coughing up blood,” she offered.

  “No, neither one.”

  “Incontinence?”

  An uncomfortable pause. “Urgency, Doctor Eckman calls it.”

  Puzzle pieces were fitting together in her mind, and Kate did not like the shape they were making. “Hmm. Vaginal bleeding...spots of blood or clots?”

  “Miss Foster.” Adelaide turned farther away, wriggling against the covers.

  “If you had a broken carriage or a piano,” Kate chastised, “you would have not the slightest issue describing to a workman what happened, the extent of the damage. And you would express an expectation, quite reasonably, that it be fixed.” She laid fingers on the back of Adelaide's hand. “Your body deserves as much consideration as a piece of furniture. Modesty is doing nothing but killing you at the moment.”

  Fishing in the pocket of her house gown, Adelaide pulled out a small linen hankie and dabbed at both eyes. “The spots began a fortnight ago. Before that, cramping and a fullness in my belly.”

  Her heart fell. Bleeding in a woman of such advanced age was always a bad sign.

  “Your monthly courses have stopped?” Impossible as it was, Kate wished the answer were no.

  “Some ten years ago.”

  Fighting back dread, Kate pressed on. “Pain or discomfort in your groin?”

  “Yes. Particularly after sitting long periods – the carriage ride from Antwerp was misery. Sometimes the pain comes on without warning.” Adelaide drew up her shoulders and shuddered.

  Standing, Kate held up her hands. “I'd like to examine your belly.”

  “I do not wish to disrobe.” A hand gripped tighter at the ruffled neckline.

  She tried reassuring Adelaide with a smile. “No need. Just slide down the bed and lie flat. Open your gown, but your shift is fine as it is.”

  Tossing back the quilt, Lady Webb wriggled down from the pillows, barely moving the front panel of her nightgown, leaving it to Kate to turn back the fabric.

  Using the fingertips of both hands, Kate rolled and prodded from the belly button downward, watching her patient's face for the slightest flinch. “Any discomfort?”

  Lady Webb's face was turned away, thumb pressed to her lips. “Just bloat.”

  Kate braced her hand against Adelaide's hip, using a middle and index finger to dig with steady pressure downward behind the pubic bone. A gasp, a jerk of the legs brought her hand away.

  She smiled and held out an arm, but her chest squeezed with agonizing pressure.

  It was cancer of the cervix.

  Settling back against the headboard, Lady Webb's charcoal eyes probed her for some hint. “Well, what have you discovered?”

  Kate rubbed her arm. “Just rest a minute. I'll get the general and then we can talk. If we discuss anything without him, you know there will be trouble.”

  Lady Webb nodded, full lips flattened to a grim line.

  Matthew had been so hopeful when he'd first asked her to come. It was killing her, having to tell him that his mother was very sick, and there was little she could do. Kate threw open the bedchamber door, nearly bowling him over and almost throwing the tea tray into his chest. She came up short, slamming the door before Lady Webb caught a glimpse of his approach.

  “I'm sorry. I would have been up sooner, but Louisa –”

  Kate grabbed the tray, searching the shadows of the darkened front room and finally clattering it down atop something resembling a chess table.

  “Miss Foster?” Worry added points to his question.

  Grabbing Matthew's hand, she led him to a small settee under the window, where the moon winked behind the trees on its decent to the horizon. She sat, pulling him down under creaking protest from the sofa. Matthew settled beside her, and Kate took both of his hands.

  She could just make out his handsome features in the dark, forehead knit with tense lines, drawing his brows together. What she had to say was going to break his heart.

  “Your mother is ill, general.”

  “How ill?”

  His lips barely formed the words. Kate steeled herself and squeezed his hands tighter. “Cancer of the cervix, I'm almost positive.”

  He made a kind of reverse gasp, as though he'd been punched in the gut. They sat in silence, Kate listening to the artificial way he slowed his breaths, feeling the stiffness of his body beside her.

  When he spoke, it was through a mouthful of gravel. “You're confident of that?”

  “Enough to share my diagnosis. I would never worry you or your mother over mere speculation,” Kate said.

  He shuddered next to her, stumbling on a ragged breath. Kate leaned closer, then hesitated. Matthew, seeming to have less reservations about their history, squeezed her fingers almost painfully and dropped his forehead to her sh
oulder. She leaned into him, rested her cheek against his hair, and let him be. “I'm sorry, Matthew.”

  For a moment he was limp, and then she felt his palms pressed to the small of her back. His forehead rested just above her ear, voice a ragged whisper. “Thank you.”

  She patted his arm and pulled away. “I still have some good news. Come, let's tell her and then you can both discuss what you would like to do.” She stood up, offering her hand.

  Matthew wrapped her fingers, letting her tug him up from the sofa. He pulled her in close the moment her arm relaxed. “I know it is your way to laugh off a compliment, but just this once I want you to take it seriously. I am so, so –” His voice broke, springing tears up in her eyes, “So very grateful.”

  Not trusting herself to speak, she wrapped a hand around his shoulder and opened the door.

  * * *

  He sat in the chair beside his mother, squeezing her hand and feeling a cold sweat on his fingers that might have belonged to him or both of them.

  She was not going to die. He wouldn't even contemplate the idea.

  His mother swiped at her eyes again, sniffling and seeming to get a hold of herself for the moment. “What can be done?”

  Kate crouched beside the bed and took her other hand. Matthew told himself yet again that he had done the right thing by bringing her.

  “The unfortunate news is, surgery is the only treatment,” she warned.

  His mother squeezed his hand with biting pressure, staring at her quilt.

  Kate flicked open her journal lying at her feet and pulled out a small handbill. “Here is the good news.” She held it out, smiling.

  He took the paper, unfolded it and skimmed its bold print. “Doctor Konrad Langenbeck?”

  “He is a surgeon from Hanover. The surgeon for the Hanoverian army, in fact. Doctor Addison and I chanced to meet him on our way through Paris. I have corresponded with him, from time to time.”

  “This is an unbelievable coincidence.” Heart racing, he glanced at his mother's bemused frown and waved the paper. “The Hanoverian army is here. He will be close. Very close.”