by V. E. Ulett
“How do you do, sir? You are come at last. Thank you, Brigit, dear.”
Both men bowed to her, and Brigit withdrew with a look Captain Blackwell could not interpret, but which he’d seen often on certain young faces at home.
“I hope I did not frighten her, with my appearance,” Captain Blackwell said. “But I was obliged to come by your letter, sir, and from my own fears for my…for Mercedes. I collect you have waited upon her in a profession capacity, sir?”
“I have, indeed. Mr. and Miss Blackwell called upon me, they discovered a card I gave Mrs. Blackwell at the Marlborough’s affair. When your wife became very ill, knowing no other physician in London, they sought me out.”
“I should beg pardon for their intruding upon you, but I cannot, if it brought her the best care to be found in this city.”
Captain Blackwell immediately felt he’d spoken indiscreetly. Doctor Russ regarded him through colored spectacles. He was shabbily dressed, even grubby, which offended Captain Blackwell’s particular seaman’s sense of cleanliness and order. Doctor Russ, though, was a great man, a renowned physician. A man who had only succeeded to be Physician of the Channel Fleet after much active sea-going duty as a ship’s surgeon. Doctor Russ had served at Trafalgar. Loving Mercedes as he did, Captain Blackwell had to bear in mind Doctor Russ’s great condescension in attending a woman.
“You do me great honor, sir. The case is this, Mrs. Blackwell has a mass in her left breast. Over time it has grown larger and harder, and is causing her greater and greater suffering. It is almost certainly cancer, sir, I am sorry for it. Now I shall speak yet more to the point. The only remedy is the knife, let there be no delay. It may already be too late.”
Captain Blackwell was stunned. Though he might blubber sitting alone by his wife’s bedside he could not do so here, with Doctor Russ observing him through slitted eyes from across his desk. It was difficult to make out any expression on the doctor’s face, but Captain Blackwell fancied even without the colored glasses there would be only cold dispassion. Perhaps that was what was most requisite in a physician. He had a brief and mortifying vision of this ill-kempt man touching Mercedes’ tender breast. He had to close his eyes and banish the thought from his mind.
“What do you mean by too late, Doctor?”
“Even if the peccant part is removed, the cancer may have spread beyond the breast to other parts of her body—”
Captain Blackwell’s grunt of dismay stopped the doctor’s speech. They gazed at one another, and for the first time he thought he saw a glint of compassion in the doctor’s expression. Then again, it might have been approval that he had at last understood the seriousness of Mercedes’ condition.
“I must still urge surgery, sir. She is a most extraordinary woman.”
That simple statement almost undid him. Tears rose to Captain Blackwell’s eyes, he agreed wholeheartedly. He wanted her by his side always. Always.
“She shall have the surgery.” He bowed his head a moment, quickly adding, “Is it what she wants? You have discussed it?”
Doctor Russ smiled for the first time, a fleeting, weak affair that passed over his features and vanished like a ghost.
“I did indeed. Mrs. Blackwell said, and I hope I commit no breach by repeating, that she wanted to live, even if she had to endure an operation, for she must help the Captain with his children.”
“She is a very fond mother, to be sure.” Captain Blackwell shook his head. “Though they are all oldsters now.”
There was a pause, during which Doctor Russ looked as though his mind were far away from St. James’s Place. Captain Blackwell prepared to take his leave.
“I have found myself in the position of being inside your family circle, Captain Blackwell, if you will allow, during my attendance upon Mrs. Blackwell. She is a fond mother, and her children are necessarily concerned with her well being, so I have had much conversation with both Mr. and Miss Blackwell. I must congratulate you, sir, on your son’s success, in his particular sphere.”
Captain Blackwell thought of Aloka, burns on arms and shoulders, hands flayed of skin from the pull the night of the attack, days and nights of hard labor, loss of life and bloodshed, for a sort of half-victory. He had a hard time imagining what success Doctor Russ referred to. Unless he meant to be ironical, in which case Captain Blackwell must bid him a good day. The doctor pushed a paper across his desk toward him.
‘Discourses on the Construction of the Heavens’ by Edward James Blackwell.
“A great accomplishment, to be published in the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions. Little do I know of mathematics, but I have a particular friend who assures me Mr. Blackwell’s philosophy is quite sound. And he not yet a university student.”
Captain Blackwell was astounded. He’d known Edward to be forever reading and studying astronomical papers and articles, but he’d certainly not been aware of the depth of his scholarship. To be published by the Royal Society! The last tutor Edward had was a Jesuit brother Mercedes had discovered. Public school had not answered. There had been many thrashings in Edward’s defense when Aloka was at school with him. And Edward generally outstripped the local masters in point of intellectual acuity.
“I have not yet had the pleasure of reading it, sir. I…I take it, it is a discussion of Mr. Herschel’s findings?”
“Just so,” the doctor said. “Sidereal time, an infinite space, perhaps many universes not unlike our own. Astonishing.”
“I quite agree. I must take my leave, sir. I’ve taken enough of your time.”
“I will have a look at your injuries before you go. Take off your shirt, Captain Blackwell, if you please.”
Captain Blackwell wanted nothing more than to fly home to Mercedes, to take that dear, treasured woman in his arms. He’d been astonished, frightened, humbled by what he’d learned in Doctor Russ’s study and he wanted to be alone, and with the woman he loved to absorb it all. Trained to obedience, however, he patiently stripped off his shirt.
“Don’t get up, sweetheart,” Blackwell cried.
He strode into her room and knelt beside her chair. This time he found her altering one of his shirts, so the shirt opened with buttons up the front. He wrapped his left arm round her waist and they leaned their heads together. At first he could barely speak.
“James, darling. You’ve been wounded again. Take off your shirt, and let me see. Tell me, I need to hear it from you. Aloka is unharmed?”
“Outside of a few scrapes, he’s prime. He fished his old governor out of the drink, he won’t tell you that. Pulled me out before I could drown or die of—”
“Oh, Jim!”
“I beg your pardon, sweetheart, it wasn’t so bad as all that, and I shall do just as you say in a moment. But first...” his voice faltered, “first, I want to hear about this trouble, the thing that is troubling you. I wish…I wish you had told me, as soon as ever you felt unwell.”
“I wish I had too!” she cried. “Then you might not have gone off to be so terribly injured.”
“Mercy, sweetheart.” He embraced her again. “You must think of yourself from time to time. Now, you must show me, and tell me what is to be done.”
Mercedes nodded and rose, going into the dressing room that joined their bedchambers. A few minutes later she emerged, having removed her gown and stockings and underclothes, and wearing instead a dressing gown. She sat up in her bed with the bolsters at her back and held out her hand to Blackwell.
When he was seated on the edge of the bed facing her, Mercedes dropped the gown from her shoulders. She grasped his good left hand and put his fingers beneath her left breast.
“It was a little hard pea, now it is a large angry lump. And it is from there all the trouble and pain arises.”
Blackwell felt oddly shy of touching her, though he’d done so eagerly for what seemed like the entirety of his life, or at least the part that mattered. He did not wish to cause her pain, and he touched the foreign hard lump he could feel beneat
h her soft skin gingerly.
“It is what my mother died from,” she said suddenly, with a little sob.
He had his arm around her again, and he wanted to free his other arm so he could hold her properly.
“Help me with this blasted shirt, my love.”
“At least your handsome face wasn’t burned,” she said, carefully lifting the shirt over his head. He’d taken off his jacket immediately upon entering the room, the heavy fabric chaffed his wounded skin.
“Only you would say such a thing. Come here, if you aren’t afraid of me.”
She instantly settled against his good left side.
“This isn’t California, and you’ve managed to secure to yourself the finest physician in London. You shall not share your mother’s fate, you mustn’t think of it.”
“Doctor Russ has been a great comfort. I don’t know what we would have done around here without him these last days, bringing us all up with a dozen neat turns.”
“He is a peculiar, reptilian sort of a cove though, ain’t he?”
“How unkind! He is an eminently learned, practical, straightforward man of science. He has become a great friend to Edward.”
“Ah, yes. It was humbling to learn of Edward’s paper from a stranger. Published by the Royal Society!”
“I am sorry for it. Emma and I knew he was writing, but you know Edward, he has his own reasons and keeps his own council.”
“The problem is I don’t know him. I should like to do better.”
“I love you so.”
They kissed, and held one another carefully.
“So you must have this surgery,” Blackwell said. It was half a question.
“Yes. The Doctor has been most urgent with me to proceed, but I could not do it without you were here. Not because I could not decide, I know I must submit if… I know I must have the surgery. But I couldn’t do such a thing before you knew, we are supposed to be one flesh, this is your body too.”
“Mercedes.” He gave her a gentle shake. “You had better say, we are partners in all. I will not bring you up for your scruples, they do you too much honor. But now I am home, and if you must have this surgery, I shall be here to care for you.”
She sat up suddenly. “What did the Doctor give you for the burns?”
“Why, a tin of cream and a packet of leaves of some South American plant to be made into a fortifying tea. Mercedes, I beg you will not—”
She was already up, searching in his jacket pockets. “I told you, such a resourceful man. I love Doctor Russ, I knew he would prescribe. I’ll put this on for you.”
Mercedes returned to the bed and as she gently salved his wounds, she told Blackwell the arrangements she’d made with the Physician of the Fleet.
Emma heard Captain Blackwell leave his bedchamber and walk downstairs. The old people may have been abed this long time, but she had not been, instead she’d anxiously waited about in her nightdress, dressing gown, and slippers. She followed her father downstairs and surprised him where he was deeply engrossed in the pantry.
He actually cried out when she walked up to him, looking about somewhat desperately. He had on only cotton drawstring trousers, no shirt nor shoes of any kind, in spite of the chill in the house.
“Never mind it, Papa,” Emma said. “I shall run up for a dressing gown if you wish. If you will light the stove, I shall make you eggs and sausage.”
“It is only I can barely stand to wear clothes these days.” He blushed. “Might there be such a thing as an apron?”
Emma turned up one belonging to the cook Dickens. Captain Blackwell seemed as immune to the brutish, ludicrous appearance he presented as he was to the cold. After tying on the apron he went to work with a flint and steel.
“Is it to be surgery, then, Papa?”
“It is. She has it all planned with Doctor Russ. We are none of us allowed to be here to support her.”
“What?”
“Your Mama will have it all her own way. Just as she would not be moved until I came home, now she tells me I am not wanted and must go away for the duration of the surgery itself. She will not even have the servants in the house, so don’t begin to cry out.”
“But…no one at all to support her, to hold her hand? What are we supposed to do?”
“She told me exactly. I am to take you and Edward to Windsor, to view Herschel’s great telescope. She says he’s been invited to do so this age.”
“We are to have an outing while she suffers this operation, not even Tio Severino in the house?”
Captain Blackwell merely shook his head. For a time Emma fried eggs, onions and sausages in silence. She went into the pantry and found two small loaves of bread. She filled the rolls and put the sandwiches before Captain Blackwell.
“Thank you kindly, Emma. Won’t you join me?”
“No, Papa, I had my supper. Unlike you.”
Captain Blackwell fell to his midnight repast. Halfway through the first sandwich, he said, “We must allow her to arrange matters as she sees fit, of course, we haven’t any other goddamn choice. But I shall be back here the moment, the moment it is over. You have something to tell me I believe. About the circumstance that caused your Mama such anxiety. I hate a mystery, girl.”
From Mr. Martinez ‘girl’ was acceptable, but not from her father. She hated it from him, and she was surprised by what felt like a sudden attack, though this very explanation was the reason she’d followed Captain Blackwell downstairs. Emma knew she wasn’t as important as her brothers, she was just a girl, but she did not like to lose any part of the small esteem her father bore her.
Emma lifted her chin and told Captain Blackwell of the Marlborough’s ball and what took place in Lord Cochrane’s townhouse afterward. Her mother had advised her to give her account officer-like, adhering to the events and exactly the words spoken. She said nothing of her fear and panic, much less of the fantasy of rescue that had sustained her in captivity. Captain Blackwell abandoned his last half-sandwich, his jaw clenching.
“If any violence was done you, Emma—”
“It wasn’t. I will not pretend I don’t take your meaning, Father. I was most sincerely frightened, and threatened, and thrown about a little. But I was not violated, or anything unthinkable of that kind.”
“I shall make him marry you, after what you’ve been through, if it is what you—”
“I most decidedly do not wish it.” Emma sucked in a breath. She should have known the whole affair would come down with him to a reason to fob her off. “The very last thing I want is a hue and cry. Mama agrees. She sent Tio and McMurtry back to Lord Cochrane’s house to scrub the place of my presence. I might never have been there.”
“McMurtry and his cousin Bosun Clark took care of John Bargeman, Sir,” Edward said, walking into the kitchen.
“There you are, son. Sit down. Should you like this? I’ve lost my appetite.”
Edward reached across to Captain Blackwell’s plate and stuffed the remainder of the sandwich in his mouth in one go. Captain Blackwell looked at Edward rather ruefully, but he was not to be distracted, and he turned back to Emma.
“I wish I’d been here to knock a few heads together, and for your dear Mama. She must have been beside herself, the time you were missing. Has the whole experience decided you against Lord Cochrane?”
“I never was for Lord Cochrane, Papa, nor anything near.”
“You are so taken against him, I half suspicion there is another man in the case.”
Captain Blackwell started back in his chair when Emma leapt to her feet.
“What if there is? I can never be with him!”
She ran from the kitchen.
“Hell and death, son, is she in love with a Frenchman? One of those wretched émigrés?”
Edward could have said it was much worse than that, but he was still chewing. His father was tolerably transparent, he was obviously making a mental note to ask Mercedes what was afoot.
“May I congratulate you on
your paper? Doctor Russ showed it me earlier. Why did you never remark on your writing?”
“Thank you, F-f-father.” Edward made a little bow from the waist in his chair. “It’s a rather pitiful thing to call oneself a writer, don’t you think? I believe as Doctor Johnson did, only a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
“But there is no money in the case, it only pays in honor to be published in the Philosophical Transactions. A very great honor, nevertheless, and a very great accomplishment.”
“Do not give me too much credit. I am the man that l-l-lost Emma. She will not have told you that, sir.”
Indeed she had not, and Captain Blackwell looked quite confounded.
Five
Doctor Russ called upon the Blackwells with a crate of bandages, linen, and towels, and he brought with him Doctor Lally, a French physician. He was actually an army surgeon, taking refuge like many of his countrymen in England. Doctor Russ, without colored spectacles today, looked pointedly at Captain Blackwell as he explained how Doctor Lally had performed the surgery Mercedes was to undergo while he had not.
“Do you know Madame D’Arblay, ma’am?” Doctor Russ turned to Mercedes. “Née Francis Burney.”
“Oh, the author of Evelina and Cecilia!”
Doctor Russ bowed. “She is the sister of Admiral James Burney, sir,” he said to Captain Blackwell. “Doctor Lally performed this surgery for Madame D’Arblay. She is recovered, and living here in London for the present. I trust there will be no objection to Doctor Lally’s attending at your surgery, ma’am?”
Mercedes glanced at Captain Blackwell, they instinctively reached for one another, and both meekly murmured there should be no objection. The doctors left them alone after that, going off to see to their theatre of operation in the library.
Doctor Russ walked in on Mercedes while she was alone in the small parlour later that day. He slipped into the room so silently Mercedes started when she looked up from the shirt she was working and saw the doctor standing there.
