The Healing Season

by Ruth Axtell Morren

“Yes.”

  “You want me to go there alone?”

  “I beg your pardon. I go there so often myself, I forget it’s not the kind of neighborhood a lady would frequent.” His glance strayed to the outfit she’d given so much thought to that morning.

  She wasn’t quite sure his tone conveyed a compliment. “I should think not.”

  He considered a few seconds longer and finally answered, the words coming out slowly, as if he was reluctant to utter them. “If you’d like…I could accompany you there. Would late this afternoon be satisfactory? Your Miss Simms should really have some nursing help as soon as possible.”

  She nodded. “I will be at the theater this evening, but I don’t have a rehearsal this afternoon.”

  “I can leave as soon as I finish with all my patients here.”

  “Very well. Do you have a carriage?”

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t keep a carriage.”

  “We can go in mine, if you think my coachman won’t be beaten and robbed while he is waiting for us.”

  “He’ll be quite all right, I assure you.”

  “Then I’ll come by around three o’clock. Does that give you sufficient time?”

  “Yes, that would be fine.”

  As she turned to go, his next words stopped her. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

  She turned around slowly.

  “The other night, I mistook you for…”

  Assuming her cockney, she filled in, “A doxy?”

  She detected a slight flush on his cheeks. At his nod, she batted her hand coyly. “Gor! Think nothin’ of it, guv’n’r. ’Appens all the time. I don’t know wot it is about folks, but they’re forever mistayken me for someone else. Sometimes even the Queen, poor old deah. I tell ’em ‘I ain’t such ’igh quolity.” She finished with a hearty laugh. “But neither am I no judy, no, sir!”

  He was giving her a bemused look, as if he didn’t know what to make of her little performance. “You’re an actress.”

  “Yes,” she answered in her own accent. “You’ve never been to the Surrey—the Royal Circus now?”

  “No.”

  “No? It’s not far from here.”

  “I don’t go to the theater.”

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Never?” The theater was one of the few places where everyone could meet and find enjoyment, from highest to lowest in society. “Are you a Quaker?”

  He gave a slight smile. “No, I haven’t the time for such amusement.”

  She remembered the packed waiting room. “I can well believe that.”

  When he said nothing more, she knew it was time to make her exit. “I shall not keep you from those who need you more. Until three o’clock, then?”

  “Until three o’clock.”

  Ian popped a few cardamom seeds into his mouth as he watched Mrs. Neville’s chaise pull up at the curb of the dispensary. The actress was punctual, at least. He was still annoyed with himself that he’d committed to accompanying her to the mission. He had little time to spare for excursions like this. Still, the girl needed nursing. It was a miracle she was even alive.

  The coachman opened the door and let down the steps. Ian climbed into the smart coach, nodding to Mrs. Neville and seating himself opposite her in its snug interior.

  She glanced toward the dispensary before the carriage door shut behind him. “It looks deserted now. What a difference from this morning.”

  “Yes, every broken limb has been set, every wound bandaged.”

  As the carriage lumbered forward, she asked him, “Do you have such a roomful of patients every day?”

  He smiled slightly. “No. Sometimes there are more.” He grinned at the horrified look in her eyes. “I’m only partially speaking in jest. The dispensary is only open four days a week. On the other days I do rounds at St. Thomas’s Hospital a few streets down and hold an anatomy lecture for students there. I also tend the sick at the mission we’re heading for. Then there are the days I pay house calls.”

  “When do you rest?”

  “I honor the Lord’s Day, unless I’m called for an emergency.”

  She nodded and looked out her window. Had he satisfied her interest with his answers and was she now back to thoughts of her own world?

  What would occupy such a woman’s thoughts? He found himself unable to draw his eyes away from her. For one thing, she had an exquisite profile. Her small-brimmed bonnet gave him an ample view. Her curls were sun-burnished wheat. Her forehead was high, her nose slim and only slightly uptilted, her lips like two soft cushions, her chin a smooth curve encased in a ruffled white collar.

  But her most striking feature was those eyes. Pale silver rimmed by long, thick lashes a shade darker than her hair.

  This afternoon she was dressed in a dark blue jacket and white skirt, which looked very fashionable to his untrained eyes. He frowned, trying to remember if she had worn the same outfit earlier in the day. But he couldn’t recall. It had been something dark, but he couldn’t remember the shade. He’d been too dazzled by the shade of her eyes to notice much of anything else.

  Chiding himself for acting like a schoolboy, he tore his attention away from her and examined the interior of the coach. It had a comfortable, velvet-upholstered cabin, which looked too clean and new to be a hired vehicle. To keep such a carriage in London, with its pair of horses, was quite expensive.

  He wondered how a mere actress could afford its upkeep. He glanced at her again, remembering Jem’s high praises. She must indeed be a successful actress to be outfitted so well. Still, he doubted. He knew actresses usually had some titled gentleman setting them up in style.

  But she went by Mrs. Neville.

  “Your husband, is he an actor as well?” he found himself asking.

  She turned to him. “There is no Mr. Neville,” she replied, her pale eyes looking soft and innocent in the light.

  “I’m sorry,” he answered immediately, assuming she was widowed.

  She smiled, leaving him spellbound. The elegant beauty was now transformed into a lovely young girl. “You think I am a widow? I repeat, there is no, nor ever was, a Mr. Neville. It’s merely a stage name.”

  It was his turn to be surprised. “You mean it’s not your real name?” She must think him an unsophisticated country bumpkin.

  She laughed a tinkling laugh. “I just liked the sound of Mrs. Eleanor Neville. It adds a sort of dignity, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I suppose it does,” he answered slowly, trying to adjust his notions of her. Curiosity got the better of him. “What was your…er…name before?”

  The friendly look was gone, in its place cool disdain. “My previous name is of no account. It has been long dead and forgotten.”

  He felt the skin of his face burn and knew a telltale flush must be spreading across his cheeks, but Mrs. Neville had already turned back to her window. Despite her rebuke, he felt more intrigued than ever. Why would a person ever change her name? Was it a commonplace practice among theatrical people?

  It was a long carriage ride, across the Thames and through the congested streets of the City. He spoke no more to her, preferring to concentrate his thoughts on the rest of the evening. He would probably stop at his uncle’s apothecary shop to drop off several prescriptions and pick up the ones he’d had Jem leave earlier in the day. He needed to check on a few patients. That brought his thoughts back to the young woman who’d nearly killed herself.

  “Did you have a chance to look in on—er—Miss Simms again, Mrs. Neville?”

  Mrs. Neville. He couldn’t get used to the name anymore. It made her sound matronly, completely at odds with the young ingenue looking at him.

  “Yes, I stopped to see Betsy before I came to collect you. She had awakened. I fed her some broth and gave her the powder you left. She was still very weak although she didn’t seem feverish.”

  He nodded, glad the danger was passing. “I’ll go around tonight.”

  “She’s very scared,” Mrs. Neville ad
ded.

  “She might well be. She almost killed herself.”

  “She doesn’t think she had any other choice. If she’d been discovered in a family way, she would have lost her position. If that had happened, she’d have lost her room. She would have ended up in the street. What would she have done with a child then?”

  Ian was well familiar with the scenario. He saw it played out countless times a day.

  He began to feel a grudging admiration for the young actress. She had not abandoned her friend and was now going to some lengths to assure her full recuperation. He continued to observe her as the carriage trod the cobblestone streets. Beneath Mrs. Neville’s fashionable appearance, there lay a woman very much aware of the grimmer realities of life.

  The carriage drew up at the Methodist mission. Eleanor looked around her suspiciously as Mr. Russell helped her alight. The streets had grown narrower and smellier. She clutched her handkerchief to her nose as the doctor led her toward the entrance of the mission.

  It at least had a welcoming appearance. A lamp stood at the door and the stoop was swept clean. They entered without knocking.

  Eleanor breathed in the warm air before once more putting her handkerchief to her face, this time to mask the smell of cooked cabbage and lye soap.

  Mr. Russell poked his head into a room and finding no one led her farther down the corridor.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” an older woman called out cheerfully as she emerged from another room. “We weren’t expecting you today. What can I do for you?”

  “Is Miss Breton in at the moment?”

  “No, I’m sorry, sir, she had to step out.”

  “Who is in the infirmary?”

  “Mrs. Smith.”

  “I shall go in and speak with her, then. Thank you.”

  Eleanor noticed the woman eyeing her as they walked by and entered a long room filled with beds. Every one was occupied, she noticed, and they all held children. She’d never seen a children’s hospital before. She looked curiously at each bed as Mr. Russell led her toward a woman at the far end.

  After brief introductions, she listened as the surgeon explained to the woman their need for a nurse. Eleanor only half paid attention, her interest drawn to the children in the room. A little girl in a nearby bed smiled at her, and she couldn’t help smiling back. Slowly, she inched her way toward her. The child’s dark hair and eyes reminded her of her own Sarah.

  “Are you feeling poorly?” she asked the girl softly.

  The child nodded. “I was, but now I’m feeling much better. Nurse tells me I must stay in bed a while longer, though.”

  “Yes, you must get stronger.” The child was so thin it was a wonder her illness hadn’t done her in.

  A young boy beside her called for her attention, and before long Eleanor found herself visiting each bed whose occupant was awake.

  Mr. Russell approached her. “We’re very fortunate. There is a lady who is available to spend part of the day with Miss Simms. We can go to her house now and make arrangements if you have time. She lives not far from here.”

  “Very well. Let’s be off.” She turned to the children around her and smiled. “I want to see you all well the next time I visit. If you promise, I’ll bring you a treat.”

  “We promise!” they all chorused back.

  Chapter Three

  After they’d visited the nurse, Mrs. Neville dropped Ian off, at his request, near London Bridge.

  “Good night, Mr. Russell,” she said, holding out her hand. “Thank you for accompanying me.”

  “You needn’t thank me. It’s part of my job,” he replied, hesitating only a fraction of a second before taking her hand in his.

  He felt a moment of union as her gloved hand slipped into his. For some reason, he was loath to let it go immediately. Repudiating the feeling, he disengaged his hand from hers. “Good night, Mrs. Neville.”

  Without another word, he opened the carriage door and descended into the dark street.

  He quickly crossed the parapeted bridge, giving not a backward glance as he heard the rumble of the chaise continue on its way.

  He breathed in the mild September air in an effort to get the image of Mrs. Neville out of his mind. He had lived through too much and seen too much to let one pretty female face stir him.

  Entering the neighborhood of Southwark, he walked the short distance to St. Thomas’s Hospital. The new building was little more than a century old, a beautiful neoclassical design fronting Borough High Street. Instead of taking this main entrance, Ian continued on to the corner and turned down St. Thomas’s Street toward the small church that formed part of the hospital’s southern wall.

  His uncle had been recently appointed the hospital’s chief apothecary, and Ian was sure he would still be found in his herb garret under the church’s roof.

  Ian climbed the narrow circular stairs leading to the church’s attic. The spicy aroma of drying herbs permeated the passageway. “Anybody here?” he called out when he reached a landing.

  “I’m in the back.” Jem’s voice came from a side partition.

  Ian poked his head through the curtained doorway and found Jem washing bottles. “Uncle Oliver in the garret?”

  The younger man grinned. “Yes, he is.”

  Ian climbed the last section to the raftered attic that served as his uncle’s workshop. Sheaves of herbs hung from the roof. Bottles and jars lined the shelves set against the naked brick walls. One section held a cupboard full of small square drawers. A desiccated crocodile was suspended from the ceiling.

  His uncle was hunched over a large glass globe that sat upon a squat brick kiln. As its contents bubbled and steam collected on the globe’s interior surface, a slow drip ran down its narrow glass neck into a china bowl at the other end.

  “Good evening, Uncle Oliver.” Ian set down his medical case and leaned his elbows against the long, thick table that bisected the room.

  His uncle twisted his gray head around. “Ah, good evening, Ian. Come for the prescriptions?” He resumed his watch on the distilling herbs as Ian replied, “Yes. I caught a ride across town.”

  “Is that so? How fortunate. Who was coming all this way at this hour? Someone coming to Guy’s or St. Thomas’s for an evening lecture?”

  “No, just a—” He paused, at a loss to describe Mrs. Neville. “Friend of a patient’s” sounded too complicated. “A lady—” Was an actress a lady? He doubted it. “Someone in need of hiring a nurse. I took her to the mission to see if they could recommend someone.”

  “A lady? A young lady, an old lady?” His uncle stood and gave the bellows a few puffs to increase the flames of the fire in the kiln before turning away from the alembic and approaching the opposite side of the table.

  “Give your uncle who rarely stirs nowadays from this garret a bit of color and detail to events outside the wards of St. Thomas’s.”

  Ian smiled at his uncle’s description of his life. “A young lady,” he answered carefully, turning to fiddle with the brass scales in front of him.

  “Well, I’m relieved she wasn’t an old crone. Did you have a lively time?” Uncle Oliver went to the end of the table and brought forward some stoppered bottles.

  Ian took the bottles from him. Digitalis against dropsy; essence of pennyroyal for hysteria; tincture of rhubarb as a purgative; crushed lavender flowers to use in a poultice; some comfrey powder to ease inflammation.

  “I don’t think one can describe a visit to the mission’s infirmary as ‘lively,’” he began, then stopped himself as he remembered the smiles and laughter of the children in the few moments Mrs. Neville had entertained them. “Have you ever heard of Eleanor Neville?”

  “The actress?”

  Ian looked in surprise that even his semisecluded uncle knew the actress’s name. “I thought you knew nothing of the goings-on of the outside world.”

  Uncle Oliver smiled. “I do read the papers. I hear she’s a hit in the latest comedy at the Royal Circus.”


  Ian began placing the bottles into his medical case.

  “The Royal Circus,” his uncle repeated with a fond smile, taking a seat on a high stool across from Ian. “My parents used to take me there as a boy when it was an amphitheater. It rivaled Astley’s equestrian acts. It’s not too far from here, on Surrey. Haven’t you ever been?”

  “No,” Ian replied shortly. His uncle well knew he never went to the theater. He had little time for acrobats and tumblers.

  His uncle rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Now they put on melodramas and musical operas—burlettas, I think they call them. It was renamed the Surrey for a while under Elliston. Then Dibdin took over its management a few years ago and gave it back its original name.”

  “You sound quite the expert on the theatrical world.”

  “Oh, no, although I do enjoy a good comedy or drama now and then.” His uncle gave him a keen look under his graying brows. “It wouldn’t do you any harm to get out and enjoy some entertainment from time to time. You’ll kill yourself working and found you’ve hardly made a dent in humanity’s suffering.”

  “I’ll tell that to the queue of patients waiting for me at the dispensary the next time.”

  Uncle Oliver chuckled. “Just send them over to me. Jem and I will fix them up.”

  “Most of them can’t afford the hospital’s fee.”

  “So, tell me more of Eleanor Neville. I imagine she is young and pretty.”

  Ian shut his case and set it on the floor. “Yes, you could describe her as young and pretty.”

  His uncle folded his hands in front of him and leaned toward Ian as if prepared for a lengthy discourse. “You are making me envious. To meet a renowned actress who is both young and pretty. What did the two of you find to talk about?”

  Ian frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, I can’t imagine your telling her about your latest dissection, much less the doctrines of Methodism. And I feel you wouldn’t want to hear too much about what goes on in the theater world.”

  “So, you think I have no conversation?” He took up the black marble mortar and pestle and began pounding at the chamomile flowers his uncle had left in it.