The Healing Season

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  Satisfied that no bones seemed to be broken, he shifted to her head and touched her scalp. A large lump was beginning to form at one side of her skull, the same side as her injured ribs. “Your head hit a piece of equipment, probably your ribs as well in your fall. Can you move your legs?”

  “Yes,” she replied after a second.

  He moved down to her legs and felt the length of them. “Any pain?” he asked her, his fingers pressing her ankles.

  “No, just at my side.”

  He looked at the stagehand. “We need to get her somewhere that I can examine her properly.”

  At that moment a man entered the basement room. “How is she? I’m the stage manager.”

  “She has sustained some damage to her ribs, and likely a concussion to her head. But I need to get her somewhere to examine her.”

  “Her dressing room is right on the ground floor, up just one flight of stairs.”

  Ian picked up Eleanor’s hand. “We need to move you. I’m going to try and carry you, but if that hurts too much let me know and we’ll fashion a litter.”

  She looked at him, fear in her eyes. “Just don’t drop me…please,” she begged.

  He gave her hand a gentle squeeze before releasing it. “I won’t, I promise you.”

  Eleanor cried out at the pain when he first reached down and slid his hands under her arms and knees.

  “It’s all right,” Ian crooned. “You’ll soon be more comfortable. Just bear with us a little.” He tried his best not to hold her too tightly as he climbed the winding stairs, but still she whimpered at each jostle.

  “I feel as if I’m in my own melodrama,” she muttered, clasping her arms around his neck, “except the pain isn’t going to stop when I get offstage.”

  “I’ll give you something to ease it soon.”

  “I’m going to tell that orchestra to begin playing or we’ll have a riot on our hands,” said the stage manager. “I’ll be up to see Mrs. Neville as soon as I can.”

  Ian and the stagehand made their slow progress up the winding stairs. When they finally arrived at Eleanor’s dressing room, the wardrobe mistress had a couch prepared. “Just lay her down here,” the woman told him. “I’ve spread out a blanket.”

  Eleanor winced as Ian lowered her onto the couch. The wardrobe mistress placed a cushion under her head.

  “It’s almost over,” Ian told Eleanor, wishing he could take away her pain. He motioned with his head to the mistress. “We’ve got to remove her coat.”

  She came immediately to his side and began working at a sleeve.

  Eleanor cried out.

  “Just one more, ma’am, we’re almost through…there we go,” the wardrobe mistress said, slipping off the other sleeve and taking the heavy coat away.

  She came back to the couch with another blanket over her arm. “The doctor’ll have you right in no time, isn’t that right, sir?”

  Ian made no response but nodded to the stagehand. “Thank you for your quick help. If you’ll leave us now, I’ll examine Mrs. Neville.”

  The man nodded. “Just let us know how she is. Good night, Eleanor. We’re so sorry this happened. Can’t understand how a trapdoor could give way like that.” He shook his head, muttering in disbelief as he shut the door behind him.

  Eleanor closed her eyes again, her head sinking back on the pillow. She looked deathly pale, and Ian’s heart constricted.

  Before he could request it, the wardrobe mistress began unbuttoning the vest and shirt. “I hope that’s all right, Doc. I’m an expert at helping them dress and undress.”

  “That’s fine, thank you. You’d better remove her shoes as well and cover her with the blanket.”

  Eleanor made no protest as her shirt and vest were slipped off, but Ian noticed her biting down on her lip to keep from crying out. She was left in only a pair of men’s breeches, a thin camisole, and stays. Quickly the mistress loosened the stays and removed them.

  For the sake of her modesty, Ian left the camisole on, but he lifted it above her waist and once again probed the area of pain, which had begun to swell.

  “Tell me when it hurts.” He turned Eleanor’s body slightly so he could examine her vertebral ribs. She only nodded her head, her eyes still closed.

  “Good, it looks as if the only injury is to the sternal portion of your rib cage, most likely pulled or torn ligaments.

  Satisfied, he covered her with the blanket.

  “What does that mean?” she asked in a voice laced with pain.

  “It means it doesn’t look as if you have broken any bones, but it does mean you’ve torn tissues, and that is what is causing you so much discomfort.”

  Eleanor seemed to be in too much distress to take in what he was saying. He turned to the wardrobe mistress. “I’m going to bind her ribs to prevent further injury when she moves. I would recommend giving her some willow bark tea to ease the pain. We could send a boy around to the apothecary at St. Thomas’s. I know he’ll still be there.”

  “Very good, sir. I’ll fetch an errand boy.”

  “In the meantime, I’ll need some cold compresses to apply to her head and ribs, as well as some long strips to bind her rib cage with.”

  “Very well, I’ll get them straightaway.”

  As the woman hurried out to carry out his instructions, he sat in a chair beside Eleanor. He pushed her fallen tresses away from her forehead, feeling a tenderness well up inside him.

  “Are you still here?” she asked after a moment. “I thought you’d gone.”

  “I’m still here. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been stretched out on the rack.”

  He smiled. “Sounds like an accurate description.”

  “I wish I could stop breathing until the pain goes away.”

  “As soon as we get the remedy from the apothecary, the pain will lessen…at least enough to breathe.”

  “So, what is the diagnosis?”

  “A sprain, I would say. It’s difficult to tell how severe. You had quite a fall.”

  “Have you ever had a sprained rib?”

  “No, but I have broken an arm.”

  She opened her eyes at last and glanced at him. “Really? I thought a doctor wasn’t supposed to get sick or injured.”

  He smiled ruefully. “We suffer the same debilities as anyone else.”

  “Tell me how it happened,” she asked, her face grimacing with her own pain.

  “When I was a lad. I disobeyed my father and climbed up into the hayloft with some friends. We dared each other to jump down onto the ground. They came away unscathed. I broke an arm. I don’t know which was worse—the pain of the break or the pain in seeing the disappointment in my father’s eyes.”

  The wardrobe mistress returned at that moment, her arms laden with her commissions. “How are you, luv?”

  Ian took the materials from the older woman and went to work with the compresses. Eleanor sucked in her breath as he gently pressed the cold compress against her bare rib cage.

  He lifted her head just enough to set another on the lump. He and Mrs. Baldwin, the wardrobe mistress, changed these frequently.

  “All right, I’m going to bind this tightly,” he warned Eleanor as he removed the last compress from her ribs. “I’m going to need you to sit up for a moment. It will hurt at first because I need to pull it tightly, but then I think you’ll find it more comfortable.”

  Mrs. Baldwin helped Eleanor sit up.

  “Hold up her camisole,” he instructed the woman, keeping his voice as impersonal as possible while he desperately tried to ignore what lay beneath the sheer cotton. Instead, he concentrated on the long strips of sheet in his hand. Working quickly and efficiently, he wound them around her torso.

  “This is worse than my stays,” Eleanor gasped.

  “I’m almost finished. There,” he added, as he tied the final knot. “Thank you, Mrs. Baldwin. You can let her lie down.”

  The woman covered Eleanor with the blanket once again. Eleano
r looked on the verge of fainting. Ian’s heart went out to her, wishing once again he could bear her pain.

  “I think a sip of brandy might be called for,” he told the wardrobe mistress.

  “Yes, of course, I should have thought of it sooner.” She bustled to the dressing table and poured some liquid in a tumbler.

  “Here, you go, dearie,” she said, lifting Eleanor’s head enough for her to take a few sips.

  When Eleanor was resting quietly, Ian motioned Mrs. Baldwin to the door. “She needs to be transported home and put to bed. She shouldn’t be left alone during the ride. With that knock she took on the head, she really needs to have a close eye kept on her.”

  The woman looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Doctor. I have my family I’ve got to get home to.”

  “Perhaps one of the other actresses?”

  “I’ll inquire.”

  Ian didn’t want to go near Eleanor again. He had kept his professional detachment, but seeing her now lying on the settee, he was afraid he’d betray himself.

  He wandered instead to her dressing table. It was a sturdy square wooden table with lots of drawers up each side. There was a large mirror facing him, and the surface of the table was covered with all manner of pots of paints, powders, feathers, combs and brushes, and an assortment of jewels made of paste.

  A world of make-believe, he thought, fingering a paintbrush.

  “Oh, Mr. Russell, no one’s available,” Mrs. Baldwin announced sorrowfully, entering the room again.

  Ian frowned. “Very well. I shall accompany her to her house. Could you be so good as to call for her carriage?”

  “Very well, Doctor.”

  Ian was loath to leave Eleanor after he’d carried her up to her bedchamber. Her maid and housekeeper were there, and they promised to look after her during the night, rousing her at intervals, but he felt pity that she had no family member to stay with her.

  She was resting more tranquilly since he’d given her the bark tea. But still he lingered, needing to have one last look at her. He took her slim wrist in his hand and checked her pulse.

  She looked so pale and helpless. How he wanted to bend over and place a kiss on her brow, but he could only play the serious doctor.

  With a sigh he laid her arm down gently on the green coverlet. The bed was a mass of frills and lace. He glanced around the room before leaving it. It was everything feminine with its pastel wallpaper and white-and-gilt furnishings. A subtle hint of perfume pervaded it.

  When he left her town house, Ian had to walk several blocks before he found a hack stand. One lone coach stood there, its horses bent down in repose.

  As he rode through the dark streets, he threw his head back against the squabs and closed his eyes. Despite his weariness, he couldn’t dispel the image that haunted his mind. Eleanor Neville was the loveliest creature he’d ever beheld. Her torso was as perfect as marble statuary, her skin as soft as a vestal virgin’s.

  Ian clenched his fist. What a deceptive image. She’d probably been used by more men than he could number.

  As soon as he got home, instead of collapsing in bed, he headed to his study and sat down at the desk with his Bible.

  He turned to a psalm he had been reading the night before.

  “Judge me, O Lord; for I have walked in mine integrity; I have trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide.

  Examine me, O Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart…I have walked in Thy truth. I have not sat with vain persons…and will not sit with the wicked.”

  Instead of meditating on those passages, he found himself flipping several pages forward to Song of Solomon.

  “…thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor; thy belly is like a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins…”

  No, he mustn’t read these words! They only inflamed him. He turned to the gospel of Matthew, looking for the Sermon on the Mount. His forefinger ran down the page. Yes, there it was.

  “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

  And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee…”

  He felt the weight of condemnation fall heavily upon him.

  Another verse he’d heard often from the pulpit came to him: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers…”

  He need read no more. He knew what the Word of God said on the subject of lust.

  His head fell into his hands. All these years, he’d kept himself pure, and now here he was sinking deep into the pit of lust. Even as he admitted all these things, visions of Eleanor Neville’s body rose before him, haunting him, drawing him.

  He wanted her as he’d never wanted a woman before.

  Was he lost?

  Chapter Eleven

  Early the next afternoon Eleanor, after a restless night, sat in her dressing gown in her upstairs sitting room, sipping a cup of hot chocolate.

  No position felt comfortable. Everything hurt, from her head—she didn’t even want to think about her ribs—down to her calves.

  How could this have happened? One moment, starring in a hit comedy, and the next, feeling as if every bone in her body had been broken.

  She wanted to weep. How cruel could fate be?

  “Excuse me, ma’am.” Her young maid popped her head in the door. “The surgeon, Mr. Russell, is here to see you.”

  Her heart quickened at the memory of last evening. He’d been so kind, so protective of her.

  “Show him up,” she told Clara.

  Before she had a chance to do more than place her cup down and smooth her hair, there was a knock on the door.

  Mr. Russell, looking well groomed and very much dressed in contrast to her dishabille, followed the maid into the room.

  His eyes barely met hers as he said, “Good morning.”

  He set down his medical bag and stood stiffly while the maid asked if she could bring him anything. Receiving a negative reply, she left the two of them.

  “How are you feeling this morning?” he asked Eleanor, approaching her settee, his eyes not meeting hers but fixed somewhere near her chin.

  “I’m feeling awful. I can hardly breathe, and you’ve got me trussed up like a fowl ready for a spit. How can I bathe this morning?”

  At the word bathe, she immediately noticed the flush rise in his cheeks.

  What was he uncomfortable about? She was the one who looked and felt terrible. It couldn’t be her state of dress—or undress. He was, after all, a doctor; he must see women all the time.

  She took a deep breath and immediately regretted it.

  “We’ll take off the bindings and I’ll show your maid how to put them back on,” he was saying. “I’ve brought some better ones anyway.” He pulled up a chair close to the settee. “Has the pain abated at all?”

  “No,” she said with a pout. “I could scarcely sleep last night. Mrs. Wilson kept waking me every time I managed to fall asleep.”

  “That’s entirely my fault. I instructed her to rouse you throughout the night to ensure you didn’t fall into a coma. It was a nasty blow to your head.”

  She touched it gingerly. It felt sore and tender. “How long will my convalescence last, anyway?”

  “Hopefully not more than about six or eight weeks.”

  Her mouth fell open. “You are funning me!”

  His brown eyes finally met hers fully, their expression serious. “Unfortunately not. Whether sprains or fractures, they take their time to heal. You will aid in the process if you continue to rest—”

  “Rest? What about my show?” Her voice rose and she held her side at the sudden jab of pain.

  He immediately leaned forward, steadying her. “You must calm yourself. Any sudden movement, as you see, will only aggravate the condition.”

  “I can see that,” sh
e said through gritted teeth, torn between feeling comforted by his concern and ready to throw a tantrum by his cool manner in telling her she must sit still for six weeks!

  “Here, lie back,” he urged, his tone gentle as he helped ease her against the cushions the maid had set behind her.

  “Mr. Russell, I don’t think you fully understand the enormity of what you’re telling me. I have just opened with a show that is proving a success. Do you know how many shows close after only one week, because the audience tires of them?

  “We’ve had a packed house every night for the last fortnight. I am one of the leads in this show. I cannot afford to be off the stage right now.”

  “You must be thankful you’ve come off with only some sprained ribs. It was a miracle you didn’t break your neck after a fall like that.”

  “It couldn’t possibly be worse. Six weeks off the boards, I might as well have broken my neck. In six weeks no one will remember who Eleanor Neville is.”

  “I sympathize with what you’re saying. I’m not responsible for your injured rib cage. The fall did that. I’m merely telling you from experience what has happened and how long it will take your body to mend. If you rush this, you will only find yourself in a graver situation.”

  She hated that calm, condescending tone, as if he were speaking to an ill-tempered child. “Do you know how long I’ve waited for a part like this?”

  He sat back and folded his arms across his chest.

  “I’ve been walking the boards since I was fourteen. I shall be five-and-twenty in a few months. Do you know what that means?”

  “That you are a young woman with many more years ahead of her…if you don’t go falling down trapdoors.”

  She snorted at the last remark, then flinched. “It means I am a mature woman on the stage. I have another five years before I’ll be playing nothing but old dowager roles. This show was my break. Don’t you see, a hit show, the kind of show to attract the managers and owners of Covent Garden or Drury Lane?”

  “I am truly sorry for your unfortunate accident—”

  “What would you know about it?” She turned away from him, her voice catching, despair engulfing her.