The Healing Season

by Ruth Axtell Morren

  Sarah knelt down beside the settee. “Does it hurt very much?”

  She smiled amidst the pain. “Only a little when I move.”

  Mr. Russell stood over her. “Permit me,” he said, putting his arms around her and helping her prop herself against the pillows.

  “That’s better,” she said, resting her head back. She placed her hand on his forearm as he was about to move away. “Did you bring her here?” she asked, searching his eyes.

  He shrugged, looking away. “They insisted on coming along.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered, squeezing his arm. She wished she could show him how much this meant to her.

  “There’s nothing to thank me for,” he replied, drawing away from her gently.

  Louisa and her husband came up then. “What horrors are these the good surgeon is telling us about? Falling through trapdoors?” Jacob Thornton demanded.

  Eleanor tried to laugh but stopped herself with a grimace. “I wish I knew myself. I feel very clumsy.”

  “Oh, my dear Eleanor, you should have sent for us. We would have come instantly,” Louisa wrung her hands, scolding, as she bent to examine her. “You look so pale. Are you eating properly? What have you given her, Doctor?” She turned to Mr. Russell.

  “I’m being perfectly well taken care of,” Eleanor reassured the older woman, “so please leave poor Mr. Russell be and give me a proper greeting.” She held out her hand to Louisa. “I thank you so much for coming today. I needed to see a friendly face.” Her eyes went to Sarah. “Two—” she amended, then glanced at Mr. Thornton. “Three friendly faces…” Finally her attention rested on Mr. Russell, standing in the background, and she added softly, “Four…” Her glance lingered on him. Why had he been so kind and thoughtful to her since the accident? Did he treat all his patients so attentively?

  “I couldn’t bear to be so long away from you,” Sarah exclaimed. “Mama Thornton has promised we may stay three whole days with you!”

  “Is it so?” At the other woman’s wide smile and vigorous nod, Eleanor brought her hands up to her cheeks. “Oh, that is wonderful. I didn’t know either how I was going to bear being away from my little Sarah so long.”

  Once again her glance strayed over Sarah’s head to the surgeon. Had he suggested the visit? Before she could voice her question, he approached her settee. “Now that you are well accompanied, I will excuse myself and leave you to enjoy your visitors.”

  “You’ve only just arrived,” she said. “Must you go so quickly?”

  He didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Yes, I fear I must.”

  She held out her hand. As his joined with hers, she asked, “Tell me truly. Was it your idea to bring the Thorntons back with you?”

  Instead of replying, he only gave Eleanor’s hand a brief squeeze before disengaging his own. “I trust their company will help lift your spirits.”

  He turned to the others, giving her no chance to probe further. “I wish you a pleasant stay in London.”

  They all protested, but he was adamant. Soon, Sarah demanded Eleanor’s attention, and all she could do was give the doctor a final wave of her hand and a silent thank you with her eyes. Amidst Sarah’s chatter, Eleanor’s thoughts lingered on the doctor’s looks and words. He had told her more by what he hadn’t said than by what he had, and she felt a deep satisfaction and gratitude at how thoughtful he had shown himself since her accident.

  She wondered how long it would be before the good surgeon declared his feelings for her.

  And what her response would be…

  Chapter Twelve

  The three days passed all too swiftly. Louisa fussed over Eleanor, preparing possets, syllabubs and cordials to drink. Sarah read to her, and Eleanor marveled at how their roles were reversed. Suddenly she saw how grownup Sarah was becoming. In another few years she would be as old as Eleanor had been when she’d had her.

  She pushed the thought aside. Too close behind it lay the question, where would she be in another five years?

  Ian stopped by his uncle’s garret a few days later.

  “He’s over in his garden,” Jem told him.

  “Thanks. I’ll look for him there.”

  Ian left the herb garret and walked down St. Thomas Street, the length of the hospital. Across the street, a few blocks down, was its sister hospital, Guy’s, where he had trained. Ian continued a little farther on and entered through an arch that led to a grassy courtyard, hidden away within the large hospital compound.

  Ian followed the brick walk that divided the different garden beds laid out inside the courtyard. Dying plant stalks stood brown and bent, their seed pods dry and full. Ian picked off a poppy bulb and upended it, watching the hundreds of tiny gray seeds scatter over the soil.

  He spied his uncle at the far end, kneeling beside a flower bed. Before he had reached him, his uncle heard his footsteps and turned. “Ian, what can I do for you, lad?”

  “Nothing terribly urgent. I dropped off some prescriptions with Jem, but I’ll come round tomorrow to collect them. I just thought I’d visit a few moments before I return to the dispensary.”

  “Well, I’m glad you did, my boy. You see me gathering my herbs and seeds before the first frost.”

  “Yes, it won’t be long now.”

  His uncle clipped the stalks off the bushy herbs and laid them in his basket. Soon they would hang from the rafters of his garret drying before being chopped and macerated into pills and tinctures.

  “Pennyroyal for gastric upsets and nausea. Spearmint soothes the stomach, too.” Clip, clip went his shears. “Ah, my chamomile, I must get plenty of that.” Uncle Oliver stood and moved down the herb bed to the lacy-leafed plant with the tiny, daisylike heads.

  Ian helped him break off the yellow flower heads and tossed them into his uncle’s sack when he’d collected a handful. They had a pleasant odor and he inhaled the fragrance lingering on the palm of his hand.

  A visit to this garden always soothed him. Even though it showed the decay of autumn, it was still an attractive, well-kept garden. Above and surrounding it, the windows of the furthest wards of the hospital overlooked it. These were the wards of the “incurables,” those not admitted to the other hospitals. Among them lay the blind and deformed, the asthmatics, those diagnosed with consumption and cancer, and those simply suffering from old age. Then there was the “foul” ward beside it, which contained the many patients who came to them to be treated for venereal diseases.

  Ian always hoped a glimpse at this little square of green in summer or white in winter with its bare spindly tree branches set sparsely in the geometrical layout would ease their suffering.

  “Some ground ivy…” Uncle Oliver tugged at the stubborn vine and clipped several long shoots. “And some wormwood, the age-old cure-all.” Once again he stood and moved to another bed.

  “There, that’s all I can carry in my basket. Help me gather some seed pods into these sacks and we’re done for the day.”

  They walked around the rectangular beds, plucking dried flower heads as they went. When he was satisfied, Uncle Oliver led Ian to a wrought-iron bench, one of two set at opposite ends of the courtyard garden.

  “Sit a spell and visit with me. It’s not too cold for you, is it?”

  “Not at all,” Ian assured him as he took a seat beside his uncle.

  “Where have you been keeping yourself the past few days?”

  “Here and there. I haven’t had a chance to come up to the herb garret.”

  “Well, I’ve missed you. I read about your actress.”

  “What did you read?” he asked, refusing to rise to his uncle’s use of the possessive pronoun.

  “Why, about the accident. It sounded frightening. How is the young woman?”

  “She’s blessed to be alive. It was quite a nasty fall. It’s a wonder she sustained only some painful sprains and no fractures.”

  His uncle’s eyes twinkled. “Mayhap she was fortunate there was a surgeon in the house. The news account said a
surgeon rushed to her aid.”

  Ian shrugged and looked ahead at the faded garden bed. “Yes, well, I happened to be there that night.”

  “How timely…” his uncle said, his voice sounding amused.

  Ian rubbed the back of his neck. “I thought I’d see for myself what all the commotion over this musical ‘burletta extravaganza’ was about.”

  “So, tell me what you made of it. What about Mrs. Neville? Is she as talented as they say?”

  Ian shrugged. “Yes—no—” He struggled to find an adequate response. “I mean yes, she has some natural ability and raw talent. But…” He shook his head in disgust. “The medium! She makes herself a spectacle in front of an unruly audience singing to a cheap imitation of Mozart’s opera, the lyrics crude and simplistic. The men come there to gape at the chorus girls.”

  “But you do find her talented?”

  “Yes,” he finally answered with a grim sigh.

  “What about you? Are you interested?”

  Ian turned to look at his uncle. “What do you mean?” he asked carefully.

  “You know what I mean. As a man, are you interested in the young actress? From all accounts I’ve heard she’s a beauty.”

  Ian stood and took a few steps along the brick path, too restless to sit still any longer. “Why would you ever think I’d be interested in someone like Eleanor Neville?” He strove for a tone of amazement even as his conscience pricked him, reminding him how often he’d been to see her since her accident.

  “Apart from the obvious—her beauty and talent—there’s your part in the rescue. It takes a strong man to resist the role of rescuer to a damsel in distress.”

  Ian gave a bark of laughter. “You spend too many hours up in your garret. Your imagination is taking flight.”

  His uncle stared at him, which only served to irritate Ian more. He kicked at the uneven bricks with the toe of his boot. “What kind of a woman would an actress make for a—a—wife?” There he’d said it, astounding himself more than anyone. “An actress’s morals are as loose as a courtesan’s. A man would never know when he’s being cuckolded.”

  “There is that. Is Mrs. Neville as bad as all that?”

  Ian blew out a frustrated breath. “How should I know? On the surface she seems as innocent as a child, but her art is impersonation. One moment she’s a great lady, the next a villain on the stage. How does a man know who the real person is?”

  “Funny, but I haven’t read any scandals concerning her. Her name isn’t linked to anyone’s in the gossip sheets.”

  Ian refrained from commenting on his uncle’s habit of reading the gossip sheets. He turned and walked the length of the garden bed. When he returned, he said, “I vowed long ago I would wait for my helpmate and soul mate, a woman pure and set apart from worldly vanity. I will not settle for second best.”

  His uncle regarded him it seemed almost sadly for a moment before nodding. “You’ve waited a long time,” he ended softly.

  “That’s funny coming from someone who never married.” Ian matched his tone to his uncle, giving him a rueful smile. “Why did you never marry?” he asked, taking his seat once more.

  It was his uncle’s turn to look off into the distance. “I would have…once upon a time.”

  Ian couldn’t imagine his confirmed bachelor uncle comfortably settled with a wife and children before the hearth. “What happened?”

  “She died.”

  Still less could Ian imagine his staid uncle young and passionately in love. “I’m sorry. What was she like?”

  “Nothing special to anyone outside her own small circle of friends and family.” His uncle shrugged. “Young, sweet and pretty. What more can a young man want?” He chuckled. “I was besotted. A young apothecary, fresh from his apprenticeship, just come to London, and I met her in the market.” He shook his head in reminiscence.

  “We were making plans to marry, but a typhus epidemic came and swept her away almost overnight. None of my pills or tonics could do anything for her.”

  He turned to Ian with a bittersweet smile. “The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Isn’t that what Job said?”

  His uncle always refused to consider the goodness of God. He saw only a capricious, vengeful creator. Perhaps this was the reason.

  “You never met anyone else?”

  “I discovered after the first waves of grief had passed that I preferred being alone amongst my herbs and plants.”

  The thought brought Ian no comfort. He could see himself going the way of his uncle, alone and dedicated to his work in the years ahead.

  Eleanor realized she actually felt better. It wasn’t just the fact that she’d bathed with very little pain, but that she was dressed to go out for the first time in weeks. She couldn’t wear any stays, but still, the walking dress flattered her, she decided, inspecting herself in the long glass. It was a pretty pelisse of gray kerseymere wool trimmed in a wide band of ruby velvet down the front and around its hem and cuffs. The wide bonnet was similarly trimmed and was crowned with a high plume of ostrich feathers.

  She touched the side of her rib cage gingerly. It really did feel better. Each day had been such an effort in controlling her movements to avoid pain that she’d hardly noticed it had indeed been diminishing. The weeks had gone by. Soon she would be able to resume her acting.

  Mr. Russell had been very attentive, stopping in to see her almost every day. He never stayed above a quarter of an hour. The purported reason for his visits was to check on his patient, but Eleanor wasn’t fooled. She knew the good surgeon was smitten.

  She smiled at her image in the mirror. He was a dear man; she enjoyed teasing him. She’d had a few other visitors. Althea from the mission, some fellow actors, including the lead in The Spectre, who’d done nothing but hint how well her replacement was being received. She knew he was only peeved because she’d spurned his attentions for some time. Fool if he thought she’d give herself to someone like him.

  Her other gentlemen admirers stopped in occasionally, but less frequently as the weeks went by. If it hadn’t been for Russell and d’Alvergny, she would have been put out indeed.

  But d’Alvergny had proved as faithful an attendant as Russell. He came by every few days, but his visits were longer. He always brought her a gift. She smoothed the expensive cashmere scarf she wore now against the bitter November cold. That had been a particularly thoughtful gift.

  Perfumes, flowers, chocolates, or the newest naughty print by Cruikshank, which they would laugh over together. He brought her the latest on dits from court, described how the Prince was spending more and more time at Brighton, the lavish dinners hosted there, and his increasing girth, which hardly permitted him to leave the pavilion.

  The day young Princess Charlotte died giving birth to her first child, D’Alvergny arrived solemn and wearing a crepe armband. He comforted Eleanor as she wept for Prince Leopold’s sudden bereavement and the tragedy of their too brief marriage.

  D’Alvergny lent Eleanor a black-edged handkerchief of the finest lawn, embroidered with his initials and smelling faintly of his cologne. It brought to mind the other handkerchief she had held to her nose.

  Although she laughed with d’Alvergny, she mimicked him behind his back to Betsy. He really was a pompous man. Yet, conversely, she found his visits stimulating. For one thing, she could practice her acting skills on him, telling herself it was good to keep her hand in.

  One day she would pout over an imagined slight, and she would watch in amusement as he strove to assure her that he’d never intended to offend her. The next day he would give her an elaborate gift by way of atonement. Another day she was cool and aloof, showing him she belonged to no man, regardless of how many gifts she received from him. After toying with him this way, she would be warm and amusing, as if to reward him for his constancy.

  He remained unflappable and attentive throughout. She could never manage to irritate him or drive him away. It was as if he knew her game and was content to bide
his time, plying her with expensive baubles as tokens of greater gifts to come.

  She laughed inwardly. Little did he know she had been promised such things before and wouldn’t be fooled so easily.

  How different from the good surgeon. He presented a much greater challenge. All decorum and reserve, but oh, how she delighted to excite the telltale flush on his cheeks when she’d said something outrageous or moved too close. It gave her odd shivers of delight. Between the doctor’s visits, she would devise ways of bringing it about.

  It became more difficult all the time. Mr. Russell was the soul of circumspection. He never even examined her anymore. She had to be subtle. It wouldn’t do to have the high-minded doctor suspect her of anything but the purest motives.

  The other day as he’d taken his leave, she’d held his hand a few seconds longer than necessary and looked deeply into his eyes.

  Another day she’d winced particularly violently as she’d made a sudden movement. In truth her pain had been a vast deal less than her features had conveyed. But he’d rushed immediately to her. She’d placed his hand on her side to indicate where the pain was, forcing him to do a cursory examination.

  She giggled at the memory. She’d watched his features the entire time—only a few moments in all, but she hadn’t miscalculated his reaction. As his hands had palpated her rib cage through her gown, the flush had stained his cheeks, covering that pale skin and masking the subcutaneous layer of milky freckles.

  She’d felt such a sense of her own power, proud of her ability to read men. Mr. Russell had moved away from her quickly, but she’d eyed him triumphantly for the rest of the visit, secure in the knowledge he was hers whenever she beckoned.

  Still, she was grateful to him for all he’d done for her, particularly his attentions to Sarah. She’d never forget how he’d brought Sarah to her. After the Thorntons had departed with Sarah, Eleanor had had a fit of the dismals for a few days. So much so that she’d even attempted reading the Bible Ian had given her. Louisa had read it to her a few times during her visit—only the nice parts, Eleanor had insisted.