“You’re a bit feverish,” I said. “Here, swallow this.” I put a hand behind his back to help him sit up in bed, which alarmed him. He sat up in a flurry of bedclothes, drawing in his breath sharply as he jostled the injured hand.
I tactfully affected not to notice his discomposure, which I put down to the fact that he was clad in his shirt and I in my nightclothes. These were modest enough, to be sure, with a light shawl covering my linen night rail, but I was reasonably sure that he hadn’t been anywhere near a woman in dishabille since his wife died—if then.
I murmured something meaningless, holding the cup of comfrey tea for him as he drank, and then settled his pillows in comfortable but impersonal fashion.
Rather than send him back to his own cabin, I had insisted that he stay the night, so I could keep an eye on him in case of postoperative infection. Intransigent as he was by nature, I didn’t by any means trust him to follow instructions and not to be slopping hogs, cutting wood, or wiping his backside with the wounded hand. I wasn’t letting him out of sight until the incision had begun to granulate—which it should do by the next day, if all went well.
Still shaky from the shock of surgery, he had made no demur, and Mrs. Bug and I had put him to bed in the Wemysses’ room, Mr. Wemyss and Lizzie having gone to the McGillivrays’.
I had no laudanum, but had slipped Christie a strong infusion of valerian and St. John’s wort, and he had slept most of the afternoon. He had declined any supper, but Mrs. Bug, who approved of Mr. Christie, had been plying him through the evening with toddies, syllabubs, and other nourishing elixirs—all containing a high percentage of alcohol. Consequently, he seemed rather dazed, as well as flushed, and made no protest as I picked up the bandaged hand and brought the candle close to examine it.
The hand was swollen, which was to be expected, but not excessively so. Still, the bandage was tight, and cutting uncomfortably into the flesh. I snipped it, and holding the honeyed dressing that covered the wound carefully in place, lifted the hand and sniffed at it.
I could smell honey, blood, herbs, and the faintly metallic scent of fresh-severed flesh—but no sweet whiff of pus. Good. I pressed carefully near the dressing, watching for signs of sharp pain or streaks of vivid red in the skin, but bar a reasonable tenderness, I saw only a small degree of inflammation.
Still, he was feverish; it would bear watching. I took a fresh length of bandage and wound it carefully over the dressing, finishing with a neat bow at the back of the hand.
“Why do you never wear a proper kerch or cap?” he blurted.
“What?” I looked up in surprise, having temporarily forgotten the man attached to the hand. I put my free hand to my head. “Why should I?”
I sometimes plaited my hair before bed, but hadn’t tonight. I had brushed it, though, and it floated loose around my shoulders, smelling pleasantly of the hyssop and nettle-flower infusion I combed through it to keep lice at bay.
“Why?” His voice rose a little. “Every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.”
“Oh, are we back to Paul again?” I murmured, returning my attention to his hand. “Does it not occur to you that that man had rather a bee in his bonnet when it came to women? Besides, I’m not praying at the moment, and I want to see how this does overnight, before I risk any prophesying about it. So far, though, it seems—”
“Your hair.” I looked up to see him staring at me, mouth curved downward in disapproval. “It’s . . .” He made a vague movement round his own clipped poll. “It’s . . .”
I raised my brows at him.
“There’s a great deal of it,” he ended, rather feebly.
I eyed him for a moment, then put down his hand and reached for the little green Bible, which was sitting on the table.
“Corinthians, was it? Hmm, oh, yes, here we are.” I straightened my back and read the verse: “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.” I closed the book with a snap and set it down.
“Would you care to step across the landing and explain to my husband how shameful his hair is?” I asked politely. Jamie had gone to bed; a faint, rhythmic snoring was audible from our room. “Or do you expect he knows that already?”
Christie was already flushed from drink and fever; at this, an ugly dark red washed him from chest to hairline. His mouth moved, opening and closing soundlessly. I didn’t wait for him to decide on something to say, but merely turned my attention back to his hand.
“Now,” I said firmly, “you must do exercise regularly, to make sure that the muscles don’t contract as they heal. It will be painful at first, but you must do it. Let me show you.”
I took hold of his ring finger, just below the first joint, and keeping the finger itself straight, bent the top joint a little inward.
“Do you see? Here, you do it. Take hold with your other hand, and then try to bend just that one joint. Yes, that’s it. Do you feel the pull, down through the palm of your hand? That’s just what’s wanted. Now, do it with the little finger . . . yes. Yes, that’s very good!”
I looked up and smiled at him. The flush had faded a little, but he still looked thoroughly nonplussed. He didn’t smile back at me, but glanced hastily away, down at his hand.
“Right. Now, put your hand flat on the table—yes, that’s the way—and try to raise your fourth finger and little finger by themselves. Yes, I know it isn’t easy. Keep trying, though. Are you hungry, Mr. Christie?”
His stomach had given a loud growl, startling him as much as me.
“I suppose I might eat,” he mumbled ungraciously, scowling at his uncooperative hand.
“I’ll fetch you something. Keep trying those exercises for a bit, why don’t you?”
The house was quiet, settled for the night. Warm as it was, the shutters had been left open, and enough moonlight streamed through the windows that I didn’t need to light a candle. A shadow detached itself from the darkness in my surgery, and followed me down the hallway to the kitchen—Adso, leaving off his nocturnal hunt for mice, in hopes of easier prey.
“Hallo, cat,” I said, as he slithered past my ankles into the pantry. “If you think you’re having any of the ham, think again. I might go as far as a saucer of milk, though.” The milk jug was white earthenware with a blue band round it, a squat, pale shape floating in the darkness. I poured out a saucer and put it down on the floor for Adso, then set about assembling a light supper—aware that Scottish expectations of a light meal involved sufficient food to founder a horse.
“Ham, cold fried potatoes, cold fried mush, bread and butter,” I chanted under my breath, shoveling it all onto a large wooden tray. “Rabbit dumpling, tomato pickle, a bit of raisin pie for pudding . . . what else?” I glanced down toward the soft lapping noises coming from the shadows at my feet. “I’d give him milk, too, but he wouldn’t drink it. Well, we might as well keep on as we’ve started, I suppose; it will help him to sleep.” I reached for the whisky decanter and put that on the tray, as well.
A faint scent of ether floated in the dark air of the hallway as I made my way back toward the stairs. I sniffed suspiciously—had Adso tipped over the bottle? No, it wasn’t strong enough for that, I decided, just a few wayward molecules seeping around the cork.
I was simultaneously relieved and regretful that Mr. Christie had refused to let me use the ether. Relieved, because there was no telling how it might have worked—or not. Regretful, because I would have liked very much to add the gift of unconsciousness to my arsenal of skills—a precious gift to bestow on future patients, and one I should very much have liked to give Mr. Christie.
Beyond the fact that the surgery had hurt him badly, it was very much more difficult to operate on a conscious person. The muscles were tensed, adrenaline was flooding through the system, heart rate was vastly speeded up, causing blood to spurt rather than flow. . . . For the dozenth time since the morning, I envisioned exactly what I had done, asking myself whether I might have done better.
To my surprise, Christie was still doing the exercises; his face was sheened with sweat and his mouth set grimly, but he was still doggedly bending the joints.
“That’s very good,” I said. “Do stop now, though. I don’t want you to start bleeding again.” I picked up the napkin automatically and blotted the sweat from his temples.
“Is there someone else in the house?” he asked, irritably jerking his head away from my ministrations. “I heard you speaking to someone downstairs.”
“Oh,” I said, rather embarrassed. “No, just the cat.” Prompted by this introduction, Adso, who had followed me upstairs, leapt onto the bed and stood kneading the covers with his paws, big green eyes fixed on the plate of ham.
Christie turned a gaze of deep suspicion from the cat to me.
“No, he is not my familiar,” I said tartly, scooping up Adso and dumping him unceremoniously on the floor. “He’s a cat. Talking to him is slightly less ridiculous than talking to myself, that’s all.”
An expression of surprise flitted across Christie’s face—perhaps surprise that I had read his mind, or simple surprise at my idiocy—but the creases of suspicion round his eyes relaxed.
I cut up his food with brisk efficiency, but he insisted upon feeding himself. He ate clumsily with his left hand, eyes on his plate and brows knotted in concentration.
When he had finished, he drank off a cup of whisky as though it were water, set down the empty cup, and looked at me.
“Mistress Fraser,” he said, speaking very precisely, “I am an educated man. I do not think ye are a witch.”
“Oh, you don’t?” I said, rather amused. “So you don’t believe in witches? But there are witches mentioned in the Bible, you know.”
He stifled a belch with his fist and regarded me fishily.
“I did not say I do not believe in witches. I do. I said ye aren’t one. Aye?”
“I’m very much obliged to hear it,” I said, trying not to smile. He was quite drunk; though his speech was even more precise than usual, his accent had begun to slip. Normally, he suppressed the inflections of his native Edinburgh as much as possible, but it was growing broader by the moment.
“A bit more?” I didn’t wait for an answer, but poured a solid tot of whisky into his empty cup. The shutters were open and the room was cool, but sweat still gleamed in the creases of his neck. He was clearly in pain, and wasn’t likely to sleep again without help.
He sipped it this time, watching me over the rim of the cup as I tidied up the supper leavings. In spite of whisky and a full stomach, he was increasingly restive, shifting his legs beneath the quilt and twitching his shoulders. I thought he needed the chamber pot, and was debating whether I ought to offer to help him with it, or simply leave promptly so he could manage by himself. The latter, I thought.