“Hmm,” said the mother, examining her daughter critically, but not removing the bottle. “That’ll do it, I suppose.”
The child’s eyes had rolled back in her head, and the straining little body suddenly relaxed, falling limp against the chair. The mother removed the whisky bottle, wiped the mouth of it tidily on her apron, and handed it back to Ian with a nod.
I hastily examined her pulse and breathing, but she seemed in reasonably good shape—so far, at least.
“Carpe diem,” I muttered, grabbing my tooth pliers. “Or perhaps I mean carpe vinorum? Watch to see she keeps breathing, Ian.”
Ian laughed and tilted the bottle, wetting a tiny swab of clean cloth with whisky for the mopping up.
“I think ye’ll have time to take more than the one tooth, Auntie, if ye want. Ye could likely pull every tooth in the poor lassie’s head and she wouldna twitch.”
“It’s a thought,” I said, turning the child’s head. “Can you bring the mirror, Ian?”
I had a tiny square of looking glass which could, with luck, be used to direct sunlight into a patient’s mouth. And there was sunlight streaming through the window in abundance, warm and bright. Unfortunately, there were any number of curious heads pressed against the window, too, which kept moving into the path of the sun, frustrating Ian’s attempts to beam sunlight where I needed it.
“Marsali!” I called, a thumb on the girl’s pulse, just in case.
“Aye?” She came through from the back room where she’d been cleaning—or, rather, dirtying—type, wiping inky hands on a rag. “D’ye need Henri-Christian again?”
“If you—or he—don’t mind.”
“Not him,” she assured me. “Likes nothing better, the wee praise-hog. Joanie! Félicité! Come fetch the wean, will ye? He’s wanted out front.”
Félicité and Joan—aka the hell-kittens, as Jamie called them—came eagerly; they enjoyed Henri-Christian’s performances nearly as much as he did.
“Come on, Bubbles!” Joanie called, holding open the door to the kitchen. Henri-Christian came scampering out, rolling from side to side on short, bowed legs, ruddy face beaming.
“Hoopla, hoopla, hoopla!” he shouted, making for the door.
“Put his hat on him!” Marsali called. “The wind will get in his ears.”
It was a bright day, but was windy, and Henri-Christian had a tendency to ear infection. He had a woolen hat that tied under the chin, though, knitted in blue and white stripes and decorated with a row of red bobbles—Brianna had made it for him, and the sight of it squeezed my heart a little, warmth and pain together.
The girls each took him by a hand—Félicité stretching up at the last moment to grab an old slouch hat of her father’s from the peg, to put out for coins—and went out, to cheers and whistles from the crowd. Through the window, I could see Joanie clearing the books displayed on the table outside, and Félicité hoisting Henri-Christian up in their stead. He spread his stubby, powerful arms, beaming, and bowed in accomplished fashion to one side and the other. Then he bent, put his hands on the tabletop, and, with a remarkable degree of controlled grace, stood on his head.
I didn’t wait to watch the rest of his show—it was mostly simple dancing and kicks, interspersed with somersaults and headstands, but made enchanting by his dwarfed stature and vivid personality. He had shifted the crowd away from the window momentarily, though, which was what I wanted.
“Now, Ian,” I said, and went back to work. With the flickering light from the mirror, it was a little easier to see what I was doing, and I got to grips with the tooth almost at once. This was the tricky part, though; the tooth was badly cracked, and there was a good chance that it might fracture when I twisted it, rather than draw cleanly. And if that should happen …
But it didn’t. There was a small, muffled crack! as the roots of the tooth parted from the jawbone, and I was holding the tiny white thing, intact.
The child’s mother, who had been watching intently, sighed and relaxed a little. The little girl sighed, too, and settled in the chair. I checked again, but her pulse was fine, though her breathing was shallow. She’d likely sleep for—
A thought struck me.
“You know,” I said to the mother, a little hesitantly, “I could draw one or two more teeth without hurting her. See …” I moved aside, motioning her to look. “These”—I touched the overdue baby canines—“ought to be drawn at once, to let the teeth behind take their places. And you see these front teeth, of course…. Well, I’ve taken the upper bicuspid molar on the left; if I were to take the same tooth on the right, I think that perhaps her teeth would shift a bit, to fill the empty space. And if you could persuade her to press with her tongue against those front teeth, whenever she thought of it …” It wasn’t orthodontia by any means, and it did carry some increased risk of infection, but I was sorely tempted. The poor child looked like a cannibal bat.
“Hmmmm,” said the mother, frowning into her daughter’s mouth. “How much will you give me for them?”
“How much … you want me to pay you?”
“They’re fine, sound teeth,” the mother replied promptly. “The tooth-drawer down to the harbor ’ud give me a shilling apiece. And Glory’ll need the money for her dowry.”
“Her dowry?” I repeated, surprised. The mother shrugged.
“No one’s likely to take the poor creature for her looks, now, are they?”
I was obliged to admit that this was likely true; her deplorable dentition quite aside, calling the child homely would be a compliment.
“Marsali,” I called. “Have you got four shillings?” The gold in my hem swung heavily round my feet, but I couldn’t make use of it in this situation.
Marsali turned from the window, where she’d been keeping an eye on Henri-Christian and the girls, startled.
“Not cash money, no.”
“It’s all right, Auntie. I’ve some money.” Ian put down the mirror and dug in his sporran, emerging with a handful of coins. “Mind,” he said, fixing the woman with a hard eye, “ye’d no get more nor thruppence each for sound teeth—and likely no but a penny for a child’s.”
The woman, nothing daunted, looked down her nose at him.
“There speaks a grasping Scotchman,” she said. “For all you’re tattooed like a savage. Sixpence each, then, you penny-pinching miser!”
Ian grinned at her, displaying his own fine teeth, which, if not entirely straight, were in excellent condition.
“Going to carry the wean down to the quay and let yon butcher rip her mouth to shreds?” he inquired pleasantly. “She’ll be awake by then, ken. And screaming. Three.”
“Ian!” I said.
“Well, I’m no going to let her cheat ye, Auntie. Bad enough she’s wantin’ ye to draw the lassie’s teeth for nothing, let alone pay for the honor!”
Emboldened by my intervention, the woman stuck out her chin and repeated, “Sixpence!”
Marsali, attracted by the altercation, came to peer into the girl’s mouth.
“Ye’ll not find that one a husband for less than ten pound,” she informed the woman bluntly. “Not lookin’ like that. A man would be feart of bein’ bitten when he kissed her. Ian’s right. In fact, ye should be payin’ double for it.”
“Ye agreed to pay when ye came in, no?” Ian pressed. “Tuppence to have the tooth drawn—and my aunt made ye a bargain at that, out of pity for the wean.”
“Bloodsuckers!” the woman exclaimed. “It’s true what they say—you Scots ’ud take the pennies from a dead man’s eyes!”
Plainly this wasn’t going to be settled in a hurry; I could feel both Ian and Marsali settling down to an enjoyable session of tag-team haggling. I sighed and took the mirror out of Ian’s hand. I wouldn’t need it for the canines, and perhaps by the time I got to the other bicuspid, he’d be paying attention again.
In fact, the canines were simple; baby teeth, almost without roots, and ready to fall—I could probably have tweaked them out with my fingers. One quick twist each and they were out, the gums barely bleeding. Pleased, I dabbed the sites with a whisky-soaked swab, then considered the bicuspid.
It was on the other side of the mouth, which meant that by tilting the girl’s head back, I could get a bit of light without using the mirror. I took Ian’s hand—he was so engaged in argument that he barely noticed—and put it on the girl’s head to hold it back and steady, then carefully insinuated my pliers.
A shadow crossed my light, vanished—then came back, blocking it utterly. I turned in annoyance, to find a rather elegant-looking gentleman peering through the window, a look of interest on his face.
I scowled at him and motioned him aside. He blinked at me, but then nodded apology and stepped aside. Not waiting for any further interruption, I crouched, got hold of the tooth, and twisted it free with a lucky wrench.
Humming with satisfaction, I dribbled whisky over the bleeding hole, then tilted her head to the other side and pressed a swab gently over the gum, to help drain the abscess. Felt a sudden extra slackness in the wobbly little neck and froze.
Ian felt it, too; he broke off in the middle of a sentence and shot me a startled look.
“Untie her,” I said. “Quick.”
He had her loosed in an instant, and I seized her under the arms and laid her on the floor, her head flopping like a rag doll’s. Ignoring startled exclamations from Marsali and the girl’s mother, I tilted back her head, swiped the swab out of her mouth, and, pinching shut her nose with my fingers, sealed my mouth to hers and started resuscitation.
It was like blowing up a small, tough balloon: reluctance, resistance, then, finally, a rise of the chest. But chests don’t yield like rubber; the blowing didn’t get easier.
I had the fingers of my other hand on her neck, feeling desperately for a carotid pulse. There … Was it? … Yes, it was! Her heart was still beating, though faintly.
Breathe. Pause. Breathe. Pause … I felt the tiny gush of exhalation, and then the narrow chest moved by itself. I waited, blood pounding in my ears, but it didn’t move again. Breathe. Pause. Breathe …
Again the chest moved, and this time continued to rise and fall under its own power. I sat up on my heels, my own breath coming fast and a cold sweat misting my face.
The girl’s mother was staring down at me, her mouth half open. I noted dimly that her own dentition wasn’t bad; God knew what her husband looked like.
“She’s—is she … ?” the woman asked, blinking and glancing back and forth between me and her daughter.
“She’s fine,” I said flatly. I stood up slowly, feeling light-headed. “She can’t go until the whisky’s worn off, though; I think she’ll be all right, but she might stop breathing again. Someone needs to watch her ’til she wakes. Marsali … ?”