This Duchess of Mine

Page 68

“The doctor is dying,” Jemma cried with some alarm.
Elijah had jumped to the conclusion that a patient was in his last throes, but he thought it wouldn’t be a good idea to mention it. Jemma had that still, terrified look about her eyes that only really left her when they were making love.
He himself felt strangely happy. Ever since they’d made love in Apollo’s garden, he was at peace with his future, no matter how short. He escorted Jemma to a chair and then sat down himself.
She picked up a published article lying on the table and began to read. “He’s experimenting with Jamaica pepper as a cure for lung problems,” she said a few moments later.
Dr. Withering appeared before Elijah could reply. He was a tall man with vivid bushy eyebrows that contrasted sharply with the tight curls of his powdered wig. His eyes glittered under the eyebrows, as if he were thinking fiercely, or suffering from a fever. “Your Grace,” he said, bowing. And then, seeing Jemma, he bowed again, even more deeply. “And Your Grace.”
“I came to consult with you about your work with Digitalis purpurea,” Elijah said.
The man’s eyes brightened even more, if that were possible. “A fascinating subject! I have cause for reasonable optimism in my research.”
“I have a heart ailment,” Elijah said. “I should like a consultation with you, sir, if you can spare the time.”
“It would be best if you came to my inner chamber so I can examine you thoroughly. The heart is a complicated organ, and I’m afraid that Digitalis purpurea— or foxglove, as it’s commonly called—has a narrow range of applications. Though I have a colleague who is…”
His voice trailed away as he led Elijah through a door. He had not given Jemma a second glance after establishing that he had a patient who required his attention.
Jemma removed her pelisse and bonnet and sat down again. She was quite alone, for the first time since she had learned of Elijah’s illness.
Her mind skittered over the fact that should he die, she would be alone a great deal of the time, and she forced herself to stop thinking of it.
She had never been in a doctor’s chambers before. (If medical attention were needed, the doctor always came to her, as was proper.) One entire wall of Withering’s antechamber was taken up by a massive walnut cabinet, comprised of hundreds of small drawers. Some were pulled open and others closed, so the whole presented a chaotic appearance, as if it were a messy pile of blocks stacked by a child.
She got up and walked over, thinking an upright posture might make it easier to breathe. Each drawer was labeled in a quick hand, as if the writer hadn’t taken time to shape the letters. Some of the contents had straightforward medicinal uses. A drawer marked LAUDANUM was filled with little vials, as she discovered by pulling it open and peeping inside. TOAD STONE read another. She gingerly opened it to find a small pile of pebbles.
BLACKB FEATH turned out to contain two dusty blackbird feathers, and RIVER WATER had a number of little vials. Some had only a drop or two inside, and others had dried up altogether.
Numbly, she made herself look in more drawers. Many were full of powdery leaves. MUSTARD PLANT made her sneeze just by opening the drawer, and eventually she wandered back to her seat.
It was as if the clock had stopped moving. She sat in the dusty silence, watching the sun move across a harpsichord which occupied one part of the room. One had to suppose that the doctor was a musician.
Ordinarily, she was never bored. During idle moments, she would simply replay a chess game in her head, correcting herself or her opponent. But now she couldn’t keep the board’s construction in mind, and lost track of the play between the seventh and eighth moves.
She tried to read the doctor’s treatise on the uses of Jamaica pepper, but found it hopelessly obtuse. The minutes ticked by. Finally she borrowed peppercorns and white allspice from their respective drawers in the specimen cabinet and set up her own makeshift chessboard.
She had just realized that she had completely missed a move by a White Knight that would win the Black Queen when Elijah and Dr. Withering came back into the room. She leapt to her feet. “Are you able to help him?” she demanded, without bothering with courtesies.
The doctor abruptly fell into a series of racking coughs, so deep that he bent from the waist.
“There is a possible treatment,” Elijah said, taking her hands. But the look in his eyes made her smile die.
“’Possible’?”
“Foxglove might help,” the doctor said, having recovered himself. “But the consequences for failure are grave, and unfortunately, as I have explained to him, I must decline to treat His Grace.”
Jemma paled and her hands tightened. “Because it’s poison?”
“Dr. Withering has experienced some remarkable results,” Elijah said. “But he is at the initial stages of his research.”
“The possibility of giving someone an overly powerful dose is likely. I have advised His Grace not to attempt this remedy.” The doctor bowed, obviously expecting them to leave his chambers immediately.
Jemma looked up into Elijah’s face. “What do you want to do?”
“Go home with you,” he said. “There’s no easy way to say this, Jemma. The doctor has seen many heart patients, and he is not sanguine about the time I may have left.”
“His heart is thready and irregular,” Withering put in. “But I must emphasize that no one can tell the span of a person’s life. I’ve had heart patients whom I considered to be at death’s door linger for months, even years.”
But she could read the truth in his eyes…He didn’t think Elijah would be one who lingered.
Jemma dropped Elijah’s hands and said to the doctor, “Your medicine has worked for some people, hasn’t it?”
“It has. But I have—” He hesitated. “I have had a number of failures.”
“Do you mean that patients have died as a result of the foxglove?” Jemma was not in a mood for euphemisms.
“They would have died in any case, from either dropsy or an irregular heartbeat,” Dr. Withering said somewhat defensively.
Elijah moved behind Jemma and put his hands on her shoulders. “The duchess does not mean to imply any negligence on your part, Dr. Withering.”
“It is hard for a layman to understand the mysteries of science,” the doctor said. “I am drawing closer to understanding correct dosages. I recently discovered that the leaves, once powdered, are twice as potent as the flowers. And the other day I made the serendipitous discovery that boiling that powder renders the effect fourfold as powerful.”
Jemma could interpret that comment. Some unlucky patient’s death proved the potency of his boiled medicine. “How did you discover the properties of foxglove?” she asked.
“I advised a patient of mine that there was nothing more I could do for him,” the doctor replied. “He was as swollen as a ripe plum, and I’d tried everything I knew to cure his dropsy. He didn’t agree with my assessment, and made his way to an old Gypsy woman known for her healing arts.”
“A Gypsy!”
Withering nodded. “She gave him a potion, and the symptoms of dropsy went away. Even more interestingly, his heart steadied. The moment I heard about it, I went around to find her, of course.”