When Beauty Tamed the Beast

Page 45

Juggs shook his head.
“Did you feel weak in the knees? Hot and then cold?”
“Just hot. Well, and I spewed some of those times.”
“You didn’t think to mention that? Anything else you’re not telling us?”
“My wife says that I was on the toodle. But I wasn’t.” Juggs frowned so that his eyebrows joined in the middle, an interesting look, though unlikely to be taken up by dandies, in Piers’s opinion. “I’ve owned the Mermaid’s Ankle for twenty years and I know when a man is three sheets to the wind. I wasn’t.”
“Drunkards are usually the last to realize,” Piers told him. “In fact, most of them only admit inebriation the morning after. You of all people should know that.” He turned back to Nurse Matilda. “Just what has you so excited, in fewer than five words? I take it Miss Thrynne’s questions don’t please you.”
Her chest swelled again. “This young lady has no idea of nursing care whatsoever. She implied that I was cruel—”
“Inhumane was the word I used,” Linnet put in. She had that smile going again, and all the Ducklings were melting on the spot. Even Juggs was hanging over the side of the bed, the better to see her.
“Because I tell the patients once they’re here, there’ll be no visitors,” Nurse Matilda said firmly. “You know as well as I do, Lord Marchant, that there’s many of our patients that never leave. I can’t be dealing with weeping and such like. The family can make their good-byes just as easy when they leave the patient here. There’s no reason to prolong the pain of it.”
“So it’s really in their best interests.” Linnet frowned, but Piers ignored her. “Did you give this speech to Mrs. Juggs?”
Nurse Matilda nodded. “I did indeed.” She flashed Linnet a look of profound dislike. “Unfortunately, this young lady countermanded my orders and sent the woman down to the kitchens, where she is just causing extra work and bother, no doubt.”
“Which means we can request that she come upstairs and explain exactly how Mr. Juggs looked on the pertinent occasions,” Linnet put in. “Mrs. Havelock, why don’t you fetch her?”
Interestingly, though Linnet weighed at least three stone less than the housekeeper, there just must be something about her, because Nurse Matilda stamped from the room.
“By Jaysus, I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of your housekeeper,” Juggs observed. He cast Linnet a worshipful glance. “It’s right kind, what you’ve done. My missus would feel terrible, driving off and leaving me here. She’d worry herself half to death.”
“It’s the smile, isn’t it?” Piers said to Linnet.
“My smile had no effect whatsoever on Mrs. Havelock,” she said. “How long have you been married, Mr. Juggs?”
“Going on twenty-four years,” Juggs said. “First time I had this happen to me was our twentieth wedding anniversary.”
“You didn’t mention that before,” Bitts pointed out, scribbling it down. “That’s four occasions, now.”
“Maybe there were a few more,” Juggs admitted. “It took me a while to get up the steam to see a doctor in the first place. It’s really the missus that did the worrying.”
The door opened again, and an infuriated Nurse Matilda swept back in, followed by a round, anxious-looking woman wearing a bonnet covered with cherries that appeared to have been fabricated from knobbly wool.
“What did your husband look like during these attacks?” Piers asked, not bothering with greetings.
She blinked at him. “He looked the same as usual, I reckon.”
“Red in the face?”
“Not more than usual when he’s drunk.”
“I’m never drunk,” Juggs shouted from the bed.
“You was.” She nodded her head so vigorously that a whole bunch of cherries rose lightly in the air and then subsided. “As you will get when it’s a special occasion, and don’t deny it, Mr. Juggs.”
“That time in York, I hadn’t had more than a pint,” the patient said triumphantly.
“You was slurring your words,” his wife said, moving over to pat his foot. “There’s nothing wrong with a pint or two, but it takes more than that to jumble your tongue. This last time in York was the straw that broke the camel’s back,” she told Piers, but somehow talking to Linnet at the same time. “He had promised me before as how he’d see a doctor iffen it happened again.”
“Blow my dickey,” Juggs said with frustration. “I wasn’t drinking near as much as I could have!”
“What sort of occasion was it?” Linnet asked. “Were you wearing that utterly captivating bonnet, Mrs. Juggs?”
Mrs. Juggs beamed. “I was, that I was. Well, it was the military parade, wasn’t it? And there was Mr. Juggs dressed in his uniform, though it is a bit small these days. But he always likes to wear it of a special occasion. I made this hat just for the day, even though it were already summer and hot for it.”
“I expect Juggs here was sweating to beat the band,” Piers said.
“Oh, no, he never sweats, Mr. Juggs doesn’t,” his wife said proudly. “I hardly ever have to wash his uniform a-cause of sweat, which is a blessing. His mates in the parade, they were all mopping themselves dry.”
“And then I went blind and couldn’t see a thing until the next morning,” Juggs said mournfully.
“Our preacher suggested it’s the wages of sin,” Mrs. Juggs offered.
“That’s when I said I’d go to the doctor. ’Cause I ain’t been sinning more than is strictly normal.”
“Well, Bitts? Kibbles? Penders? I think it’s quite clear what has happened to Juggs, don’t you think?” Piers waved his hand at their blank faces. “Confer amongst yourselves, you blithering idiots.”
He turned back to Nurse Matilda. Linnet was examining the fruits of Mrs. Juggs’s crochet hook. “You just lost the battle,” he told her. “Mrs. Juggs solved the problem of her husband’s blindness. I’m an idiot not to have insisted on seeing family in cases like this.”
Mrs. Juggs’s mouth fell open. “I did? It’s the drink, isn’t it?”
“No,” he said to her.
Nurse Matilda was hissing like a teakettle on the boil.
“What symptom was the most important?” Linnet asked curiously.
“They all are.” He caught the Ducklings’ eyes. “Juggs has lately gained weight, his uniform is uncomfortably tight, he suffers episodes only on celebratory occasions during which he feels hot and drinks ale—likely to cool himself, though he ends up vomiting. Add to that the fact that the dress uniform of the Light Brigade is heavy wool, with triple braiding at the shoulder, not to mention the truly crucial detail that Juggs cannot sweat.”
“Heatstroke!” Kibbles exclaimed, while Penders and Bitts were still thinking it through.
“Right. The good news, Juggs, is that you can hop out of this bed and go back to the Mermaid’s Ankle. The bad news is that an inability to sweat, a woolen uniform, and a hot day are a dangerous combination. You’re likely to die one of these times, and you’re damned lucky you’re not already planted.”