The Surgeon's Lady

sofa until her little sister slept. When Nana was breathing evenly, Laura went outside, paid the coachman and dismissed him.

Luncheon was Cornish pasties so crisp and brown that she salivated as Mrs. Trelease served them. After a leisurely cup of tea in the breakfast room—windows open, seagulls noisy—Laura went upstairs to find her few dresses already on pegs in the dressing room and her brush and comb lined up on the bureau.

Before she went downstairs to find the book room, she walked quietly down the hall, past what must be Nana and the captain’s room. She saw the boat cloak thrown across the foot of the bed. I wonder if Nana wraps herself in it at night, she asked herself. What must it be like to love a man so often gone?

The next chamber was the future nursery. Already there was an armchair there with padded armrests, pulled close to the open window and the view of the bay. She went to the window, watching the ships swinging on their anchors. At this distance, the smaller boats darting to and from them looked like water bugs.

There was a cradle, too, one that looked old and well-used. Something told her, how, she did not know, that it must have come from the Brittles’ house, which must be the pale yellow one next door and a little lower down the hill.

As she stood there, she noticed Lt. Brittle standing on the side lawn, looking out to sea, hands in his pockets. He must have felt her scrutiny, because he turned slightly, then waved to her.

She waved back, knowing Miss Pym would be shocked at such brazen behavior, but not caring in the least. She couldn’t keep staring at him, so she looked out to sea again, content to watch the boats come and go. When she glanced at the side lawn again, he was walking inside his mother’s house, whistling. The sound made her smile.

Lt. Brittle came to the house again that night after dinner was long over, and Nana was starting to yawn in the middle of sentences. She looked up when the surgeon came into the room.

“Is there a cure for sleepiness?”

“Most certainly,” he told her. “In your case, give it about five months. Of course, then you’ll be tired because of two o’clock feedings. You’re a no-hoper.”

How is it he knows just the right tone to strike with my sister? Laura asked herself, as she listened to their delightful banter. I am in the presence of an artist.

It was a beguiling thought. Nana, who had been reclining on the sofa, tried to sit up, but the lieutenant shook his head and she stayed where she was. To Laura’s surprise, he sat on the floor right by her sister, tucking the throw a little higher on her shoulders against the cool evening breeze blowing in from the Channel.

His eyes on Nana’s face, he took a note from his uniform jacket and opened it. Laura noticed the suddenly alert look on Nana’s face. Nana took hold of the surgeon’s hand as he tried to unfold the note, stopping him.

“It’s all right, Nana, it’s all right,” he said, his voice soothing. “It came to me about an hour ago from Captain Worthy himself. Hey, now. He wanted you to know he’ll be here tomorrow, but he also wants you to be prepared.”

Laura found herself on the floor by the sofa, too, her arm around her sister in a protective gesture she never would have imagined herself capable of, only that morning in Plymouth.

“He sustained an injury to his ear,” the surgeon said. “Read it yourself.”

Nana snatched the letter from his hand, her eyes devouring the words. She took a deep breath when she finished. “Listen, Laura: ‘My love, I am not precisely symmetrical now, but I trust you will still adore me.’ Oh, Phil! What else did he write to you in the other note you are not showing me?”

“You know your man pretty well, don’t you?”

“Beyond degree. Confess.”

“It was a splinter.” The surgeon shook his head at Laura’s expression. “Not those aggravating ones you get under your fingernail. This is when pieces of the railing and masts go in all directions during bombardment.” He looked at Nana again. “From his description, I think he lost his earlobe and maybe part of that outer rim. Could be worse. If you want, I can look at it before I leave for Stonehouse tomorrow.”

“You know I want that,” Nana replied. She put her hand on the surgeon’s arm. “We’re lucky, aren’t we, Phil?”

“Unquestionably. My father said Captain Worthy knew the Tireless was going down, so he offloaded his most seriously wounded onto a passing water hoy headed to Plymouth and sent a message requesting aid. The rest of the wounded he put into the ship’s small boats and towed them behind the Tireless, so he would not have to get them out in the general confusion. He thought of everything. No wonder crews like to sail with Captain Worthy. So do you, eh, Nana?”

She burst into tears, great gulping sobs that tore at Laura’s heart. Laura cradled her sister, thinking about her own husband’s welcome death; how she had closed his eyes without a tear.

The surgeon let Nana have her cry, offering his handkerchief so she could blow her nose. He appeared to have all the time in the world. He took the note from Nana’s hand.

“You’ll see here he wants me to stay the night. He doesn’t know that your sister is here, but I’m still inclined to stay. The sofa in your book room will do.”

Nana shook her head. “I won’t hear of that. Laura, could you make up the bed in the room across the hall from you? I’m afraid this is Mrs. Trelease’s night out.”

“Of course I can, dearest,” she said.

On Nana’s instructions, Laura found the linen, happy to have something to do. Even though it was July, there was a chill on the room which she remedied with a small fire in the grate that the surgeon could extinguish, if he felt too warm. She shook out a bottom sheet.

When she lowered it onto the bed, Lt. Brittle was standing on the other side to straighten it. “I thought I’d leave her alone for a few minutes,” he said, as he tucked in his side of the bed, with even more razor-sharp corners than hers.

He noticed her glance and gestured for her to hand him the other sheet. “I’m a surgeon, Lady Taunton,” he said. “Nothing exalted like a physician. I’ve been known to give a good shave and haircut and empty slops. The air isn’t too rarefied around me.”

There was no mistaking his common touch. True, he was in uniform, but there wasn’t anything crisp about him. His hair was short, as short as men who wore wigs usually wore their own hair, but she doubted he owned a wig.

She found a light blanket while he pulled a case onto the pillow and fluffed it at the head of the bed. She held out the blanket and they settled it on the sheets together. When it was smoothed out, she looked at him and chose to say more.

“The air may not be rarefied, but you are a good surgeon.”

“Thank you,” he said simply.

“In fact, I wish you had been at my late husband’s bedside. I …” She stopped, her face warm.

He didn’t say anything, but the look of sympathy in his eyes made her brave enough to continue. “He suffered a stroke four years ago, and I nursed him through three years of …”

“Thirty-six-hour days?” he asked quietly.

“Precisely,” she said, relieved that he understood. “I listened to all manner of wisdom from his physicians, and …”

She couldn’t find the words to continue, but he seemed to know. “… and you wanted someone to give you concrete advice?”

“Precisely so again,” she said, and sat down. “I wanted to know how long he would live, but hadn’t the courage to ask so callous a question.”

“It’s not callous. I’d have answered it,” he told her. “Typical expectation might be eighteen months. Apparently you are a superior nurse, if he lasted three years.”

“He was my husband,” was all she said. “Why aren’t there more doctors like you?”

He sat down, too. “I don’t know what Nana has told you about us, but we Brittles are as common as marsh grass. I always knew I would be a healer of some sort. For a time, when I sailed as a loblolly boy, I pined for proper medical schooling. After that first battle at sea, I knew I could be more useful.”

She nodded. There was no denying he looked like the most capable man on the planet. He also was built like a road mender. She had never met anyone like him.

“Did all your education come at sea?”

“No. Surgeons require degrees. Captain Worthy paid tuition, room and board for three years at the University of Edinburgh.”

“He strikes again. Nana has been telling me all about her captain this afternoon.”

“Contrary to what she has said, he doesn’t really walk on water. After Scotland, I spent nearly two years as a ward-walker in London Hospital. I should have been another year there, but man proposes and Boney disposes, apparently. I passed my viva voce, got a license—two, in fact—and found myself back at sea, this time with Lord Nelson at Trafalgar. We all know how that came out.”

She shouldn’t have been sitting on a bed with him. He must have had the same thought, because they both got up at the same time. She wanted him to tell her more about his life at sea, but surely he had better things to do.

Laura looked around the room, then drew the draperies. “Is there anything else you might need?”

“No, you’ve thought of everything. I’m going to go next door and finish packing, but I’ll be back.”

“You mentioned Stonehouse.” Heavens, Laura, she told herself, let the man be. He’s trying to go home.

He seemed in no particular hurry. “I started my duties there last week after returning from Jamaica.”

He must have noticed the question on her face. “Stonehouse is a Royal Naval Hospital between Plymouth and Devonport. By the dockyards. I am one of the two staff surgeons to some eight hundred patients, depending on Boney.”

She couldn’t have heard him right. “So many! How can you possibly get away?”

“Not often,” he said as she walked him to the door. “I did insist on seeing me mum, however. After Jamaica, she was pining after my careworn visage.”

“Is there no Mrs. Brittle?”

“Not besides me mum,” he said cheerfully, as he walked down the stairs with her. “Any woman I’m to court will have to come to Stonehouse and empty slops.”

Laura laughed. “And probably wash smelly bandages.”

“Certainly.” He nodded to her. “Just leave the side door open. I’ll lock it when I come in, if you and Nana have already gone to bed.”

When she returned to the sitting room, Nana was awake and knitting by the window. She held up her work. “Soakers. Mrs. Brittle says I can never knit too many. Do you knit, sister?”

She did. They spent the evening knitting. Under Nana’s gentle questions, she was even able to talk about her marriage and Sir James Taunton.

“He wanted an heir, and reckoned his first wife had been at fault,” Laura said, her eyes on her knitting. “After a year of trying, he had a stroke and left me in peace.” She knew that was enough to tell Nana. “I … I do have a lovely estate in Taunton.”

Nana didn’t look convinced.

“It’s lovely,” Laura repeated. “If I never see it again, it wouldn’t be any loss to me. Life is amazingly dull when you want for nothing.”

Nana did smile at that. She leaned back and rested her hand on her abdomen. “Please don’t tell Oliver, but life moved faster at the Mulberry, when I was hauling water up and down stairs, placating our few lodgers, and sweeping hearths.”

“You’ll be busy soon enough.”

“So I will.” Nana leaned forward and took Laura’s hands in hers. “Oliver’s all right, isn’t he?”

If she hadn’t felt so confident in Lt. Brittle’s comments, Laura knew she could not have spoken. “I do believe he is, this captain of yours. You’re a goose, Nana! No wonder everyone loves you.”

Laura shared Nana’s bed that night, because Nana insisted she did not want to be alone. She saw that Nana was comfortable, touched by the way she matter-of-factly pulled the boat cloak over her side of the bed and tucked what would be Oliver’s pillow lengthwise to her. Laura smiled at that and got her own pillow from the other bedchamber.

She knew her sister was tired, but Nana had another question. “Laura, who raised you before you came to Miss Pym’s? I had Gran.”

I had no one, she thought. My mother, whoever she was, had no interest in me. “When I tell you, you’ll understand a little more about our dear father.”

Nana gave an unladylike snort. She giggled then. “Laura, I almost said something I’ve heard Oliver say when he didn’t know I was listening, but I would probably lose all credit with you.”

You could never do that, Laura thought. “As I was saying, when you so rudely interrupted—there you go again!—our dear father’s problems with money began with the fourth Viscount Ratliffe, who was as dissolute and spendthrift as our loving parent. Nana! Your manners!”

“Sorry,” came Nana’s meek reply in the dark, followed by a barely suppressed laugh, probably smothered in the folds of her darling’s boat cloak.

“Lord Ratliffe Number Four was hell-bent on a flaming career as London’s greatest ne’er-do-well when one of the Wesley brothers—John, I believe—took him on as a project, after John’s return from Georgia. Nana, are you awake?”

“Of course I am,” came the sleepy reply.

“I’ll move along. Dear Grandpapa renounced his evil ways, turned to Methodism, and set up his own illegitimate daughter—our beloved Pym—as the headmistress of a female academy. I spent my earliest years in a Wesley orphanage.”

Nana reached under Oliver’s pillow and took her sister’s hand. “Laura,” was all she said.

“If you don’t know any better, what is the harm?” Laura said. “You know the rest as well as I do. After Grandpa died, our father was forced by some curious honor we scarcely knew he possessed, to maintain Pym’s school and keep us in it. Of course, he found a way to make us pay, didn’t he? Nana, I’m so ashamed I did not have your courage.”

Nana pushed aside Oliver’s pillow and her voice was fierce. “Laura! Listen to me! You had no one to help you and nowhere to go.” She held Laura by the shoulders. “You have us now. You always will.” Her grip relaxed. “Heavens, you’ll think I’m ferocious.”

“You are, sister,” Laura said, drawing a shaky breath. “Did you terrify that French officer in Oliver’s prison?”

“Probably,” Nana said, her tone kindly again. “He deserved it, though, for getting between me and my love.”

And that is that, Laura thought, as her sister found Oliver’s pillow again and stretched it out.

She thought Nana slept, but then: “Laura, please say you’ll stay here. I need you.”

“I’ll stay.” I need you more, she thought, as her eyes closed.

Laura woke a few hours later, because she heard the bedchamber door open. She sat up, alert, to see the tall form of Lt. Brittle—what had Nana called him? Phil?—holding up a lantern similar to one she had used in James’s sick room, with its sides slatted to allow only a little light, enough to see a patient by.

He could see that she was sitting up in bed, but he didn’t pause at the door. He came closer in stockinged feet, to kneel by her.

“Is she all right?” he whispered.

“She’s fine,” Laura whispered back, leaning close to him, unwilling to wake Nana. “We’ve been catching up on our lives.”

“You’re a welcome distraction,” he said. “She needs you.” She could see him distinctly now in the subdued light. “I like to ward walk before I sleep. Good night, Lady Taunton.”

Laura nodded and lay down again, grateful for his reassuring presence, even if he did nothing more than shine a light and let her know he was there. To her unspeakable pleasure, he tugged the coverlet up higher and patted her shoulder, before he got to his feet and left the room as quietly as he had entered it.

She put her hand where he had touched her, closed her eyes and slept.

Chapter Three

Lt. Brittle left before breakfast. Laura thought she might have to bully her sister to sit still and eat, in her anticipation for the captain to arrive, but admonition was unnecessary. After the meal, Nana went to the kitchen to plan the week’s menus, while Laura went to the book room to write a letter to Taunton.

Writing the letter was a simple matter. Laura wondered what her butler and housekeeper would say when they learned she planned to stay in Torquay for the immediate future. She wanted to recommend holidays for them all, but knew that would be a shock to the system for her retainers, none of whom was younger than fifty.

She was sealing the letter when she heard the front door open, then firm steps in the front hall. He’s here, she thought. Nana will never hear him from the kitchen. She stood up, wondering whether to go to the kitchen or into the foyer to introduce herself. Shyness kept her from doing either, but it didn’t matter.

“Nana?”

Captain Worthy’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried, even though probably not far enough to reach the kitchen.

Laura hadn’t known her sister long. Certainly she had no reason to appreciate how close a bond between husband and wife could be. She opened the bookroom door just as Nana sped past her, arms open wide.

Their embrace was wordless, but the intensity of it made Laura catch her breath. She opened the door enough to see her sister caught in the arms of a tall man made even taller by the fore and aft hat he wore, which was cocked slightly to the side to accommodate a bandage around his head.

Before he kissed his wife, he removed his hat. Nana’s hands were gentle on his neck, careful not to touch his ear as he kissed her, kissed her again, and once more after that, until Nana ducked and asked him when he had last shaved.

That seemed a good note for Laura to open the door wider and meet her brother-in-law, except that she stood where she was, transfixed by what followed. Oliver dropped to his knees and rested the undamaged side of his head against Nana’s belly. With a sob, her little sister laid her hands on him like a benediction.

Laura softly closed the door as her heart pounded. All she could think of to do was thank the Almighty for tender mercies and count slowly to one hundred before opening the door again.

She found the Worthys in the sitting room, looking out the window at the bay, the captain standing behind Nana, his arms around his whole family. He appeared to be resting his chin on Nana’s head.

I still shouldn’t be here, Laura thought, embarrassed. She turned to go, but the captain looked around and smiled to see her. He let go of Nana and walked toward her. She thought he might bow, but he didn’t bother. Taking her by both arms, he kissed her forehead.

“Life’s too short to stand on much formality, sister,” he said. “Start by calling me Oliver.”

What could she do but agree? “I am Laura Taunton,” she replied, “and most heartily pleased to meet you.”

He was handsome in a seagoing way, with a myriad of wrinkles around his eyes that were probably caused by years of facing into wind and water. His lips were thin as a Scotsman’s and his nose full of character. Still, none of his features registered as much as his brown eyes, so warm and kind, probably only because he was in the presence of the person he held most dear in the world. On the quarterdeck, she did not doubt he was absolute monarch. At home, her sister ruled, even though she probably did not know it.

Laura took all this in, understanding her brother-in-law completely before she had said more than a sentence to him. How strange life was. In two days she had gone from having no family in the world, to the possession of a sister and a brother. Maybe there really was a God in Heaven.

Nana stood by Oliver now, making him sit down on the sofa, then putting a pillow behind his head.

“My love, would you humor me and let Philemon Brittle look at your ear?” Nana asked.

Laura knew her brother-in-law would refuse his wife nothing. In his world of war over which he had no control, any gesture of kindness to his wife must have felt like the greatest gift he could give. He nodded.

“I’ll get him,” Laura said.

She took the well-traveled path between the two houses. So his name is Philemon, and not merely Phil, she told herself. It has been a long time since I have read that particular book of the New Testament. I wonder if anyone reads it.

Lt. Brittle came to the door, his shirtsleeves rolled up. “Just helping me mum with the dishes,” he said. “Come in. Did I see a chaise pull up with Captain Worthy?”

“You did,” she said, walking with him to the kitchen, where Nora Brittle was up to her elbows in soapy water. “Good day, Mrs. Brittle. May I help?”

The surgeon handed his dish towel to her. “You finish. I’ll get my pocket instruments and some wadding.”

Laura took the plate Mrs. Brittle handed her, wondering when she had last dried a dish. In the last day, I have been hugged and cosseted, and cried over and touched, she thought, as her eyes prickled. People need me. If I am ever alone again, it will be my own fault and no one else’s.

“Are you feeling all right, Lady Taunton?” Mrs. Brittle asked quietly.

“Never better.”

After sitting Oliver Worthy in a straight chair, draping a towel around his neck and advising Nana to recline on the sofa out of view of the injury, Lt. Brittle took out a pair of long-nosed scissors from his packet of instruments, then handed the rest to Laura.

“I should ask—are you up for this?”

He seemed to expect no answer but yes, so she did not disappoint him. It wasn’t the place, not with Nana looking so anxious, but perhaps later she could tell him that she actually was curious.

Laura noticed that Nana was looking more distressed by the moment. In fact, she was getting ready to leave the sofa for a look of her own. Obviously, her husband felt unwilling to subject her to that kind of stress.

“Stay there, m’dear,” Oliver said. “I am in good hands, as you well know. Laura, you should ask the surgeon to tell you of the time he stitched a teat back on a cow’s udder.”

Well done, she thought, even as she laughed, and Nana relaxed on the sofa again. “You must tell me, Lieutenant.”

Brittle had finished unwinding the bandage. After folding the blood-dappled portion inward so Nana could not see it, the surgeon handed it to Laura. He snipped at the hair around Oliver’s ear.

“Oh, that cow. You would remind me, Captain. That was when I voyaged with you as surgeon’s assistant on the Chrysalis, wasn’t it? As I recall, you were a lieutenant, and determined to assure your captain that I could patch a cow’s teat.”

Laura asked. “On a ship?”

“It’s common enough,” Nana said. “You’d be amazed what some officers will take on board, as they prepare for a long voyage.”

“Pigs, cows, chickens … it’s a regular Noah’s ark,” Oliver said. “Due to my mismanagement, Captain Fitzgerald’s little Jersey sustained an undignified injury when a crew under my command swung her into the hold.”

“Nana, your husband promised me all kinds of perquisites if I would but take a needle and thread to the bovine,” Brittle said as he calmly snipped away.

“Did you succeed?” Laura asked, as the surgeon indicated Oliver’s mangled ear, which looked remarkably like liver.

“Succeed? Aye. Earned a prodigious kick to my ass, though.”

You are so composed, Laura thought, as Nana laughed. I can be, too, she told herself as she forced herself not to show any disgust at the sight before her. After the first inward quiver that evidence of raw mortality seemed to invite, she found herself more interested than squeamish.

“Hmm.”

Brittle stood by the captain, hands on hips, lips pursed.

“That is not edifying,” the captain said.

“Perhaps not to you, sir,” Brittle replied. “Your surgeon on the Tireless is still Joseph Barnhart?”