There was a thud as C.J. hit the uneven path dotted with twigs and stones. The thud was followed by a terrible silence that seemed to echo through the valley below.
Darlington spurred his stallion back up the hill to find Gypsy Lady, a look of fear in her huge brown eyes, standing obediently by the prostrate body of her rider: a heap of grubby green velvet lying in the dust. A yard or so away, Cassandra’s new black riding hat bounced away, its sheer tulle veiling caught by a breeze.
The sun gradually descended toward the horizon while Darlington sat by Cassandra’s immobile form along the infrequently traversed road. Finally he was able to hail a passing cabriolet to request assistance. The coach’s owner insisted on turning from his intended route; and, after helping Darlington lift Miss Welles into the carriage, they made the briefest stop at the stables, alerting the grooms to retrieve the earl’s horses, which had been temporarily tethered to a stile. This done, they raced posthaste for the Royal Crescent. The carriage’s owner, one Captain Keats, saw that Miss Welles arrived as safely as possible, given the alarming circumstances.
DARLINGTON’S DEEP BLUE MORNING COAT rested on the back of his chair. An otherwise perfect cravat was crumpled and stuffed in the pocket.
“Perhaps you should take a walk, Percy. Stretch your legs,” Lady Dalrymple whispered, as she entered her “niece’s” bedroom with a cup of tea for the earl. “It is daybreak and you have been sitting here for hours, without respite. You must allow Dr. Musgrove to administer his treatments.”
“Bloody tractors.” Darlington was about to condemn Americans again, as it was a Yankee Doodle doctor, Elisha Perkins, who had invented the curative instruments that bore his name. Although the earl still found the application of Perkins Tractors to be outright quackery, he had no alternative now but to place his trust in the eminent Dr. Musgrove’s restorative methods. Still, four days had passed, and Cassandra had yet to stir. Darlington needed someone to blame for her condition. If Dr. Musgrove was an honest medic, then such blame must be assigned to himself for having insisted on such a foolhardy venture: encouraging a woman with child to indulge him in a horse race.
As soon as Miss Welles had been transported back to the Royal Crescent, Dr. Musgrove was fetched upon the instant. He chastised both Darlington and the captain, explaining that the young woman should not have been lifted from the road and thence conveyed along rocky thoroughfares, lest she had suffered a broken neck in her fall.
Captain Keats, a man of few words who had seen too many of his compatriots fall in battle, acknowledged that he had, on more than one occasion, tended to a wounded companion in similar straits to Miss Welles’s and informed the physician that at the time he believed there was no alternative.
Lady Dalrymple admitted the young physician to Cassandra’s room.
“The young lady’s condition remains unchanged,” Darlington volunteered before Musgrove could form the question on his lips. The pleasant-looking man, perhaps a half-dozen years younger than the earl, opened a large, black leather satchel and removed a pair of metal rods resembling the divining rods Darlington had seen in his youthful travels to the East. Dr. Musgrove stroked the rods over his patient’s skin.
Mary, who had been quietly standing by her mistress’s bedside when the doctor paid his daily calls, had become intrigued by the practice, and finally grew bold enough to inquire as to the application of the rods.
The young doctor affected his most assured and professional demeanor. “Perkins Tractors are commonly employed to cure epilepsy—the falling sickness, in common parlance—the gout, and inflammations. Miss Welles took a nasty fall, and as a result has broken her ankle joints, which twisted when she came into contact with the ground. Thus, it is for the inflammation that the tractors are applied.”
“Might I, sir, if I may be so bold?” Mary asked him with sweet simplicity, and all were quite surprised when the doctor permitted her to step between him and his patient. With the gentlest of touches, she felt the tender area about C.J.’s ankles, her face intent as though she were listening to her palpations for some sort of sound. “There is no break here,” she finally said with grave solemnity. Her voice bore a tone of experience not a soul in the household had ever before heard from her.
“Mary!” chorused the others.
“I was born and reared on a farm in Hereford, sir,” Mary said, addressing the doctor with polite deference but without apology. “And although Miss Welles is neither calf nor foal, I am no stranger to broken limbs. You see, sir, if you place your hand just above and below the bone thusly . . .” She demonstrated, gently guiding Dr. Musgrove’s thumb and forefinger to C.J.’s right ankle, “you will feel that there is no space—that the bones are fused quite properly. I cannot speak for the usefulness of your metal rods, but I am quite sure that Miss Welles has suffered no broken bones in her ankles.”
The assemblage watched the girl with stunned admiration. Lady Dalrymple beamed as proudly as if the little maid were her own daughter. What fools the gentry were, the countess thought, to assume superior knowledge in all things, claiming it as a birthright.
“Did you ever think to check for broken bones before you began to apply this ridiculous contraption, Dr. Musgrove? Tractors!” scoffed Darlington. “I should not root about your fancy medical societies boasting of your latest cures when you have been shown up by your patient’s maidservant!”
Dr. Musgrove, rather than resenting Mary’s intrusion and the earl’s outburst, stroked his bare chin and regarded the servant girl curiously. After some moments, he said, “I suppose the reason one refers to my profession as the practice of medicine is that one can always learn something new about it.” The
