They dressed at leisure, desiring to prolong their parting as much as possible. Then Darlington’s barouche carried C.J. back to Lady Dalrymple’s town house, the short distance from the Circus to the Royal Crescent being all too brief a drive.
Book the Third
Chapter Sixteen
This time Lady Dalrymple does not cry wolf; our heroine rids the household of parasites, and makes a desperate effort to take matters into her own hands.
THE HOUSE ON the Royal Crescent was dark and still as C.J. approached, and she wondered if she had been missed when Folsom, who opened the door to admit her, gave her an anxious look. She slipped inside and tiptoed up the highly polished wooden staircase, removing the skeleton key from her reticule when she reached the blue room. A cursory glance in the beveled cheval mirror to ensure that there was nothing suspiciously untoward about her appearance revealed one or two stray curls; but otherwise, her thin muslin gown, though it had appeared to be a total loss at the time, had survived the soaking in Sydney Gardens.
It was too quiet. C.J. shuddered. Something was amiss. She quickened her step as she approached Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber and almost collided with Saunders, who was leaving the darkened room. “Miss Welles! You gave me such a fright,” she exclaimed, a panicked expression in her light gray eyes.
“Saunders—whatever has happened?” C.J. asked. She had learned enough about the dour maid’s character to know that she would not offer any intelligence unless it was demanded of her, though Saunders’s countenance—like that of the footman, Folsom—clearly betrayed the fact that a matter of grave importance had transpired within the past few hours.
“It is her ladyship’s heart, Miss Welles,” Saunders whispered, unable to mask her alarm and distress. “Dr. Squiffers is with her now.”
“How . . . grave is her condition?” C.J. asked, already divining an answer from the maid’s tearstained face.
At the entrance to Lady Dalrymple’s bedchamber, C.J. paused to steady her breath so that her entrance would not further upset her “aunt.”
The heavy crewelwork drapes were drawn around the countess’s bed. The small, slight Dr. Squiffers, dressed in a somber wool crepe frock coat, stood beside her, illuminated by the flame from a single taper.
Lady Dalrymple looked surprisingly diminutive and alarmingly thin propped up by numerous damask-covered bolsters and eiderdown pillows. It was horribly warm within the confines of the closed curtains, and the odor of illness was palpable. The dowager’s white lace cap was askew; a sheen of sweat plastered her gray curls to her glistening brow. She held out her arms to C.J.
“My niece. My dear niece. Come to me.”
C.J. obeyed immediately. She took her “aunt’s” hand in her own. The older woman’s palm felt small, somehow, and slightly clammy.
“Tell Dr. Squiffers to pull the curtains. I want to see Portly.”
“It is inadvisable for the patient to have so much light,” the medic soberly counseled, kneading his knotted arthritic thumbs.
“Nonsense. Give her ladyship what she wants.” C.J. decided to take charge. She placed a kiss on Lady Dalrymple’s damp forehead. “Get her a cool, wet cloth,” she ordered the doctor, who rang the velvet bellpull; then, drawing him aside, C.J. softly asked the medical man about the countess’s condition.
The response did little to cheer her.
“We are doing all we can to make her comfortable, Miss Welles, but your aunt appears to have a greatly enlarged heart,” the doctor replied, steepling his fingers together to form a triangle. He found it did wonders to reduce the tremors that had been plaguing him ever since he had decided to reduce his intake of alcohol. How long had it been, now? Two weeks? Two months?
He regarded Lady Dalrymple’s young niece and pursed his lips. Like most men of the medical profession, Dr. Squiffers was not overfond of persistent sorts who questioned his authority. Upstarts. “We do not know how long her ladyship will last. It could be a matter of months, or weeks . . . or it may be only a matter of days.” What did people expect of him? Death was a matter of course. His patients and their families always demanded miracles that no mere man, even a learned man of medicine, could provide. What would they next insist of him—that he walk on water?
Saunders reappeared with a glass tumbler, several fine Irish linen towels, and a white enamel basin. The doctor retrieved a small metal box from his worn black leather bag and opened the hasplike closure. Then he took the drinking glass from the lady’s maid. His hands trembled as he held it over the candle flame to sterilize it, requesting that Saunders part her ladyship’s dressing gown to expose the affected area. She picked up the small delftware bowl by Lady Dalrymple’s bedstead and turned to the medic for approval.
“Sweetened milk, sir. As you requested.” The lady’s maid took a fingertip towel from the bedside table and, dipping it into the bowl of sweetened milk—which seemed to C.J. more appropriate for a tabby cat’s midnight snack—began to apply dabs of the sticky liquid to her ladyship’s exposed poitrine. It was certainly an odd ritual. What could Saunders’s preparation be for, except perhaps to attract bugs?
Curiosity compelled C.J. to peer into the doctor’s little strongbox. She gasped, then nearly gagged. Regrettably, her suspicions about the contents of the box were confirmed. She had never seen leeches up close and never desired to again; and if she had to tackle the doctor to prevent him from bleeding Lady Dalrymple, and then bodily evict him from the premises, by God, she was prepared to do it.
Not only had Squiffers not washed his palsied hands before placing them on the patient, he was about to compound matters tenfold in C.J.’s view by touching the writhing brown-black oblongs beginning to desiccate in the box before him.
“Did you bring the salt,
