C.J. was herself about to regurgitate. “And the sweetened milk?” she managed to stammer.
“A little sweetened milk placed upon the affected area stimulates the bloodsuckers to bite. Quite the customary practice, Miss Welles. There is nothing to fear.”
Maybe if you were a leech. C.J. threw her body between Dr. Squiffers and the countess, knocking his arm away from Lady Dalrymple. The medic easily lost his grip of the heated tumbler, which fell to the carpet and rolled several feet away. He scrambled to retrieve the glass as C.J. slammed the lid shut on the case of hideous, writhing leeches, closing the clasp. “Out! Out, you parasite!” she shrieked, shoving the doctor from the room while an aghast Saunders stood helplessly by.
The maid attended her ladyship’s bedside as C.J. retrieved the doctor’s black bag and the box of leeches and followed him from the room, closing the heavy bedchamber door behind her. The physician stood by, shaking with ire.
“Miss Welles, you must let me do everything in my power to heal your aunt. I have taken an oath!” he insisted. Wringing his hands helped stop them from trembling, but only with the greatest concentration could he control his shaking limbs when anger or anxiety got the better of him.
“I absolve you of your Hippocratic responsibilities,” C.J. said, her voice tensing.
“Without my expertise, Lady Dalrymple will very likely die,” the doctor urged under his breath, lest their voices carry through the closed door. He knew the odds of survival were slim in any event. Softening his tone, and taking C.J.’s hand, he consoled, “I understand that you are reluctant to accept that it is nigh your aunt’s time, but if you wish to prolong her . . . departure . . . you must not prevent her ladyship from receiving the best possible medical care. I shall endeavor to ease her pain and make the inevitable more comfortable for her. Surely you can derive your own comfort from that knowledge, Miss Welles.”
C.J. withdrew her hand. “No, sir, I cannot. And I do not. Nor do I accept that it is Lady Dalrymple’s ‘time,’ as you aver with such ridiculous certainty. Time can be altered, I have learned . . .” She trailed off, realizing that she was failing in her attempt to sway his opinion. Perhaps leeching, or bleeding, was the standard course of treatment at the time for everything from bunions to dog bites to bubonic plague.
What effect cupping and leeching could possibly have on the countess’s enlarged heart—short of burning her skin and thinning her blood, owing to the leeches’ scarlet extraction—would have to be thoroughly proven to C.J. in order to convince her of the efficacy of the procedure. Although, when she paused to think for a moment, she acknowledged that blood thinners such as aspirin were prescribed for heart patients in her own era.
She looked deep into Squiffers’s eyes—pale blue orbs now red rimmed and slightly bloodshot—and then leveled a challenge. “I will offer you a bargain, Doctor. I absolve you of all responsibility—medical, ethical, or legal—with regard to the future health of Lady Euphoria Dalrymple. From this moment on, my aunt’s life is in my hands, and I shall accept whatever consequences there may be . . . should she recover”—C.J.’s voice dropped below a whisper— “or not.” She took a deep breath and shook the doctor’s hand. “If we have further need of your services, I shall have the footman, Willis, summon you.” Dr. Squiffers’s gaze was indecipherable. She placed a hand on the medic’s back and guided him toward the staircase. “Good night, Doctor. And thank you.”
C.J. waited at the top of the stairs until she could no longer hear the physician’s receding footsteps. Then she reentered her “aunt’s” chamber. “Mary. Mary Sykes would probably know what to do,” C.J. muttered half to herself, wishing now more than ever that Lady Wickham’s little scullery maid were there to see her through this crisis. Mary was resourceful and pragmatic and understood how to get along in this world. She would undoubtedly know about efficacious and less barbaric home remedies and how one might concoct them. More important, because Mary had an infirm employer, she might know where a better physician than Dr. Squiffers could be located.
C.J. realized that her own brow was damp with sweat. Perhaps she had overreacted. After all, she was comparing her awareness of modern medicine and technology with the state of medical science in 1801—something she admittedly knew nothing about.
She mopped her brow, then wiped her perspiring hands on her hips. The white gown had been through so much today, its condition could not get much worse. Now, what to do about Lady Dalrymple? It was not the time to second-guess her ill treatment of Dr. Squiffers. She did fear that her refusal to allow the medic—who appeared to have a permanent case of delirium tremens—to bleed and cup the countess might actually hasten her demise rather than prolong it. She had acted upon impulse just now, and although she was not ordinarily the praying sort, she hoped that there was an all-knowing divine force somewhere in the universe that had guided her to make the right decision.
Lady Dalrymple’s eyes were half closed, her forearm draped over the moist compress that Saunders had made from another delicate fingertip towel. C.J. pulled open the embroidered drapes and secured them to the bedposts, affording the countess a full view of the portrait of her late husband hanging on the opposite wall, then drew up a chair to sit by her side. She readjusted the linen compress and stroked Lady Dalrymple’s brow.
“Well . . . it would seem that you were
