A Warriner To Tempt Her. Virginia Heath

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СКАЧАТЬ given Joe a chance. His willingness to treat all comers and to accept whatever payment in kind the families could afford had granted him a level of acceptance he would never have enjoyed otherwise. Of course, it also meant he was given all manner of things he had no use for—like the ornate lady’s hair comb which had been sent to his surgery only yesterday by an elderly patient who was as fit as a fiddle but imagined she suffered from everything. Nothing he could use to pay the wages of an assistant to help him with his growing workload.

      ‘Doctors have no place being selective in their choice of patients. Ignoring a sick child is nothing short of cruelty. In fact, it is criminal!’

      ‘I keep trying to appeal to his better nature.’ Joe refrained from saying what he truly thought. Dr Bentley was motivated by money rather than the need to heal. Meanwhile the poverty-stricken people suffered unnecessarily from his neglect. However, knowing what he did about Dr Bentley’s archaic and draconian practices, he supposed it was just as well he was not more charitable. His antiquated methods rarely worked and often made things worse. If Joe ever found himself bleeding to death in the middle of the road, the very last person he would call was Dr Bentley, as he’d probably end up dead.

      ‘I am not sure that man has a better nature. I didn’t take to him when I first met him and respect him less now. It is a wonder that he is still condoned by the locals when his attitude towards the sick is so appalling.’

      ‘Dr Bentley has been practising medicine here for as long as I can remember. People are unwaveringly loyal to him after so many years of service.’ And, of course, it helped he did not have the unfortunate surname of Warriner.

      ‘Service?’ She was so outraged she forgot to whisper. ‘Leaving a sick child to potentially die is hardly service!’ Her fierceness amused him and reminded Joe of the way he had seen Dr Bentley glare at her as he left her the other day. Lady Isabella clearly hid a bit of a temper beneath her usually silent, suspicious exterior. It made her forget to be silent and it was nice not to be on the receiving end of her disdain for once. The noise roused their patient and he whimpered slightly. The change in her was instantaneous. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Tom.’ Her hand brushed his hair affectionately. ‘Dr Warriner is here. He is delighted to see you getting better. Would you like something to drink?’

      The boy nodded and she began to fuss over him, so different from the uptight and dour woman he had always assumed her to be. To be still here because a foundling was sick and to be treating him as if she genuinely cared about him was...well, frankly nothing short of admirable and not at all what he would have expected of her. She stepped aside while Joe did his own examination of the boy, watching with barely disguised interest from her preferred spot nearest the door as he took his stethoscope out of his bag and used it to listen to Tom’s chest. ‘His lungs are clear. The wheezing is in his throat, not his chest.’

      ‘You can tell such things just from listening?’

      ‘Yes, indeed. With this wonderful instrument I can hear all manner of things I couldn’t before.’

      ‘Is that Laennec’s stethoscope?’ She took two steps forward. At her apparent fascination with the instrument he passed it to her to examine. She took another step forward, took it eagerly and scrutinised both ends of the wooden tube whilst holding it as if it were as precious as the Holy Grail. ‘I read his paper last year but have never seen one used before.’

      She kept surprising him. ‘You read his Treatise on the Diagnosis of the Diseases of the Lungs and Heart?’

      ‘I didn’t understand all of it,’ she said, holding his stethoscope like a telescope and peering through the hole, ‘but his claims that different diseases caused the chest cavity to sound different was intriguing.’ Lady Isabella was the first person he had ever met who had read the great Dr Laennec’s work, a surprising choice of reading matter for a young lady, yet one which proved she had more than a working knowledge of all things scientific if she had read that weighty academic essay.

      ‘I had one made to Laennec’s exact design as soon as he began to publish his successes. He has used it to great effect when diagnosing the treatment of consumption. I have heard of a few other physicians who have started to use a stethoscope rather than rely on just their own ears—but it is still a relatively new invention. Everyone who tries it, swears by it. It’s amazing how clearly one can hear congestion in the lungs, or an irregular heartbeat—which in turn makes diagnosis and treatment of such dangerous conditions faster. When an illness affects the lungs, without swift intervention a patient can quickly develop pleurisy or pneumonia. That stethoscope you are holding has saved a few lives here in Retford in the two years I have been using it.’ In fact, it was Joe’s most essential piece of equipment aside from his spectacles. Without those, he couldn’t read a damn thing or see anything close up. ‘I have been experimenting with it with expectant mothers. During the first stage of confinement it is also possible to hear the heartbeats of a foetus.’ Was it appropriate to discuss such things with a gently bred young woman? Probably not, yet her eyes lit up and he reminded himself she had read Laennec.

      ‘How can you be sure you are simply not hearing the mother’s heart?’

      ‘Because I can clearly hear both, beating in tandem. The mother’s is louder, as one would expect with an adult, fully grown heart, and the babe’s is softer and beats much more rapidly. I was staggered at how fast it was at first, but it is a wonderful thing to hear.’

      ‘Rapid heartbeats? How fascinating. To hear life at such an early stage of development. Is the instrument easy to use?’

      ‘I’m sure young Tom here won’t mind you listening to his chest. Why don’t you give it a go and see for yourself?’

      There was no hesitation this time. No wariness. Lady Isabella placed the end on the boy’s sternum, ever so slightly left without having to be told the human heart did not sit dead central, and rested her ear against the other end. Within seconds she was smiling again. ‘My goodness! Why, I can hear it as clear as a bell.’ Then she giggled, a delicious, warm sound which did odd things to his own heartbeat and made him feel uncharacteristically vain. Joe found himself unhooking his spectacles from his ears and stuffing them into his pocket and quashed the urge to neaten his unruly hair. ‘I can also hear your tummy gurgling, young man. There are so many noises going on inside your body it is like an orchestra is playing a symphony with your organs.’

      A symphony of organs. What an apt description. ‘Listen again while Tom takes a deep breath. Can you hear any wheezing in his lungs?’

      She bent her head again and listened intently for almost half a minute before standing up. ‘You are right. There is no congestion in his lungs. The only sounds of laboured breathing I hear clearly come from the swelling in his throat.’ Anticipating his next move, she handed him the tongue depressor on the nightstand so he could get a better look inside the boy’s mouth at the source of the trouble, then went to fetch the candle to shine light on the right spot. Just as she had said, the offending tonsils were quite nasty, but he had seen far worse. ‘Will you have to remove his tonsils, Doctor?’

      Little Tom’s eyes widened and Joe winked at him and shook his head. ‘Only if they keep causing problems. In my experience, this is a stage many children go through and grow out of. I am of the belief, if one is born with an organ, then it serves a greater purpose remaining in the body unless it proves to be absolutely necessary to remove it. For the time being, Tom’s tonsils can stay put.’

      The boy yawned and she was all concern again. ‘It’s time for your medicine and then it’s back to sleep for you, I think.’

      ‘Indeed. A good night’s sleep works wonders, young Master Tom. That and more of Lady Isabella’s tonsil-taming tea.’

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