The Death of Jane Lawrence(73)

Orren’s mother peered in, then eased her son’s mouth closed once more. “That’s what I was telling you!” she whispered fervently. Jane winced, but listened through the pain to the real question. Does that mean you can fix it?

Jane spread the paper out on her lap again. “For scarlet fever, Dr. Lawrence”— her voice caught—“recommends bleeding, first and foremost.”

Her elbow ached where Augustine had sliced her open, and she wanted to take it back. She couldn’t do that to the boy, already struggling to survive. But that was the difference: she had been healthy, and he was ill. Mr. Cunningham had been bled before, as had Mrs. Cunningham. Even she must have been in actual times of sickness, though she could not remember it happening.

And Orren’s mother was nodding, accepting it as simple truth. Mr. Lowell pulled a case out of the satchel. He held it out to her.

She stared up at him. Couldn’t he do the deed…?

But she couldn’t look weak, not in front of Orren’s mother. Fear had to be answered with confidence, with strength. Jane took the case and opened it, revealing the same tool that Augustine had used on her the night before. Her hand shook as she lifted it from the molded interior, seeing her own reflection in the polished metal. It was simple enough to operate. A few presses of her thumb wound the spring, the blades drawing up inside the housing. She gently pulled one of Orren’s arms from within the blankets, feeling again how hot it was, how much he shivered, how little he responded.

She placed the metal box against the inside of his arm, mirroring where Augustine had placed it on hers, and pressed the button.

Orren didn’t cry out as the blades bit into him, or as blood began to run down his arm. Orren’s mother held him cradled against her chest, tucked into her lap, with the basin out to the side to catch the flow. They sat, very quiet, until the bleeding slowed. Orren’s family gathered around them, watching, waiting, hoping. Jane repeated the procedure on the other arm.

Augustine’s notes were very clear. Bleed until the cheeks become pale and the lips lose color. Her heart seized at every leap of the scarificator, and she could not stand the smell of blood, but she repeated the procedure again, and again. Orren’s mother whispered that she could feel his fever cooling. His vomiting slowed.

But Orren didn’t rally as the storm outside the farmhouse calmed.

He died in his mother’s arms.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


JANE WAS NUMB as Mr. Lowell saddled their horse. She was numb as they made for the main road, and numb when he twisted in his seat to ask her, “Will you be going to Lindridge Hall or the surgery tonight, ma’am?”

She wanted to say the surgery, but Augustine needed her. And, moreover, she knew she did not deserve to sleep under that roof and proclaim to those who might come in the night that she could help. Who had she been fooling? There was no help coming, not from her. If only Augustine had been able to leave the house the night before—if only she hadn’t lost him to Lindridge Hall, to the inexplicable and impossible. A little boy might still be alive. She might not have his blood on her hands.

There could be no others. She would get Augustine back. This was not the death of her parents; she was not a helpless child. She would find her husband and pull him from the bowels of the house, and she would restore him. She wouldn’t stop until he was back, safe.

And she could hope that she would not see those things again, those things her husband had sworn were the figures of his departed patients, but to her had only been monstrous. Without her husband in residence, she had never seen more than a flash in a window, as long as she was outside the cellar; perhaps she was in some way protected, able to be hurt only through her proximity to him.

“Lindridge Hall,” she said, heart steeled against the fear. “In case … in case my husband returns.”

Mr. Lowell made a concerned noise low in his throat. “I plan to canvass the farms for him tonight and tomorrow, ma’am. I worry that his horse may have thrown a shoe, or worse, in the dark.”

She flinched.

“Pardon me, ma’am. Not meaning to frighten you. Just … I can’t let him be, if he’s in trouble somewhere. You understand.”

“I do. Thank you.”

They rode in silence. When she closed her eyes, she saw Orren’s face, blank and helpless. She felt beneath her hands not Mr. Lowell’s waist but the metal of the scarificator. She tried to conjure up Augustine’s words the day of Mr. Renton’s death, how he had entreated her not to blame herself, but here she could find no one else.

She hadn’t followed Augustine’s treatments to the letter. She hadn’t had the training to find and apply leeches, hadn’t had the purgatives, hadn’t had the time to implement a diet of bland, soft foods and tonics. She could have shaved the boy’s head, and perhaps should have. She should have blistered the tonsils themselves.

But she was not a doctor. She could not be blamed for her lack of skill.

She could be blamed for losing Augustine, right when he was most needed.

What would happen when the next child fell ill, and the next? Because surely it would spread. Surely it would move like wildfire, like gas in the streets. And now Larrenton was without its doctor.

The only choice left to her now was to fix this. To go to where the crypt door had been and strike down the stone with a hammer. She would find him. She would free him.