Page 71 of The Summer Country

The little girl ducked her head again. A sister? A daughter? Emily realized with shame that she didn’t know and had never asked.

“Is the doctor in?” asked George, a slight edge to his otherwise pleasant voice.

The man nearest the door nodded. He was holding one hand over a bandage stained with red on his right arm.

“How did you come by that, Elijah? Did Ruth come after you with a hoe?”

There was an uneasy laugh all around. “Knife slipped,” said Elijah.

“And you came all this way to have it looked at?”

No one answered.

“All right, then,” said George. “You don’t mind if we slip ahead, do you? We won’t keep the doctor long.”

“Oh.” Emily paused as realization dawned, remembering the last time she had seen Dr. Braithwaite, the words that had passed between them. Slowly, she followed behind George. “Is this . . . ?”

“Yes,” said George, leading her ahead of the waiting patients. “Welcome to Nathaniel’s illegal infirmary.”

He spoke loudly enough that his words preceded them into the room, which had been turned into a makeshift operating theater. A man lay on a well-scrubbed table, flesh gaping from a nasty gash down his leg. Beside him, Dr. Braithwaite was engaged in stitching the wound together. A bowl sat on the floor beside him, filled with reddish water and stained cloths.

“Hardly illegal,” said Dr. Braithwaite, without looking up from his work. His stock was neatly tied, his waistcoat of the first quality, but he had stripped to his shirtsleeves, the cuffs folded back to bare his forearms.

“You’re trespassing,” said George, looking away from the wound.

“Have you come to evict me?” Dr. Braithwaite reached for a pair of scissors. Without stopping to think, Emily leaned forward and placed them in his hand.

“Thank you, Miss Dawson.” He looked up and their eyes met.

Emily found herself struggling to find something to say, but her mind was blank.

“If you’re planning to assist, you might wash your hands first. You’ll find fresh water on the bureau.”

“Surely, you’re not going to . . .” protested George.

“Wash hands?” said Dr. Braithwaite, deliberately misunderstanding him. “I know a Viennese physician who swears it saves lives. It’s a simple enough precaution to take. If there’s no value in it, I lose nothing by it.”

“Except the cost of the soap,” muttered George.

Ignoring George, Emily went to the bureau where there was, as promised, a bowl of water and a cake of soap. Despite the heat of the day, a fire burned on a camp stove, a kettle on the boil.

Wrapping a cloth around her hand to protect it from the handle, Emily lifted the kettle off the hook and poured boiling water into the bowl. The soap smelled strongly of lye. It bit at her skin with the force of memory.

“You didn’t mention that you were running your clinic on my land,” said Emily as she dried her hands on a cloth.

“I could hardly run it on Beckles land,” said Dr. Braithwaite. He glanced up at George. “Could I.”

George looked uncomfortable. “Beckles has a physician.”

“No, it hasn’t,” said Dr. Braithwaite. “If MacAndrews has any kind of medical training, I’ll eat my hat.”

“He attended the University of St. Andrews,” said George, without conviction.

“When they were still balancing the humors?” said Dr. Braithwaite, snipping off a thread. “Bandage.”

Emily handed him a roll of bandages. “Are you a physician or a surgeon?” she asked, more to change the topic than anything else. As she knew from her time in the hospital in Bristol, only physicians, who assessed and prescribed, were allowed to style themselves doctor. Surgeons, who dealt with the body itself, were mere misters. “Your uncle called you doctor, but . . .”

“Both. On the whole, I find my surgical training the more useful. My uncle, on the other hand, prefers the prestige of the higher degree. You can call me what you will.” Dr. Braithwaite tied off the bandage with an expert twist. “There. Keep your leg out of the way of your machete in future.”