Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [70]
He wiggled his feet, pleased.
“Oh, ye like it?”
“I love it! Oh, look—there’s more in the lid, under this flap—” I stared for a moment at the disjointed tubes, screws, platforms and mirrors, until my mind’s eye shuffled them and presented me with the neatly assembled vision. “A microscope!” I touched it reverently. “My God, a microscope.”
“There’s more,” he pointed out, eager to show me. “The front opens and there are wee drawers inside.”
There were—containing, among other things, a miniature balance and set of brass weights, a tile for rolling pills, and a stained marble mortar, its pestle wrapped in cloth to prevent its being cracked in transit. Inside the front, above the drawers, were row upon row of small, corked bottles made of stone or glass.
“Oh, they’re beautiful!” I said, handling the small scalpel with reverence. The polished wood of the handle fit my hand as though it had been made for me, the blade weighted to an exquisite balance. “Oh, Jamie, thank you!”
“Ye like them, then?” His ears had gone bright red with pleasure. “I thought they’d maybe do. I’ve no notion what they’re meant for, but I could see they were finely made.”
I had no notion what some of the pieces were meant for, but all of them were beautiful in themselves; made by or for a man who loved his tools and what they did.
“Who did they belong to, I wonder?” I breathed heavily on the rounded surface of a lenticular and brought it to a soft gleam with a fold of my skirt.
“The woman who sold it to me didna ken; he left behind his doctor’s book, though, and I took that, as well—perhaps it will give his name.”
Lifting the top tray of instruments, he revealed another, shallower tray, from which he drew out a fat square-bound book, some eight inches wide, covered in scuffed black leather.
“I thought ye might be wanting a book, too, like the one ye kept in France,” he explained. “The one where ye kept the pictures and the notes of the people ye saw at L’Hôpital. He’s written a bit in this one, but there’s a deal of blank pages left at the back.”
Perhaps a quarter of the book had been used; the pages were covered with a closely written, fine black script, interspersed with drawings that took my eye with their clinical familiarity: an ulcerated toe, a shattered kneecap, the skin neatly peeled aside; the grotesque swelling of advanced goiter, and a dissection of the calf muscles, each neatly labeled.
I turned back to the inside cover; sure enough, his name was written on the first page, adorned with a small, gentlemanly flourish: Dr. Daniel Rawlings, Esq.
“What happened to Dr. Rawlings, I wonder? Did the woman who had the box say?”
Jamie nodded, his brow slightly creased.
“The Doctor lodged with her for a night. He said he’d come from Virginia, where his home was, bound upon some errand, and his case with him. He was looking for a man named Garver—she thought that was the name, at least. But that night after supper he went out—and never came back.”
I stared at him.
“Never came back? Did she find out what happened to him?”
Jamie shook his head, batting away a small cloud of midges. The sun was sinking, painting the surface of the water gold and orange, and bugs were beginning to gather as the afternoon cooled into evening.
“No. She went to the sheriff, and to the justice, and the constable searched high and low—but there was nay sign of the man. They looked for a week, and then gave up. He had never told his landlady which town it was in Virginia, so they couldna trace him further.”
“How very odd.” I wiped a droplet of moisture off my chin. “When did the Doctor disappear?”
“A year past, she said.” He looked at me, a little anxious. “Ye dinna mind? Using his things, I mean?”
“No.” I closed the lid and stroked it gently, the dark wood warm and smooth under my fingers. “If it were me—I’d want someone to use them.”
I remembered vividly the feel of my own doctor’s bag—cordovan leather, with my initials stamped in gilt on the handle.