Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits - Donoghue [42]
Mr. Baker Brown tutted faintly.
"So in the end, not that he can afford it very easy, but my brother has some savings put aside, and he said he'd pay for me to come to this special new clinic for female health, seeing as you're said to be the ne plus ultra." Whatever that meant. The borrowed phrase felt foolish in her mouth. "My brother knows nothing of medicine, of course, sir, but he knows what he's heard; one of the sergeants at the station has an uncle that has a wife that came to you with a weakness of the chest last year, sir. He—the uncle, I mean—says he knows nothing about your methods except that they work, and his wife is a changed woman!" She was aware she was talking too much; she couldn't seem to stop. "And in the waiting room"—she jerked her head over her shoulder, and felt the familiar twinge—"I heard one lady tell another that you're the wisest man in Christendom when it comes to women's sufferings."
Baker Brown smiled with wry modesty. "To speak frankly, Miss F., I see myself—being both a doctor and a gentleman—as a protector of womankind."
"Like the knights in the old tales?" she asked, fascinated.
A little nod. "It appears that destiny has called me to rescue the softer sex from the general ignorance of their friends and advisors. I am a pioneer, so to speak, in a wholly new branch of the healing sciences, but I must do myself the justice to admit that my efforts have already met with a considerable amount of success."
"So my brother heard," she murmured, her eyes tracing the gold-backed spines that filled the nearest bookcase.
"Well," said Mr. Baker Brown decisively, "together we must ensure that his generosity is well repaid."
"Together?" Miss F. spoke a little hoarsely.
"Indeed." He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, all at once, with his hands joined. She heard the slippery leather of his chair squeak. "For the truth of the matter is that I can only cure a patient who truly wishes to get well."
Her breath was released like a flame. "Oh I do, I do indeed, sir."
He gave her his hand. "I could tell that about you, Miss F., the moment you were shown into this office."
She got to her feet slowly, her lips pursed against the sudden pain.
There will he wasting of the face and muscles generally;
the skin sometimes dry and harsh, at other times cold and
clammy. The pupil will be sometimes firmly contracted,
but generally much dilated. There will be quivering of the
eyelids, and an inability to look one straight in the face.
The examining room was painted in dazzling white. The nurse had taken her behind a screen and changed her street costume for a loose white nightgown. Now she lay on a padded leather table and stared into the bright eye of the lamp.
When the doctor came in his manner was brisker and more animated. He carried a notebook and a fountain pen. "Where exactly is the pain at this moment, Miss F.?"
"I don't know that I can rightly say, sir. About at the middle of my back, perhaps? It's not so very bad when I'm lying flat like this, you see, just a stiffness and a heaviness, really, but dreadful when I walk or try to lift anything."
"And also when you rise from a chair, I have observed."
"That's right," she said, suddenly grateful to the point of tears. "That's when it pierces right through me, like a sword. At least, that's what I imagine, though I've never gone into battle." She gave a nervous little laugh.
"Mercifully not, Miss F. Brave as woman may be in the age of Victoria, she is still exempt from that particular patriotic duty!"
As he said that he took her by the wrist. Miss F. looked at the wall. She couldn't remember this ever happening to her before, except with a friend of her brother's, at a party, once, who'd taken her hand when everyone was admiring the tableau of Britannia's Subjects Pay Her Tribute. Mr. Baker Brown was left-handed, she noticed, but not at all awkward. He pressed her wrist a little harder, and stared down at the fob he held in his other hand. She felt thrilled, comforted.
"Your