“Here?” My mouth hung open for an instant and I closed it sharply. “With the army?”
He nodded.
“I gather that in spite of your recent . . . marital rearrangement? . . . you remain on good terms with Lord John Grey.”
“Sufficiently good that I would do nothing whatever to deliver him into your bloody hands, if that’s what you had in mind.”
“Nothing so crude, ma’am,” he assured me, with a brief flash of teeth. “I had in mind only the transmission of information—in both directions. I intend no damage at all to the duke or his family; I only wish to—”
Whatever his intentions, they were interrupted by a tentative knock on the door, which then opened to admit Mrs. Bradshaw’s head. She looked apprehensively at me and suspiciously at Richardson, who cleared his throat, stood up, and bowed to her.
“Your servant, ma’am,” he said. “I was just taking my leave of Mrs. Fraser. Good day to you.” He turned and bowed to me, more elaborately. “Your most humble servant, Mrs. Fraser. I look forward to seeing you again. Soon.”
“I’ll just bet you do,” I said, but far enough under my breath that I doubted he heard me.
Mrs. Bradshaw and Sophronia edged into the room, coming close enough to Richardson on his way out that his face wrinkled up in involuntary revulsion at smelling Sophronia, and he cast a startled glance over his shoulder at me—this causing him to collide heavily with Rachel, hurrying in. He waltzed with her for a step or two, finally getting his balance and making his inelegant escape, pursued by my laughter.
This bit of slapstick had partially dispelled the uneasiness he’d brought to my surgery, and I put him firmly out of my mind. Sufficient to the day was the Richardson thereof, and I had work to do. It was with a sense of confidence that I took Sophronia’s small hand between my own and smiled at her downcast face.
“Don’t be worried, sweetheart,” I said. “I’m going to take care of you.”
WITH A MODERN hospital and equipment, I would have done the surgery transvaginally. Given my current resources, though, it would have to be abdominal. With Mrs. Bradshaw anxiously perched on a stool out of the way—she wouldn’t leave, and I hoped she wouldn’t faint—and Rachel carefully counting drops of ether under her breath, I took my best scalpel and cut into Sophronia’s fresh-scrubbed belly. The stretch marks left by her pregnancy were fading but still visible on her very young flesh.
I had makeshift stirrups, should I need them, made by nailing blocks of wood to the table at an angle, and I’d put a wadded towel between her thighs, soaked with the antibacterial lotion I’d scrubbed her with, an alcoholic extraction of crushed garlic mixed with a hot-water extract of lemon balm. It smelled pleasantly kitchen-like and did something to kill the sewage smell—as well as germs, I hoped.
The ether, though, was stronger than anything else, and within ten minutes of starting, I began to feel a slight swimming in my head.
“Mrs. Bradshaw,” I called over my shoulder. “Will you open the window, please? And the shutters?” I hoped we wouldn’t attract any spectators—but the need for fresh air was imperative.
The vesicovaginal fistula was luckily fairly small and in a reasonably easy position to reach. Rachel was holding a retractor for me with one hand, keeping the other on Sophronia’s pulse, and administering more ether every few minutes.
“Are you all right, Rachel?” I asked, trimming back the edges of the fistula in order to get a decent field for stitching—the edges were flattened and macerated, and the tissue would shred and pull apart under any sort of pressure. I’d had some hesitation in asking her to help today; I would have asked Jenny, but she was suffering from what was called the catarrh, and sneezing and coughing were the last things I wanted in a surgical assistant.
“I am,” she answered, her voice slightly muffled behind her not-quite-sterile-but-at-least-boiled mask. She’d used one of Ian’s handkerchiefs for the purpose; it was an incongruously cheerful calico in dark-pink-and-white checks. Ian’s taste in clothing was strongly Mohawk.
“Good. Tell me if you feel at all dizzy.” I had no idea what I’d do if she did feel dizzy—perhaps Mrs. Bradshaw could take over the dropping bottle for a few minutes. . . .
I spared a quick glance over my shoulder. Mrs. Bradshaw sat on her stool, gloved hands clasped tight in her lap and her face pale as a sheet, but she sat firm.
“It’s going well so far,” I said to her, trying to sound as reassuring as possible through my own chaste white mask. The masks seemed to unnerve her, and she looked away, swallowing.
It really was going well, though. While it was Sophronia’s youth that had caused the problem, that also meant that her tissues were healthy, in good shape, and she had considerable animal vitality. If the surgery was successful, if there was little or no subsequent infection, she’d heal very quickly. If.
“Ifs” hover in the air above your head all the time when you’re doing surgery, like a cloud of gnats. For the most part, though, they keep a respectful distance, only buzzing dimly in the background.
Done.
“One down, one to go,” I murmured, and, dipping a wad of sterilized gauze into my cheese lotion, I daubed some—not without a qualm—over the newly stitched repair. “Onward.”
The bowel repair was easier—though more unpleasant. It was quite cold in the surgery—I hadn’t lit a fire, not wanting soot in the air—but I was sweating; beads of perspiration ran tickling down the side of my nose and down my neck from my bound-up hair.