The frenulum is a very thin band of elastic tissue that tethers the tongue to the floor of the mouth, and in most people it is exactly as long as it needs to be to allow the tongue to make all the complex motions required for speaking and eating, without letting it stray between the moving teeth, where it could be badly damaged. In some, like Fanny, the frenulum was too long and, by fastening most of the length of the tongue to the floor of her mouth, prevented easy manipulations of that organ. She often had bad breath because, while she cleaned her teeth nightly, she couldn’t use her tongue to dislodge bits of food that stuck between cheek and gum or in the hollows of the lower jaw below the tongue.
Fanny gulped audibly, then coughed violently.
“Tha’th . . . thtrong!” she said, her eyes watering. She wasn’t put off, though, and at my nod took another sip and sat stoically, letting the whisky seep into her buccal tissues. It would in fact numb the frenulum, at least a bit, and at the same time provide disinfection.
I heard Aidan and Germain calling outside; Jenny and Rachel had come down for the operation.
“I think we’d better do this outside,” I said to Jamie. “They’ll never all fit in here—not with Oglethorpe.” For Rachel’s belly had made considerable strides in the last few weeks and was of a size to make men shy nervously away from her lest she go off suddenly, like a bomb.
We took the tray of instruments outside and set up our operating site on the bench that stood by the front door. Amy, Aidan, Orrie, and wee Rob clustered together behind Jamie, who was charged with holding the looking glass—both to direct light into Fanny’s mouth to assist me and so that Fanny could indeed watch what was going on.
As Oglethorpe precluded Rachel being called into service as a back brace, though, we reshuffled the staff a bit and ended with Jenny holding the looking glass and Jamie sitting on the bench, holding Fanny on his knee, his arms wrapped comfortingly around her. Germain stood by, holding a stack of clean cloths, solemn as an altar boy, and Rachel sat beside me, the tray between us, so that she could hand me things.
“All right, sweetheart?” I asked Fanny. She was round-eyed as a sun-stunned owl, and her mouth hung open just a little. She heard me, though, and nodded. I took the cup from her limp hand—it was empty, and I handed it to Rachel, who refilled it briskly.
“Mirror, please, Jenny?” I knelt on the grass before the bench, and with no more than a little trial and error, we had a beam of sunlight trained on Fanny’s mouth. I took the embroidery scissors from their bath, wiped them, and, with a pledget of cloth, took hold of Fanny’s tongue with my left hand and lifted it.
It didn’t take even three seconds. I’d examined her carefully several times, making her move her tongue as far as she could, and knew exactly where I thought the point of attachment should be. Two quick snips and it was done.
Fanny made a surprised little noise and jerked in Jamie’s arms, but didn’t seem to be in acute pain. The wound was bleeding, though, suddenly and profusely, and I hurriedly pushed her head down, so that the blood could run out of her mouth onto the ground and not choke her.
I had another pledget waiting; I dipped this quickly into the whisky and, seizing Fanny’s chin, brought her head up and tucked the pledget under her tongue. That made her emit a stifled “Owy!” but I cupped her chin and shut her mouth, adjuring her sternly to press down on the pledget with her tongue.
Everyone waited breathlessly while I counted silently to sixty. If the bleeding showed no sign of stopping, I’d have to put in a suture, which would be messy, or cauterize the wound, which would certainly be painful.
“. . . fifty-nine . . . sixty!” I said aloud, and peering into Fanny’s mouth, found the pledget substantially soaked with blood but not overwhelmed by it. I extracted it and put in another, repeating my silent count. This time, the pledget was stained, no more; the bleeding was stopping on its own.
“Hallelujah!” I said, and everyone whooped. Fanny’s head bobbed a bit and she smiled, very shyly.
“Here, sweetheart,” I said, handing her the half-filled cup. “Finish that, if you can—just sip it slowly and let it go onto the wound if you can; I know it burns a bit.”
She did this, rather quickly, and blinked. If it had been possible to stagger sitting down, she would have.
“I’d best put the lassie to bed, aye?” Jamie stood up, gently holding her against his shoulder.
“Yes. I’ll come and see to it that her head stays upright—just in case it should bleed again and run down her throat.” I turned to thank the assistants and spectators, but Fanny beat me to it.
“Missus . . . Fraser?” she said drowsily. “I—d-t-dth—” The tip of her tongue was sticking out of her mouth, and she looked cross-eyed toward it, astounded. She’d never been able to stick her tongue out before and now wiggled it to and fro, like a very tentative snake testing the air. “T-th—” She stopped, then, contorting her brow in a fearsome expression of concentration, said, “Th-ank y-y-YOU!”
Tears came to my eyes, but I managed to pat her head and say, “You’re very welcome, Frances.” She smiled at me then, a small, sleepy smile, and the next instant was asleep, her head on Jamie’s shoulder and a tiny drooling line of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth onto his shirt.
A VISIT TO THE TRADING POST
BEARDSLEY’S TRADING POST was perhaps no great establishment by comparison to the shops of Edinburgh or Paris—but in the backcountry of the Carolinas, it was a rare outpost of civilization. Originally nothing but a run-down house and small barn, the place had expanded over the years, the owners—or rather, her managers—adding additional structures, some attached to the original buildings, other sheds standing free. Tools, hides, live animals, feed corn, tobacco, and hogsheads of everything from salt fish to molasses were to be found in the outbuildings, while comestibles and dry goods were in the main building.