Secrets of the Heart (5 page)

“What kind of mood is he in, Willie?”

“I don’t think it’s a mood you’ll appreciate. God be with you, sir.” Willie pointed a beefy finger toward heaven. “You’ll need Him to help you this day.”

Devlin winced. Dr. Langford had been difficult since the first day of Devlin’s medical training in London. He’d not thought it could get worse. Apparently he’d misdiagnosed the situation.

“Thank you, Willie. You always know how to cheer me up.” He dropped his books on the desk. “Hold on to these for me, won’t you?”

“Of course, sir. Glad to be of service.”

He rushed down the hall to catch up with the others. Rounding a corner, Devlin crashed into his adversary. Papers flew about the hallway like startled white doves. The other students scrambled to capture them.

“Ravensmoore, you’re late!” Langford bellowed.

Unlike his behemoth reputation, the revered doctor and professor was a short, stout man with thick white hair and a mustache. His intimidating steel-gray glare, through wire-rimmed spectacles, pounced on any student who dared to break his sacred rules. This morning that imposing stare, directed at Devlin, could have driven daggers through his skull.

Devlin met Langford’s piercing gaze without a blink. “I apologize, sir,” he said.

“What a pleasure that you could join us, your lordship,” Langford declared. “I’m amazed, as I’m sure your colleagues are, that you have deigned to grace us with your noble presence.”

The others chuckled.

“I apologize for being late.” Devlin knew that Langford would never accept the fact that he held a title. No matter that his elder brother had died, leaving Devlin responsible for the family estate. The fact that he’d hired someone to manage his assets to pursue a medical education had caused a stir amongst the
ton
. A nobleman serving as a physician? Unheard of and unnecessary. His friends had disapproved.

However, he couldn’t relinquish his goal of becoming a doctor, no matter the cost to his reputation. He’d prayed for God’s guidance, and this is where he’d been led. He’d trust God the rest of the way.

“This will not happen again, Dr. Langford.” Devlin choked back the retort that longed to escape his lips and prayed God would grant him continued humility. There was no room for pride. Pride would eat him alive. Pride would kill his dream.

“See that it does not.” Langford grabbed the wrinkled stack of papers from a student and proceeded down the hall.

As the group followed their instructor to the amphitheater, Devlin slowly let out his breath and recovered his sense of humor. Langford’s gait reminded him of a mother goose leading her little ones across a busy road.

“Wipe that preposterous grin off your face, Ravensmoore,” Langford demanded, “and tell us about our next patient.”

Devlin peered into the amphitheater where they gathered daily to examine, diagnose, and sometimes operate on impoverished patients. Mr. Hastings lay stretched out on the examining table covered by a white sheet. Beneath the table lay a box of sawdust used to collect blood if surgery was indicated. The elderly man with the bulbous red nose glanced up at him and groaned.

“Mr. Hastings,” Devlin called cheerfully and pushed ahead of the group. Langford and his retinue followed close behind.

“How are you feeling today?” He wasn’t certain he wanted to know, but it was his duty to ask. Hastings had proven to be a thorn in his side for several days, and Devlin was in no mood for this patient’s antics. Langford would use any sign of incompetence to get rid of him.

“I’m miserable, and ye ain’t done a thing for me. I swear I’m worse today than I were yesterday. What do ye plan to do about it? I’m sick to death of yer poking me body.”

“Plan, indeed,” Devlin said. He searched his mind for a remedy not yet tried.

Devlin pulled back the sheet and gently examined the old man’s belly through the coarse material of a hospital gown. He reached for a stethoscope, attached the wooden earpiece, and laid the horn-shaped end against the patient’s abdomen. “No sound.”

“Well, of course there ain’t no sound,” Hastings growled. “It don’t talk to ye.”

“On the contrary, Mr. Hastings. If we but listen to what our bodies tell us, we might learn a great deal.”

“And what’s me bloody gut got to say to ye?”

The other students guffawed. Dr. Langford smiled.

“Your gut says it’s blocked up and in need of a purge.”

“The blazes it does.”

The old man’s bare toes wiggled out from underneath the sheet, and Devlin frowned. “Do you mind if I take a look at your feet, Mr. Hastings?”

“Me feet! What’s wrong with me feet? I suppose feet talk to ye too! Humph.”

“I’m not sure yet. May I?”

“Humph.” He gave a curt nod of his head.

Devlin rolled the sheet back to the patient’s knees to reveal toes that were turning black and would soon be gangrenous. An ugly and inflamed pink tide crept up his ankles, accompanied by the stench of rotting flesh. The others crowded around. “Do your feet ache, sir?”

“Aye. ’Tis harder to walk each day.”

“I’ll discuss this problem with the others, and we’ll see what can be done. You must go back to your room now.”

Devlin watched two attendants transfer the old fellow to a wheelchair prior to leaving the room. “His legs are poisoning him, are they not? Will the infection eventually kill him?”

“I’m afraid so. You were wise not to discuss that prospect in front of him.” Their teacher straightened his back, tugged at his mustache, and cleared his throat uneasily. “Well, Ravensmoore. You certainly do have an unusual way of dealing with patients. The body talks, does it? And where did you get such an extraordinary idea?”

“From you, sir.”

“What did I say?” Langford asked, a curious look on his face.

“You suggested that if we but pay attention to our patients, they can tell us many things, even if words are never spoken.”

“How true. Glad to see you learned something after all, Ravensmoore. I might make a doctor of you yet.” Langford turned to address another student.

As the words sank in, Devlin grinned.

Charles Melton, one of the younger students in the group, leaned toward Devlin as they took their seats in the crowded amphitheater, preparing for Langford’s lecture on the next patient. “You saved yourself nicely, Ravensmoore. He never said such a thing.” His kind, brown eyes danced in a face framed by blond hair tied back with a black ribbon. “You just fed his pride.”

“Not at all. He’s taught me a great deal. I’m just trying to get him to see some matters in a different light, planting a seed, so to speak, Melton. He doesn’t like the fact that I’m titled, so I must present my ideas carefully. I’m really just the same as everyone else.”

“Sorry, old man, but you’re only fooling yourself. You can never be the same as everyone else. You’re titled. That will always make you different from the rest of us. But I, for one, admire your tenacity. You have chosen a difficult path.”

“But not an impossible one,” Devlin said, defending his choice. “It wasn’t long ago that I was in the same situation as you, Melton. The second son.” Devlin’s hands tightened into fists, his knuckles white with frustration. “I’m titled now, yes. That doesn’t mean I can’t be a good and competent physician.”

“You don’t have to prove it to me,” Melton whispered and nodded toward Langford. “Just him… and your peers.”

“I have an obligation not to sever my ties with my peers. But most of them still refuse to take my interest in medicine seriously. They believe it’s a temporary amusement and only a matter of time before I come to my senses.”

“Don’t be discouraged. Prove them wrong. You’re in a most unique situation, Ravensmoore.” Melton clapped a hand on Devlin’s shoulder. “You have a foot in two very different worlds.”

“And it’s likely I’ll never be accepted in either.” Devlin sat back in his seat and considered his dilemma for the hundredth time. Surely he hadn’t miscalculated God’s plan. Had he?

Despite the ache in her arm, after breakfast Madeline walked to the family chapel and resting place. She’d not slept well because of the pain, and her dreams had left her unsettled and restless. This was the only place she felt the presence of the beloved family that she missed so much, and the peace and quiet there were a balm to her soul.

The path to the chapel took her to the east side of the house. She followed a red brick trail leading through a garden that would bloom with roses and tulips at the right time. Perfect yellow daffodils sprouted up through the rich soil, a sign of an early spring, she hoped. Still, her breath showed itself in a steamy vapor every time she exhaled. And for some reason that made her think of God. She wondered if God was like her breath in the light morning breeze— always there but only visible under certain conditions.

She’d been filled with doubts after her father’s death. Doubts that she kept to herself for fear of criticism from her mother and even Hally. Fear that her faith wasn’t strong enough to be useful. Fear that she would offend God. Madeline had frequently wondered about death. What did it feel like to be dead? Would she become a spirit, or would she feel like she still had a body, only better? In the quiet solitude of prayer she’d imagined all of them together in heaven and wondered why the Lord had spared her and her mother.

Hally had recommended that she quit coming to the chapel because she descended into sadness after each visit. But without her visits she felt she might go mad. Only here was she free to indulge her questions and tears, free to cry out to the God who seemed to have shut Himself away from her.

“Why do I live? What is my purpose, Lord?” she asked aloud.

The morning light streamed through the stained-glass windows, spreading rays of gold, blue, and green through the chapel like painted ribbons of prayer. She angrily wiped the tears off her face. Madeline wrapped one hand around the spindles of the crypt’s cold iron gate that separated her from those she’d lost. “Why did You take them from us?”

A length of engraved marble inscribed with each family member’s name upon it indicated his or her presence in the crypt.

Madeline placed her hand on the cold marble wall, touching each name, feeling the chill of where her brother and sisters now rested with their father. The chiseled date of each death remained a vivid reminder of her loss.

Her eyes came level with the inscription in front of her.
Be not afraid.
She reached out and laid her hand on the words, trying to absorb them into her soul.
Be not afraid.

Miriam, her baby sister, had died in infancy, after being bled by a well-intentioned doctor. Madeline shivered at the memory of the sweet babe dying in her arms. “Be not afraid, little Miriam,” she whispered.

Her gaze roamed over the other names, her younger brother and sister, Timothy and Catherine, both dead from smallpox. The doctor had refused to come near them, being afraid himself of the deadly and disfiguring disease. Her mother and she had cared for them both, but they died within days of each other.

She slid to her knees, laying her head against the gate. “I don’t know what to do, Lord,” she wept. “Please help me. Papa always said I could do anything I wanted to do, but I cannot move forward without his strength.”
If only you were still here, Papa… if only—

A hand touched the tears on her cheek. Madeline gasped and lurched away, wrenching her sprained arm. She recognized her cape wrapped about a waif of a girl. “Brown Eyes. What are you doing here?”

The girl knelt in front of Madeline and wiped away her tears. Then she stroked Madeline’s hair in a way that made Madeline aware that someone at sometime in this girl’s sorrowful life must have shown kindness to her.

Brown Eyes entwined her fingers with Madeline’s, laid her head on her shoulder, and sat with her. Madeline wasn’t certain how long they stayed that way, but because of the sadness in their souls they developed an invisible bond of trust.

C
HAPTER 3

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind.

—S
HAKESPEARE
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IDSUMMER’S
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REAM
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CENE
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