Where Love Shines by Donna Fletcher Crow

Author:Donna Fletcher Crow [Crow, Donna Fletcher]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Christian romance, English history, Crimean war, Florence Nightingale, Evangelical Anglican, Earl of Shaftesbury
Publisher: Verity Press, Boise, Idaho, USA
Published: 2016-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

The next morning Richard was just finishing his platter of kedgeree and creamed kidneys on toast to the sound of rain beating against the window when Livvy flew into the room. “Oh, Dick, I’m longing to be back in Newcastle. I’m sick of being cooped up in London. Just think how golden the trees will be there, and we can go out into the country and ride for miles over the fields.” She stopped suddenly. “Oh, Dick, I’m sorry. I forgot. How dreadful for you. I—”

“No. Please don’t apologize.” He held up his hand. “I quite agree it will be excellent to be away from London. Has the new doctor come yet?”

“Dr. Pannier? He’s in with Mama now.” Livvy sighed. “I don’t suppose he can do anything the others haven’t, though. We must convince her to go home anyway. I’m sure the air there would do her more good than any new doctor.”

Dick pushed his plate back. “You may be right. I think I’ll just have a word with him and see what he thinks about her condition for traveling.”

Dick refused Kirkham’s offer to go with him. He knew his way around the house very well, as long as no one left a footstool or basket out of place.

When Richard entered his mother’s room, the doctor was just concluding his instructions to Violet, Caroline Greyston’s tall, thin maid. “…that’s dried dandelion root, your best ginger, and Columba root—all well bruised and boiled together in three pints of water—do you have that, my girl? A glassful every four hours. Do not be slack about it.” He turned back to Caroline on the couch. “That should do very well for the liver complaint. Now as to the palpitations, I shall speak to you very directly. Such conditions are most often caused by luxurious living, indolence, and tight-lacing. This you must conquer with the application of sturdy resolution.”

In the dim light of the invalid’s room, Dick could see the exaggerated gestures that so suited the doctor’s august bearing. Dick had an impression of soft, white skin and macassared hair beneath a high, balding forehead. But it was the voice that brought Dick to a full halt just inside his mother’s room. As the deep, gravelly tones droned on, giving self-important orders, Dick became more certain. This was the voice that had sounded familiar to him at Tattersall’s. And, he now knew, it was the voice of a doctor in the Barracks Hospital. So the speaker was a perfectly respectable professional man who also engaged in a respectable sport. Why should the voice irritate him so?

Dick stood in front of the door, requiring that the doctor stop mid-sweep in an otherwise imposing exit. “Ah, Doctor—” Dick paused pointedly.

“Pannier. William Pannier, surgeon.”

“Yes. I believe we met in Scutari. You were at the Barracks Hospital?”

Pannier cringed. “I was.” Then he looked severely at Richard.

Dick had the strongest sensation of wanting to pull back.

The doctor leaned closer, however, peering at Richard. Then he drew himself up. “Bread and water poultices on those scars, young man.

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