The Village Healer's Book of Cures by Jennifer Sherman Roberts

Author:Jennifer Sherman Roberts [Roberts, Jennifer Sherman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Historical, General, Occult & Supernatural, Women
ISBN: 9781662511769
Google: UD6nzwEACAAJ
Published: 2023-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Mary waited for the maid to send for her and then knocked on her door. Mrs. Chamberlen turned her head to the side when Mary entered the bedchamber. She lay quietly crying.

She was bare to the waist. She did not suffer from false modesty, which in cases like this made Mary’s job easier.

“Mrs. Chamberlen, are you ready for me to examine your breast?”

It may have seemed an odd request given that Mrs. Chamberlen had asked for the examination and lay half-naked in front of her, but Mary always liked to give her patients control over when and how she examined them.

“Yes,” Mrs. Chamberlen replied shakily. “It is on the left side of my right breast.”

Mary rubbed her hands together vigorously to warm them and stepped closer to view the ulcerous wound. The disfiguration was about the length of her thumbnail and varied in color from a dark red to an ominous-looking deep brown. She palpated the area around the swelling. It felt hot and Mary could feel other hard places underneath the skin.

As she prodded the tender skin around the sore, she closed her eyes and imagined Mrs. Chamberlen’s life over the last year. Mary felt her joy in the changing seasons: childhood delight in the snow of winter and deep contentment in the drowsy days of summer. She felt pain and loneliness. An image of the bottle of hellebore intruded, and nausea rocked her body.

In her mind’s eye, Mary saw the tissue in Mrs. Chamberlen’s breast move, jostle, and reorganize. She felt the cancer at its moment of conception, though she didn’t know where it came from or what it was. She felt the heat from the skin, the confusion of the body, the eruption of the cancer as it outgrew its confinement and tried to break through the skin.

She knew what she could, and sadly could not, do for Mrs. Chamberlen.

“The sore has not broken yet. That is a good sign. How long has it felt like this?”

Mrs. Chamberlen’s face was ashen. “I first noticed it felt strange the Michaelmas of last year, but the swelling has been there for about two months.”

“It’s not growing as fast as it might,” Mary mused. “I have some salves we can use to try and slow the growth, and I can give you something to help with the itching and ease your discomfort by drawing out the hot, dry humors. But I must be honest with you, Mrs. Chamberlen, I have never seen a cancer this advanced be completely treated.”

Mrs. Chamberlen nodded. “I knew it was that bad, I suppose, even as I drank the poison my husband gave me. I am dying anyway, after all.”

She grabbed Mary’s hand. “But you must call me Anne,” she said with a sad smile. “You now know all my secrets. Whether you want to be or not, you are now my closest friend.”

Mary squeezed back. “It’s an honor,” she replied.

When Mary got home, she immediately started work on the salves for her new friend.

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