“My lady is unwell. I think you should send for a doctor.”
Colin looked down and saw his hand holding the door knob. He had no recollection of standing up or walking to the door.
“White!” he yelled through the door he had thrown open. “White!”
Stevenson calmly walked up to the bell pull and rang for the butler.
“What happened? When?” Colin asked Mary angrily.
“Last night, as she got ready for bed, she was…agitated,” Mary said with a look that told him that she knew everything. “But this morning, when I didn’t find her in her dressing room, I went into the room, and she was in bed, burning up, and I couldn’t wake her,” Mary’s voice broke with genuine anguish and Colin recognized his anger for what it really was, a twin feeling to Mary’s.
“You rang, Your Grace?” Mister White entered the room, seeming unperturbed by both the scene and the faces of the actors he’d stumbled upon.
“Go in the carriage and fetch Doctor Nathaniel Cooper, tell him my duchess has taken ill, go now!” Colin instructed him and then immediately headed for his wife’s room.
Lizzie was in bed, like Mary had said, shaking her head from side to side on the pillow as her entire body trembled. Her hair was soaked with sweat, and her now-limp curls were sticking to her forehead. Colin gently wiped her brow with his palm.
Another maid came in with a washbasin and other things, which she handed to Mary.
“Excuse me,” Mary told the duke and started wiping her friend’s face and neck with the cold, soaked linen.
“Why haven’t you come to me earlier?” He asked darkly.
“Lizzie,” Mary said, then reddened and averted her eyes. “The Duchess usually gets ready in the morning on her own. I don’t…”
Mary said nothing else.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Talbot said angrily.
He paced the room, uselessly staring at his suffering wife, until Mr White announced that Doctor Cooper was coming in. The Duke immediately felt strengthened by this information.
He turned to the doorway, which was entirely taken up by the Doctor’s broad shoulders. He had taken his hat off downstairs, so all of his greying hair was visible. Behind him, barely visible, was the slender form of a much shorter woman. She followed him in, wearing a no-nonsense day dress, her brisk and purposeful manner of walking so reminiscent of Elizabeth’s that it made his heart ache.
She was introduced as Mrs Mary Cooper, the doctor’s wife.Unlikely pair, Talbot thought. The duke had always liked seeing Doctor Cooper at the club and considered him almost a friend, seeing as he enjoyed discussing philosophy and new developments in science and industry with him, since the Doctor was the most well-read person among Talbot’s acquaintances, but he knew little about the man himself, and knew nothing about his wife.
“I see,” the Doctor said after Mary told him what she had observed of Lizzie’s condition. “Could you please leave the room so we can examine her?” He turned to Colin, who immediately shook his head.
“I cannot leave her with strangers,” he said firmly.
The Doctor and his wife exchanged a look, and he then nodded. “Very well, you may stay.”
Colin stood at the foot of the bed and silently observed the couple as they worked together on opposite sides of it. Aside from the difference in size between the married couple, therewas also a clear age difference, with the wife being much younger. They worked side by side in an efficient, practised manner, Mrs. Cooper handing the Doctor the necessary items and instruments out of his bag as needed without his having to ask for them.
Admiration and jealousy warred against each other in Colin’s heart.
“What is that?” He asked as he frowned at a trumpet-like device in the Doctor’s hand.
“It is an auscultation device,” Doctor Cooper explained calmly. “It is, in essence, a hollow wooden tube used to listen to a patient’s heart without placing my ear on their chest or back.”
He demonstrated the technique on Lizzie’s chest. Then, Mrs. Cooper lifted the coverlet from Lizzie’s body and beckoned Mary over to help turn her to the side so that the Doctor could listen to her heart from the other side.
When they moved her, Colin saw the shocking, red, bloody mess under her. He wouldn’t forget the sight for as long as he lived, and would have nightmares of it even decades later.
He heard Dr. Cooper instruct him to ring for another maid, and he did so without being fully aware of it.
Oh God. Oh Lord. Please.
Let her be alright. Let her live. Let her recover.
