Peter hastily removed his cap. “Knee went all wonky,” he said with great earnestness. “The doctor free?”
The Indian gentleman gave him a second head-to-toe examination, then nodded, though grudgingly. “You may wait,” he said, as if conferring the Victoria Cross, and motioned Peter inside.
There was only one other patient waiting on the benches lining the hall, a young woman with a distinctly worried expression wearing a very cheap imitation of a fashionable gown (taffeta instead of satin, and trimmed in ribbon already fraying), who kept twisting her handkerchief in her hand as if to wring it dry. Peter studiously ignored her, keeping his eyes on the floorboards, as the Guardian of the Door kept watch over them both. They were very clean floorboards, that much he saw. There was a faint astringent scent in the air, but no odor of sickness.
A moment later, one of the doors into the hall opened, and a woman with a baby in her arms emerged. There were signs on her face that she had been weeping, and her eyes were still red, but her face was wreathed in smiles. “God bless ‘ee, Miss Doctor!” she whispered; to whom these words were addressed, Peter was left in doubt, for between the bulk of the lady herself and the shadows of the doorway, he could only make out an imperfect form.
“Never hesitate to bring her in again, Delia,” said a low, pleasant voice. “I’ve got plenty of stockings and other things needing mending, and I’d be just as happy to barter your skills for mine. Just take her home, put her to bed, and come back for the mending when you’ve got someone to watch her. Gupta will have it for you.”
The patient—or perhaps, more correctly, the patient’s mother, bowed her head in a brief nod of relief and agreement, then the shadowed figure caught sight of the first patient as “Delia” hurried out the door that Gupta (Peter presumed the man was the “Gupta” previously mentioned) held open for her with a more polite bow than he had offered to Peter.
The girl sprang up off of the bench as soon as Delia had cleared the way, and the shadow exclaimed, “Oh, Sally, not again!”
Whereupon Sally burst into tears and fled into the inner sanctum, leaving Peter wondering just what sort of “not again” could be going on here. His imagination supplied him with plenty—and the likeliest, given the girl’s tawdry, cheap taffeta dress, rouged cheeks, and kohled eyes, gave him a moment of queasiness.
Good God.
However, before his first impulse to flee had managed to manifest itself, Sally reappeared, all smiles again. Whatever had been transacted within that surgery, it had not taken as long as—well, what he had feared would have taken. “Yer a bleedin’ saint, ye are,” the girl said as fervently as the mother had. “I gotter get back—”
“Off with you, before that blackguard manager docks you for not being at rehearsal,” replied the doctor, making a shooing motion and coming fully into the light. “And don’t forget that if I’m not here, I’m generally at the Fleet, and you can come to me there.”
This was Peter’s day for shock, it seemed. It was not merely enough that the Doctor M. Witherspoon was female—nor that she attended to women no lady would be seen associating with—nor yet that her Door Dragon was Hindu.
No, there was no doubt whatsoever in Captain Peter Scott’s mind, he who had made the voyage to and from Calcutta any number of times, that Doctor M. Witherspoon was, if not fully Indian herself, certainly of half blood.
He rose to his feet, drawn by the sheer force of her personality. Stunningly attractive, despite the severe black twill skirt and suit coat, with its plain black blouse buttoned up to the chin and what must be a luxuriant fall of raven hair tightly wound into a chignon atop her head without the tiniest strand awry, she would have made him stare at her anyway. Skin the color of well-creamed coffee, enormous eyes so brown they were nearly black, and the faintest hint of sandalwood perfume coming from her, she made it impossible, for a critical moment, to remember what it was he was supposed to be here about.
Which was, of course, his undoing. For he stood with his weight distributed equally on both legs, and had risen without a hint of a groan or the help of his stick.
She pierced him with those eyes, like an insect to be studied, and he felt a flush creeping up from his collar.
“Well,” she said at last, “you certainly aren’t having any difficulty with that leg now, are you?”
He swallowed, with some trouble. “No,” he replied, in a very meek voice. “At least, no more than usual.”
“Then shall we come into my office and discuss why you really came to see me?” she asked, her voice as icy as the wind off the North Sea. “Or would you prefer to leave now—bearing in mind that my patients have a number of very large, very inhospitable friends of their own, who would not care to see me or my practice inconvenienced?” He ducked his head, squared his shoulders, and followed her direction—into the mysteries of her office.
He was not entirely certain that he was going to come out. At least, not in the same state—mental or physical, he was not sure—in which he had gone in.
Chapter Five
PETER sat—carefully—on the single chair facing the doctor’s desk, in a room that appeared to serve as study, initial consultation room, and office. The doctor studied him, her expression as serene as a bronze Buddha, and just as unreadable. He decided to show a bit more spine than he had for the past few moments, and studied her as well. Neither of them broke the silence; only the usual street sounds filtered in through the glass of the window facing the street—footsteps, hoofbeats, voices, and the occasional cough and chatter of a motorcar.
One day all our hansoms are going to be replaced by those wretched autos, Peter reflected, as a particularly noisy vehicle chugged by, drowning every other noise as it did. And on that day—perhaps I’ll move to the Isle of Man, or of Wight, or the Scillys—or some place equally remote. God, how I hate those things!
As he continued to gaze unabashedly at the doctor’s face, taking in the nuances of her features, he became more and more certain that his first guess about her parentage was correct.
Eurasian, no doubt. With the surname “Witherspoon” there wasn’t much doubt which parent was the English one; the only question was—how on earth had this woman, of mixed blood, managed to become a doctor? The task was difficult enough for an English girl! Who had sponsored her and given her the necessary education? The London School of Medicine for Women?
No, that surely wasn’t possible; she looked too young. She must have begun her studies in her teens, and the London School wouldn’t take a girl that young.
I don’t think that I would care to stand between her and something she dearly wants. I would probably find her walking over the top of me to get it.
The office revealed very little of the doctor’s personality, other than the fact that she—or her servants—were fanatically neat. Bookcases lined the wall behind her except for a space where a door broke the expanse, bookcases polished until they gleamed and filled with leather-bound volumes. Her desk, spartan and plain, held only pen, pencil, paper in a neat stack, an inkpot, and a blotter. There was one small framed print on the wall behind him, but he didn’t dare turn around to look at it, not with those black eyes fixed on him. Printed wallpaper might be Morris; he wasn’t sure; it was warm brown, yellow, and cream, exactly the colors he’d expect from an Earth Mage.
Nothing on the desk to help—no pictures, no trinkets. And nothing with writing on it. So she was the kind who put her patients’ records out of sight before they even left the office. A careful woman; a wise woman, given what she’d implied about her last client.