Page 21 of Doing No Harm (Carla Kelly’s Regency Romances #5)

D ouglas came across the street in the morning for breakfast, fully clothed. The high color on his cheeks suggested to Olive that he might have taken a good look at himself in that nightshirt and wondered if he ever dared show himself in the tearoom again. Better put him out of his misery.

He opened his mouth, probably ready to apologize, but she spoke first. “My lips are sealed, sir,” she said. “Would you like porridge or porridge?”

“I believe porridge would be best,” he replied. “Do forgive last night’s enthusiasm, but I had been wondering what to do. Will Gran require convincing?”

“Let’s find out. When breakfast is over and I have ruined sufficient porridge for Flora’s sake, let us see if Flora can put the chimes together.”

“I should find a piece of driftwood,” he said after he finished breakfast. He stood up to drink his coffee, which told Olive worlds about his busy life during the war. She wondered how many meals he ate sitting down.

“Nothing simpler. If you haven’t already noticed, it piles up against the bridge. ”

He raised his cup in salute and hurried away, a far cry from the man who had walked by her place only yesterday, head down, hands clasped behind his back, dejection written everywhere except on a placard around his neck.

Feeling more optimistic than usual, Olive surprised Maeve by instructing her to add more fish to the noonday stew and be generous in slicing the loaves of bread.

Flora came into the kitchen like a breath of spring, desperation gone from her face. She came right up to Olive. “Miss Grant, I stopped to see Pudding first and she is moving around! Please may I have some more thin porridge for her?”

She handed over the penny that Douglas had surely given her and made no comment when Olive’s first batch of porridge was too thick.

She ate it with no objection, likewise the second, which took longer for her to eat because she wasn’t starving today.

Flora concluded breakfast with bread from Maeve, who said she hadn’t meant to slice it so thick.

Her eyes widened to see butter on the bread.

Olive’s breath caught in her throat when Flora clapped her hands at the sight of butter.

Olive watched, tears just below the surface, as the little girl tested it with her tongue and gave a small sigh.

Olive decided that tomorrow there would be eggs, although what excuse she could give for them escaped her at the moment.

Deformed yolks? Three minutes instead of four?

Olive took a page from the surgeon’s book and decided she would think about it later.

No sense in rushing into prevarication. Perhaps a good fib was like fine wine and needed to age.

“I nearly forgot,” Flora said as she waited for Olive to spoon Pudding’s thin gruel into a can. She darted outside and returned with a piece of driftwood. “Mr. Bowden wanted you to see this.”

She held it out and Olive took it, turning the nicely weathered wood over in her hands. “Brilliant. ”

“I don’t understand,” Flora said. “He wants you to come with me, and that it is all he would say.”

“Very well, Flora. I have a little time before I must start luncheon.”

They were almost out the door when the greengrocer stopped by with a basket of onions, leeks, and potatoes. Olive took a moment to savor the happiness in the man’s eyes, even though he appeared to need sleep. He looked like a new father.

He held the basket out to her. “I paid Mr. Bowden, but I wanted to do this too. Since he’s eating here, he said you should have it, Miss Grant.”

She took it with thanks, mentally adding more potatoes to the as-yet-unmade luncheon, which in a stroke went from fish soup to fish stew.

He held out a smaller basket, this one with eggs nestled in oats so they would not crack. “And here are these.”

“I appreciate your kindness,” Olive said simply. After the greengrocer left, she took the food past Maeve and into the pantry. She touched the eggs, pleased to see two brown ones. I can tell Flora tomorrow that people would rather eat white eggs than brown ones , she thought.

Douglas met them in the waiting room. He had carried Pudding’s box into the room, where kitten watched them with interest.

“I have to keep several layers of bandage on that limb because Pudding licks it,” Douglas said. “Thank the Almighty that none of my Royal Navy patients licked their sutures.”

Flora laughed out loud, which made Douglas smile. When Flora turned her attention to Pudding, he leaned toward Olive. “What would you wager that she has not laughed like that in ages?”

“I never wager,” she replied, struck again at the great care Douglas took of his patients, and their owners in this case .

While Flora made certain her pet licked the porridge instead, Douglas enlisted Olive to help him. “I have drilled holes in the shells of appropriate size, and here is my spool of catgut. Did you like that piece of driftwood?”

She held it out to him. “I could wish we could take a bit of glass paper to it to smooth the rough surfaces, but I believe the rustic quality is what you were looking for.”

“Precisely. This is to be my set of chimes and that is what I wish. Flora, I need your complete attention now,” he told the child. “This is how you are going to pay me back for the surgery on Pudding.”

In less than a half hour, Flora proved to be adept at stringing shells. Her eyes full of accomplishment, she held up the chimes and gave them a gentle shake. “?’Tis magic,” she whispered.

“I believe it is,” Douglas agreed. “I am going to hang it outside my front door. Flora, this is magnificent.” He bowed, and she curtseyed and then giggled.

“I would like one as well,” Olive said. “I will pay you for mine.”

Flora stared at her.

Olive looked beyond Flora to Douglas, who held up three fingers. “Three pence,” she said.

Flora nodded, so solemn. After a moment of quiet consideration—who knew what a six-year-old thought about money?—she pointed to the three boxes of shells. “Which ones would you like, Miss Grant?”

Olive made her choice while Douglas hung his shells on a nail outside the front door. Flora let her help, and soon Olive had her own chimes. She handed three coins to Flora, who stared at them in her palm.

Olive closed her fingers over the little girl’s hand. “Put them in your apron pocket, and keep them safe.” She glanced at the surgeon, who nodded his approval. “Mr. Bowden, I have a good idea. Flora, would you make three more of these? ”

“One for me and Gran, but who are the others for?” Flora asked. “Do you know, Mr. Bowden?”

Olive appreciated his fine instincts, where children were concerned.

He squatted on his haunches so he was eye to eye with the girl.

“It’s this way, Flora: surgeons haven’t much business sense.

I believe Miss Grant has a lot of good ideas.

She and I both think you can make these little baubles and sell them to traveling visitors. ”

Flora was silent again. Olive could nearly hear the gears turning in her brain, but what she saw humbled her.

Nothing in Flora’s face even hinted at discouragement; instead, there was barely suppressed excitement, an energy that seemed like a candle catching fire and growing taller.

The child patted the coins in her pocket and gave the surgeon such a look of admiration.

“People will really buy them?” she asked him.

“They really will, Flora,” he assured her. He got up, sat in a chair, and motioned for her to sit in the chair next to him. “I have traveled to so many places.”

“Farther than Dumfries?” Flora asked. Her face grew solemn, all the light and energy gone. It was as though some cosmic hand had snuffed glowing hope. “I traveled too, only it was not fun.”

“My travel wasn’t fun either,” he said, and Olive saw his struggle to remain in control of his own emotions.

She could tell he saw the sudden difference in Flora’s demeanor.

“But some of those places were beautiful and I wanted to remember them. People do that when they travel. They want to take something home from their adventure. Your shells will be just the right touch.”

Flora nodded, still so serious. “They will pay me? They won’t just steal the chimes or break Mam’s mirror or drive off the cattle or … or kill my dog or shout at us?” She put her hands over her ears and scrunched down small, her breath coming faster and faster.

Olive grabbed Flora and sat the child on her lap, holding her close.

She took in Douglas’s shocked expression as he understood what was happening to this little one who was suddenly more his patient than Pudding ever could be.

His arms went around them both as they sat close together on the two chairs. The only sound was Flora weeping.

“My poor, poor wee one,” Olive whispered, wondering if Flora had ever allowed herself the luxury of tears for her own cruel uprooting.

“Gran and I, we couldn’t keep Mam warm, not with the rain and the wind. And then that soldier! No one helped us! We needed a little help!”

Olive didn’t try to stop her own tears as she wished with all her heart that someone, anyone, had at least held a blanket over Flora’s dying mother. I would have , she thought, frustrated because it was such a small, puny thing.

“What have we done?” she said to Douglas.

“Us? Nothing,” he replied, speaking into her ear as Flora cried between them. “The better question is what are we going to do now?”

In a few minutes, Flora’s tears subsided into sniffs. Douglas disentangled himself and went into the next room, returning with squares of cotton. “Blow,” he commanded them, and they did.

With a sigh, Flora leaned against Olive, whose arms tightened around the child. “Gran says crying never solves anything.”

“Actually, it can, Flora,” Douglas said. He dabbed at Flora’s face and then Olive’s. “Whenever you feel sad, come here or visit Miss Grant if I am not here.”

“You don’t have a pill for this, do you?” Flora asked.