Which statement was obviously a dismissal, and a somewhat offensive one. I took my leave with more politeness than they.

10

I had almost finished my tale, my fellows in the coffee house enthralled by the account. It was, after all, about the most exciting occurrence to have happened in the town since the siege and, as everybody involved was known to my audience, doubly interesting for that. Lower immediately started wondering whether he might offer to examine the body himself.

We were trying to persuade him that the chances of being allowed to anatomize Dr. Grove were slight, and he was protesting that such an idea had never crossed his mind, when he looked up behind me, and a faint smile flickered across his face.

“Well, well,” he said. “What can we do for you, child?”

I looked around, and saw Sarah Blundy standing behind me, pale and tired. Behind her, the woman Tillyard was coming into the room, scolding her for her impertinence. She took hold of her arm, but Sarah threw it off angrily.

It was clear she had come to see me, and so I looked at her coldly, as she deserved, and waited to hear what it was. I knew already—Lower, I was sure, had talked to her, and stated the price of her mother’s life. Either she made amends for her behavior, or her mother died. It was, I think, a small fee.

She dipped her eyes in an attempt to be modest—such eyes she had, I thought, very much against my will—and said in a low, quiet voice—“Mr. Cola. I would like to offer you my apologies.”

Still I said nothing, but continued to look frostily at her.

“My mother is dying, I think. Please…”

It was Dr. Grove who saved the old woman’s life, then. If it hadn’t been for the memory of his behavior in exactly the same setting a few days back, I would have turned away and made Tillyard throw her out as she deserved. But I wasn’t going to give way so easily this time.

“Do you think for a moment I should lift a finger to help her? After the impudence you have showered on me?”

She shook her head humbly, her long dark hair cascading around her shoulders. “No,” she said almost inaudibly.

“So why come?” I said doggedly.

“Because she needs you, and I know you are too good a man to abandon her because of my fault.”

Praise indeed, I thought sarcastically as I made her wait in anguish and suffering a few more moments. Then, as I saw Boyle coolly appraising me, I sighed heavily and stood up. “Very well, then,” I said. “She is a good woman and I will come for her sake. Having a daughter like you must be suffering enough for her.”

I left the table, scowled at Lower’s look of smug self-satisfaction. We walked across the town barely exchanging a word. Try as I might, I could not but feel pleased, and not because of having won a cheap victory. No; my pleasure was due solely to the fact that I could now conduct my experiment, and perhaps even save a life.

I had not been in the cottage more than a few moments before any further thoughts about the daughter dissipated entirely. The old woman was pale and restless, tossing and turning in her bed in delirium. She was also fearfully weak, and had a fever. At least the wound had not turned gangrenous, which had been my worst fear. But it was not mending either—skin, flesh and bone were not knitting, even though, by this time, there should have been very distinct signs that natural healing was taking effect. The splints still held the bone in place, but this was useless if her frail and weakened body would not look after itself. I could not make it do so, if it refused to act in its own interest.

I sat back and stroked my chin, my brow furrowed as I tried to come up with some other, more conventional treatment, some drug or some salve, which might help the old woman. But my mind was a blank. I want it understood that I tried to think of all possibilities which would obviate the need for my experiment—I did not rush into the attempt recklessly. Lower was right in saying the project should first be essayed on an animal. But there was no time, and no alternative that either I, or Lower when I asked, could suggest.

And the girl knew, as well as I did myself, how limited were my resources. She squatted down on her haunches in front of the fire, cupped her chin in her hands and gazed calmly and intently at me, for the first time a look of grave sympathy on her at my evident dismay.

“Her chances of recovery were not good, even before you came,” she said softly. “Because of your kindness and skill she has lasted longer than I thought possible. I am grateful to you for that, and my mother has long been prepared for her death. Do not reproach yourself, sir. You cannot defeat God’s will.”

I looked at her carefully as she spoke, wondering whether there was some sarcasm or condescension in her voice, so used was I to rudeness from her. But there was none—she was speaking only with gentleness. Strange, I thought; her mother is dying, and she is comforting the physician.

“But how do we know what God’s will is? You may be sure of it, but I was not brought up so. Maybe I am supposed to think of something that will aid her.”

“If so, then you will do so,” she answered simply.

I agonized with myself, hardly daring to say, even to a girl like this who could not possibly even begin to understand what I was proposing.

“Tell me,” she said, almost as though she could see my indecision and hesitation.

“For a long time I have been pondering a form of treatment,” I began. “I do not know if it would work. It might very well kill her more quickly than an executioner’s blade. If I tried it I could be your mother’s savior, or her killer.”

“Not her Savior,” the girl said seriously. “She has no need of another. But you could not be her killer either. No one who tries to help could be anything but her benefactor, whatever the outcome. It is the wish to help which is important, surely.”

“The older you become, the more difficult it is to heal a wound,” I said, wishing I had made this point to Grove the previous evening, and surprised at the wisdom of her remark. “Something a child would shrug off in a matter of days may be enough to kill an old person. The flesh becomes tired, it loses its resilience, and it eventually dies, freeing the spirit which abides within.”

The girl, still squatting, looked impassively at me as I spoke, neither shifting restlessly, nor showing signs of incomprehension. So I continued.

“Or it may be that the blood grows old by constantly coursing through the veins, until it loses its natural strength, and becomes less effective in conveying the nutrients for the heart to ferment the vital spirits.”

The child nodded at this, as though I had said nothing that surprised her; whereas in fact, I had advanced some of the latest discoveries and, for good measure added an outlandish interpretation that would already have had my elders shaking their heads in dismay.

“Do you understand me, child?”

“Of course,” she said. “Why shouldn’t I?”

“It surprises you that I say the blood circulates through the body, no doubt?”

“That could only surprise a physician,” she said. “Any farmer knows it.”

“How do you mean?”

“If you bleed a pig, you cut the main vein in its neck. The pig bleeds to death and produces soft white meat. How else could all the blood come out of one slit unless it was all connected? And it moves of its own accord, almost as though it is being pumped, so must go round and round. That is all obvious, isn’t it?”

I blinked, and stared at her. It had taken practitioners of the medical art the better part of two thousand years to make this astounding discovery, and there was this girl saying she knew it all along. A few days ago, I would have been furious at her impudence. Now I merely wondered what else she—and the country folk she mentioned—might know if only people troubled to ask them.