A Radical Arrangement by Jane Ashford Read Free Book Online

Mrs. Appleby,” she said. “That’s my husband.” She indicated the kneeling man. “We keep a tavern in the village. Dan’s the only man about today. Fishing boats are out.”
    “Do you have a room?” asked Margaret. “Can we take my…brother there? We must find him a doctor at once.”
    Mrs. Appleby looked doubtful. “I can give you rooms. We have one or two we let now and then. But as for a doctor—”
    “Let’s get him home, Flos, and worry over that later,” interrupted her husband. “Here, you, Luke, help me carry him. We can do it between us. The young lady can hold the bandage as we go, and you girls lead the horses.”
    Margaret noticed that the other three women were quite young and, from their looks, daughters of the Applebys.
    The climb down to the village was harrowing. There was a road a mile or so ahead, they told Margaret, but the cliff path was much quicker. Unfortunately it was also rough and steep, and it was no easy task carrying an unconscious man down it while keeping a bandage in place. At last, however, they managed it, walked a few hundred yards along a level beach, and came to the village, a cluster of whitewashed cottages perched above a seawall. The tavern, the Red Lion, was the topmost building, its foundations even with the roof of the next level. They hurried Keighley inside and up a narrow staircase to a small, clean bedchamber with windows looking out to sea, and laid him on the bed, Mrs. Appleby hastily stripping off the white counterpane just in time.
    Margaret breathed a great sigh as Mr. Appleby again took her place with the bandage. “Where does the doctor live?” she asked. “I will go myself; I am too worried to wait.”
    The Applebys shifted uneasily. “We don’t have a doctor, properly speaking,” replied the wife. “Not in the village. There’s one in Falmouth, but that’s more than an hour off, even at a gallop.”
    “But he must have a doctor.”
    “There’s old Mrs. Dowling,” offered one of the daughters. Mr. Appleby frowned.
    “I reckon she’ll have to do,” said Mrs. Appleby slowly.
    “Who is she?” asked Margaret.
    “She’s our midwife, like. She nurses in the village. She knows her business, miss. And there’s no one else in reach.”
    Margaret wrung her hands. “I’d rather have a doctor.”
    Mrs. Appleby shrugged, though she looked sympathetic.
    “Very well, ask Mrs. Dowling to come. But could someone ride to the doctor as well, please? Perhaps he could come tomorrow.”
    The Applebys looked skeptical but agreed, and one of the daughters was sent for the midwife. Margaret sat down in the room’s solitary chair and gazed at Sir Justin. He was terribly pale. Even his lips were bloodless, and his black brows stood out startlingly against his pallid skin. The bandage was showing spots of blood now, so the bleeding had not entirely stopped, and Margaret thought he looked dreadful. She gazed appealingly up at Mr. Appleby, who continued to hold the cloth in place on Keighley’s shoulder. “Will he be all right, do you think?”
    “Lord, miss, I’ve seen wounds worse than this heal in a matter of weeks,” replied the man stoutly. “In the peninsula we had men torn up something fearful stout as ever in a month.” His wife frowned a little, and he grimaced at her.
    Margaret continued to stare at Keighley. “I hope he will be.”
    “’Course he will, miss.”
    They sat in silence for a while. The two remaining daughters slipped out of the room, and a few minutes later, heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs and the third daughter ushered an elderly woman in. Margaret drew back a little at her appearance. Mrs. Dowling, for so this must be, looked exactly like Margaret’s idea of a witch. She was old and a little bent, dressed in a shapeless gray gown, and her gray hair was twisted in a frizzled bun on her thin neck. She had a prominent nose and sunken blue eyes, which seemed to take in everything about her at a glance. Margaret hunched a