Feud by Lady Grace Cavendish Read Free Book Online Page A

by Mr. Durdon, who is his barber-surgeon. I like Mr. Durdon. He is a small, bald man, quiet, with stubby fingers, and he always dresses in black cloth so as the blood won't show. He carries his instruments in a leather roll.
    Luckily, even though it was after dinner, my Uncle Cavendish was not very drunk and only smelled a little of wine. “Now, Carmina,” he said kindly, “I hear you are a little unwell. And as my dear coz is here, we need not wait for Mrs. Champernowne.”
    Uncle Cavendish sometimes calls me his coz because although he knows perfectly well I am his niece, he doesn't like to think about my mother, whom he misses very much. He never used to drink so much before she died.
    He sat down next to Carmina upon the bed, and laid his long hands on her forehead and temples and then her throat and wrists.
    “Why do you do that?” I asked curiously, eager to learn all I could in hopes of discovering the cause of Carmina's sickness.
    “It is part of the physician's art,” he replied, with his eyes shut and his fingers still on Carmina's wrists. “There are twelve pulses in the body that teach us of the four humours, and so each must be felt.”
    I stayed silent so he could feel them.
    “Hmm,” he said at last. “As Mrs. Champernowne says, there is no fever, but your pulses are a little disarranged. Perhaps there is an overplus of melancholy, which would account for the megrim and the vomitus. Have you voided at all?”
    This is a physician's way of asking if she had been to the close-stool.
    “Yes,” said Carmina. “It was nasty-smelling.”
    “Has it been cleaned? No? Oh, very good.” He went to the garderobe and lifted the curtain to peer into the close-stool. “Hmm,” he said again, as if it were a very interesting book. “Well, well.”
    He came back and sat next to Carmina once more. “Now,” he said, “Mr. Durdon?”
    Mr. Durdon came forward and put a small glass pot on the little table beside Carmina's bed. She looked at it nervously.
    “Next time you must answer the call of nature, I desire you to pee into this pot and send it to me immediately,” Uncle Cavendish said, and Carmina nodded. Physicians always scry people's water if theyare sick. Sometimes they even taste it! I am so glad women are not allowed to be proper physicians.
    “In the meantime, Mr. Durdon shall let a little blood from your left arm, to relieve your body of any excess of the sanguine humour,” my uncle went on.
    Carmina frowned unhappily. We all have our blood let at Eastertide, just as the Queen does, to keep us healthy. But nobody likes it, of course.
    “A quarter pint only, Mr. Durdon,” said my uncle quietly. “Since she is so pale.”
    Mr. Durdon nodded and Uncle Cavendish gave place to him. Once he had put the strap on Carmina's bare arm and raised the vein, he opened it neatly with his little scalpel and let just a quarter pint of her blood into his silver bowl, before stopping it with a cloth and bandaging it. There was not even a spatter on the bedclothes or the rushes. Carmina looked even paler afterwards, I have to say, but I'm sure it will help guard against infection.
    “Now,” said my uncle, once Mr. Durdon had wiped and packed up his instruments and covered the bowl. “I want you to stay quiet in bed, Carmina. Eat whatever you have a stomach to, but drink only mild ale or wine well watered. And we shall see how we go. If you are not better soon, I shall advise the Queen to send a message to your mother,for I am sure she will wish to come and nurse you herself.”
    Carmina nodded, looking even more worried. “She's very busy looking after my father and the estate, too,” she said anxiously.
    Uncle Cavendish patted her hand. “Of course, of course, we will not trouble her yet, my dear.”
    Then he got up and gave me a kiss on the cheek and left, followed by Mr. Durdon who lifted his hat to me. I sat down again and asked if Carmina wanted me to do anything. I felt sorry for her, looking so wan