CHAPTER FOUR

“Quick – Doctor Anderson, Doctor Anderson!”

“‘Tis too late, the damage is too severe!”

“No, look, his eyes are still moving – Doctor Anderson!”

Rushing of noise, sounds, people, movement in panic, danger –

“You must be able to do something for him,” a harsh voice was speaking, “the bump is minor, surely – ”

A head, blood everywhere, and a frightened look on a woman who was pleading with her eyes, desperate for him to save the man she loved.

“Doctor Anderson, please help me!”

An examination, speedily taken, which gives him the news he was dreading, and he can barely form the words into coherent sentences to tell her that –

“Doctor Anderson!”

“Please, you must be able to help him – why are you not doing anything?”

“Doctor Anderson, we need your assistance!”

“No – no, he cannot be dead, do something Doctor Anderson – why are you just standing there?”

“Doctor Anderson!”

A thump on the door startled Gerald Anderson and he almost fell off the chair he was dozing in.

“Doctor Anderson, are you in there?”

Jonathan Bryant’s face appeared at the window, and it broke into a worried but relieved grin. “Doctor Anderson – my brother, he is hurt, a fall in the Top Field – ”

Over a decade of training and experience kicked in. Without giving a thought to the fact that his cravat was untied, his linen shirt untucked from his breeches, and neither boot on his feet, Gerald strode across the room and hallway, wrenching open the front door.

Aaron Bryant was standing there, holding up a bloodied and unconscious man.

Gerald almost retched, but he managed to hold himself together. “Upstairs,” he said shortly. “Bedroom. First left.”

By now Jonathan had joined his brothers, and the two of them managed to haul the unconscious Thomas Bryant upstairs while Gerald raced around his surgery, grabbing a few essential tools.

It was just a dream, he told himself as the panic and bile rose in his throat. Just a dream, just a memory. But the similarities in the two cases were hard to ignore. Not again, he prayed desperately as he rushed up the stairs to follow his patient. Please Lord, not again. Be merciful.

Pastor Bryant was lying, still unconscious, on the bed, dark red spots of blood covering the pillow.

“Is he going to die?” Jonathan’s voice was unnecessarily harsh, and Gerald guessed it was a question he had forced himself to ask. “Should I fetch Katherine – his wife should be here, you know she is carrying their child.”

“Stay,” said Gerald quickly. “Let me examine him before we assign him a plot in his own churchyard.”

He saw Aaron’s nostrils flare. Perhaps it was a little flippant, but danger and the threat of death did that to a man.

Gerald knelt by the man, and immediately began checking vitals. Pulse, breathing, color and warmth. All good. Eyes responding to light. Good. The skull itself: not cracked, bruised and torn – by a branch, perhaps? The blood made it look worse than it was. A small cut there, right on his temple, near his eye, perhaps an inch long and barely wide enough to bleed at all. Two or three pieces of bark that must be removed, cleaned.

“Brandy,” he said decisively. “You must have some for medicinal purposes. Hot water – boiling, if you can manage it. Clean linens, any strips of cotton you keep aside, and a blanket.”

Aaron moved without a word, and his thundering footsteps down the stairs could be heard throughout the house.

“He will recover,” said Jonathan in his deep voice. “You will be able to save his life?”

“If the damage had been an inch over to the left,” replied Gerald under his breath, “he would have lost the eye – been blinded on the left-hand side. An interesting similarity to his sister, something that as twins they would have as a unique connection. Perhaps Mariana would have . . .”

Mariana. The wry smile she gave when she thought no one was looking. That biting, acerbic wit that drove others away but only seemed to attract him to her. The pain in her soul, pain that resonated with his own.

“Doctor Anderson.” Jonathan’s sharp tones brought him back to reality. “Will Thomas live?”

Gerald nodded. “As long as we can keep the wound clean, and he rests – properly mind, not just for this afternoon – then he should make a full recovery.”

The stomping noise was returning, and Aaron burst into the room, arms full. “I could only find whisky,” he said, eyes worried. “That will do the same, will it not?”

“I see no reason why not,” replied Gerald, holding out his arms for the items. “Now then . . .”

Within ten minutes, it was all over. The blood was cleaned away, the cut cleaned, the bark removed. The blanket brought some warmth to his cheeks, and a dash of the whisky across the cut and into Thomas’ throat brought a choking sound that put a smile on his brothers’ face.

“There he is,” said Jonathan, appreciatively. “Welcome back, Thomas!”

“Where did I go?” spluttered the patient. “And what on earth was that you poured down me?”

Gerald could not help but laugh, but it was from relief rather than joy at seeing his patient speak coherently. No concussion, by the looks of it, although a few simple tests would answer that problem. “Welcome back indeed! I am glad to see you will be ready to enjoy this Thursday afternoon.”

“Thursday?” Thomas frowned, and then winced as the cut near his eye crinkled. “Surely it is Monday today?”

Good, noted Gerald. Awareness of day and time passing.

“So it is,” he said smoothly, ignoring the confused face Aaron was giving him. “And of course, you will wish to return to the butter you were churning.”

“Apple picking,” corrected Thomas with a slightly concerned look on his face. “Doctor Anderson, are you quite well?”

“Perfectly well, I thank you,” said Gerald, stifling a laugh. “And it is clear you are too, so I will just go and find Elizabeth, your wife, and inform her.”

“Elizabeth – Elizabeth, my wife?” Thomas sat up slightly, groaned, and allowed himself to fall back onto the pillows. “I do not know how much of that disgusting drink you have been treating yourself to, Doctor Anderson, but I would hazard a guess it is too much!”

Gerald could not help it. He laughed gruffly and said, “Fear not, Pastor Bryant, I have not taken leave of my senses. A small test for concussion, nothing more. You are quite well – and so am I.”

Comprehension spread across Jonathan’s face, and he smiled. “You are a wiser doctor than I gave you credit for, Doctor Anderson.”

Gerald lowered himself down in a chair by the bed. “And you will not be the last to make that mistake. Now, Thomas must spend at least this afternoon, if not most of tomorrow, here, resting in the quiet. I would advise you both,” he looked at Jonathan and Aaron, “to continue with the – apple picking, is that what you said?”

Aaron looked between Gerald and his brother. “He . . . he is out of danger?”

“I do not think he was in any, particularly,” revealed Gerald honestly. “But you did the right thing bringing him straight to me. Not everyone is so lucky.”

For a moment, the memory of a face rushed across his mind, but he shook his head slightly, and it vanished. No need to torture himself while awake, too.

It took almost half an hour to persuade the two brothers to leave Thomas, but the fact he had fallen into a gentle and restful sleep seemed to convince them. Gerald settled himself in the chair, ready for the night long vigil. He was accustomed to it, with the most worrying of patients, and it gave him time to think.

But time to think was something he had an excess of, and time after time, minute after minute, his thoughts darted to the same person: Mariana Bryant.

Her beauty was something he could not ignore; that golden hair, the tilt of her head as she listened out for something, the way she walked, graceful and elegant as though she weighed nothing. But beyond, there was a beauty of the mind that was quite fascinating. The way she walked looked graceful, certainly, but with every step she was feeling the ground, sensing movement, listening around her, fingertips casually brushing around her – it was mesmerizing. It was hypnotic. It was –

“You had better not be getting any ideas about my sister.”

The words startled Gerald, and he looked around wildly to see who had spoken, before he remembered his patient, Thomas Bryant, never lost the power of speech.

Thomas had pushed himself up on his elbows and was looking rather accusingly at the doctor. “I see the way you look at her, Doctor Anderson. You should not think of Mariana that way, I am telling you.”

Gerald was glad the darkness of the evening had fallen an hour ago, otherwise Pastor Thomas would have been able to see the flush of scarlet across his cheeks. “I – I do not know what you mean, Pastor – ”

“You know exactly what I mean,” said Thomas quickly, lowering himself back down again onto the pillows, and sighing with the effort. “She may be blind, but I am not.”

Gerald bit his lip. This was not a conversation he wanted to have, but short of leaving the room, how was he to avoid it?

“She is my twin sister,” Thomas spoke in a low voice, full of warmth. “Twins share a connection that is hard to describe to anyone else, but I think, as a medical man, you may comprehend even a part of it. At times when we were children, it was as though we shared a soul. Two hearts beating in different bodies, but beating in time.”

Gerald cleared his throat nervously. “I cannot imagine such a connection.”

“No,” said Thomas without malice. “I never thought I would experience it with another, until I met Katherine. You leave Mariana alone, Doctor Anderson. I bear you no ill feelings, of course – and how could I, after you have saved my life…” Gerald decided in that moment not to correct him. “…but I want you to stay away from my sister.”

Swallowing, Gerald said the words he knew, in all honor, he must say. “I am sorry, Pastor Bryant, I truly am. But I cannot.”


“Rosemary.” Mariana’s voice was terse, short, and she could feel the bitterness in her soul seep out through her words, and hated herself for it.

“Thank you,” came the murmured response from her sister. Abigail’s hand touched hers as she removed the herb from her fingers.

A breeze, the knocking of apples against each other, the rustle of a creature in the grass. Mariana twisted her face to bathe in the sunshine pouring down on them. Truly, it was a Texan summer.

“And this one?” Abigail spoke again, and Mariana felt rather than heard the rustle of her gown as she placed another stem in her hand. Although a talented gardener, able to make anything grow, her sister was not a botanist, and Mariana’s sense of smell was almost encyclopedic.

One sniff was enough. “Nettles, Abigail, nettles – cannot you feel the burn on your palm? I certainly can.”

The stinging was spreading across her palm to her wrist, and she gave an involuntary shudder as Abigail’s apologies murmured like a stream.

“I am sorry, my dear sister, I had quite forgot – the spread of the leaves, I see now . . .”

Mariana let the gentle flow of sound wash over her. It was always the same with Abigail; a gentle soul with a flow of emotion rarely dammed, but at the same time, rarely aired. She was a puzzle, was Abigail Bryant.

“. . . but I have just one more herb,” she was saying now. “‘Tis not one I have encountered before.”

A soft and round leaf was placed into Mariana’s hand – so soft it almost felt like a rabbit’s ear, or the down on a newborn lamb. Mariana remembered visiting the market in El Seco, years ago, with the hot and tangy smell of dung on the air as the bleats, cries, and melody of animals and birds surrounding her added their cacophony to the air.

“This is a strange one,” she said slowly, bringing both hands to it, brushing her fingertips around the edges to feel its width. In a swift movement, she brought the leaf to her nose, and one sniff was, again, enough to supply the answer. “Sage.”

“Thank you.” Abigail’s words were full of gratitude, and a genuine smile fell across Mariana’s face.

If she had been able to see it, she would have been astounded at the transformation it gave her features. Sometimes described as sullen, never described as attractive, Mariana’s face when lit with a smile was truly something to behold: a striking and beautiful woman who, approaching her twenty eighth birthday, could be described in the right light as handsome.

“I never would have guessed I would grow up to become a bloodhound!” she joked, opening her palm so her sister could take the sage leaf unhindered.

Abigail’s chuckle burbled like a brook, and it broadened her own smile.

“I suppose not,” said Abigail, “and yet you are uncommonly suited for the task. What other occupation did you have in mind?”

The unexpected question gave Mariana pause of thought. “You surprise me,” she said quietly, reaching her fingers to the dry grass and rolling a clump of dry soil in her fingertips. “I do not think I have ever given the topic much thought in recent years, as the answer ultimately ended in . . . nothing.”

And yet, what was the harm? The sun was warm, and she and Abigail had nowhere else to be. There was no malice in her sister at any point, and especially not now. To her own surprise, she was not upset by the question.

“I suppose,” she said slowly, moving her fingers across the soil strewn ground, “I had always enjoyed the artistic crafts when I was small. Being able to paint would have been a stupendous diversion, though I think it is impossible to say now, with any element of truth, whether I had any real skill.”

Abigail said not a word, and Mariana smiled silently at the thought of being able to replicate the beautiful painting that was the only one she had ever seen: the image of Eden that had hung over her parents’ bed when she had been young.

“I was always transfixed by the garden of Eden,” she said slowly.

“I remember the painting,” Abigail interrupted. “I think it is in Jonathan’s study now.”

Mariana smiled drily. Of course, everything had changed since then, and she would have never known. “Perhaps I would have been able to create something of that type; delicate brushwork, rather than sweeping strokes.”

“I am sure,” said Abigail’s voice, “that with enough concentration and dedication to your craft, you would have become proficient.”

“Or perhaps I would have preferred to cook, like Elizabeth,” mused Mariana.

“She always wanted to be a mother,” came Abigail’s voice. “That is what she told me when – ”

But here Abigail’s voice broke off, and Mariana’s heart twisted. Elizabeth’s desire to have a child, and her inability to have one, was not something spoken of.

“Heaven knows how she cooks so well,” she said hurriedly. “She injures herself far more than I do, and I am . . .”

She broke off for a moment, recollecting the reason why she had not pursued these avenues, but Abigail’s quiet encouragement rallied her spirits.

“Elizabeth is fortunate to have all of her fingers and toes still attached,” she said with another chuckle.

Mariana joined her laughter. “Poor old Doctor Anderson would spend his days stitching her back together again!”

The two sisters laughed together, and it did Mariana’s soul good to giggle. When had she last done this? Weeks ago? Months? Perhaps even years. It was hard to recall another summer evening such as this, with the sun bathing them in warmth and joy springing between them.

Her thoughts trailed back to Doctor Anderson, but instead of the comedic position as Elizabeth’s personal physician, she thought about his words, spoken deeply and seriously to her at the Harvest Festival.

“Sometimes I worry that . . . some doctors are too proud of their power.”

The first doctor to ever admit a medical man could make a mistake. He was, indeed, an unusual doctor.

“When I think back, however,” she said deliberately, “I think my deepest desire, as a child, was to become a nurse.”

Abigail’s laughter trailed away, and now a silence, slightly awkward, grew between them. “A nurse?” her sister asked finally.

Mariana nodded. “After losing my sight . . . after a doctor had let me down totally and utterly, I become convinced that had a nurse been in attendance, she would have been able to restore at least one of my eyes.”

“You have never told me this before,” said Abigail, and Mariana breathed with relief to hear there was nothing but concern and love in her voice.

“No,” said Mariana. “I have never revealed this to anyone. It felt like a weakness, to challenge God’s will, and to seek a way out of the situation I placed myself in. Ungrateful, even. I had, after all, lived . . .”

Her mind travelled across time and remembered that awful morning when she awoke, fever gone, but she could not find the light. The sight she had never valued had gone from her, and it had been her mother who had tried to explain to a frightened, sick child that she would never see again.

“Doctor Anderson does indeed have prodigious skill, however.” Abigail’s voice drifted into her consciousness, and she fought to remain in the conversation. “Jonathan and Aaron tell me his care of Thomas after that fall was truly excellent.”

Mariana had heard of the accident, and after the initial fear for her brother had dissipated, had thought once more on Doctor Anderson. True, he had managed to save her brother from any real harm, but it did not follow that every case would follow suit. And yet he truly cared, it seemed, staying up with her brother for three nights to attend to his condition.

“I wonder whether that is why I feel so connected to Doctor Anderson,” she wondered aloud, unthinking that Abigail would hear her every word. “Perhaps my thoughts dwell on him because he alone has experienced – could understand what it is to suffer a defeat in the world of medicine. And his words to me, at Harvest Festival – ”

“Harvest Festival?” Abigail interrupted. “I was not aware you had conversed at the Harvest Festival – what did he say?”

But the moment had passed, and Mariana blushed to have revealed such a vast amount of her inner thoughts to another, out of the habit as she was. “‘Tis of no matter,” she said hurriedly, and she rose, brushing the dirt from her gown. “Shall we go inside? There is a slight chill in the air.”

The noise of Abigail rising and gathering her plant samples into her wicker basket was enough of a distraction to break the mood, and Mariana heaved a sigh of relief. She was getting careless with her imagination; too often it flittered to the new Doctor Gerald Anderson. Would that he thought of her as often . . .