Mercury's Rise (Silver Rush 04) (25 page)
Unable to hold on through the pain, she let go. Her tailbone bumped down one more stair, adding a second jolt of pain. She finally stopped, sitting upright, short of the floor by about six steps.
Up above, doors slammed, indistinct voices exclaimed. Even through the unbearable throb of her shoulder, she made a point of tugging down the hem of her nightdress, which had rucked up about her knees in the tumble.
The wooden staircase vibrated with footsteps, clattering down to her. A flickering light grew brighter, casting her shadow long and wavering across the reception area to the hotel’s front door.
“Mrs. Stannert! Good Heavens, what happened?” Jonathan DuChamps knelt beside her and set the candle lamp on a nearby tread. He peered at her, looking strangely vulnerable with no glasses and a jacket thrown hastily over a nightshirt with buttons askew. His expression turned grave. “Your shoulder,” he said.
Inez spared a glance at her left shoulder, which radiated pain. Beneath the flannel nightgown, it sloped grotesquely and unnaturally down and forward. Looking at it seemed to make it hurt even worse, if that were possible. She took a hissing breath between her teeth and looked away, pain filling her mind like a red mist.
“Inez!” Harmony’s worried face appeared in the mist beside her husband’s. She clutched her shawl with one hand, and covered her mouth with the other. “Your shoulder,” she whispered between her fingers.
Aunt Agnes’ voice floated down from the stairs above. “What on earth were you doing on the stairs?”
“Did…you come to my door?” Inez gingerly cradled her arm, trying to take the weight off her shoulder, her mind fuzzy with pain.
“This time of night?” Agnes moved past Jonathan and Harmony, stopping at the stair below Inez. She set down her own candleholder on the tread. “Who would have reason to be out and about right now?”
“I don’t know,” said Inez faintly.
“Were you sleepwalking, Inez?” Agnes inquired. “I recall, you had an unfortunate habit of wandering about your room, still asleep. Your mother was worried sick you would wander out into the halls and who knows where, so she locked you in at night. Do you remember? You were no more than seven or eight.”
Inez opened her mouth to say she hadn’t been sleepwalking, someone had shoved her down the stairs, but then snapped it shut.
Perhaps it’s wisest to keep that to myself.
“I thought I heard someone calling. I went out to see who it might be and, next thing I knew, I was falling.”
Agnes nodded, vindicated. “Sleepwalking. I have heard that a copper wire, wrapped around the limb of a sleep-walker on going to bed and extending to the floor prevents sleepwalking. Has something to do with electricity, I believe.”
“Mrs. Underwood, she’s had a bad fall and injured her shoulder,” said Jonathan sharply. “Mrs. Stannert needs medical assistance, not advice on sleepwalking.”
Inez mentally gave Jonathan points for explaining the obvious to Aunt Agnes and stopping her blather. Other visitors clustered about now, up on the second floor. Inez could only imagine the racket she’d made, crashing down the staircase. Nearly the entire floor seemed to be either up on the landing in their nightwear and hastily thrown on shawls and jackets.
Jonathan looked up at the gathering crowd, made a gesture as if to push nonexistent glasses up the bridge of his nose, and addressed the watchers. “Can someone bring a physician? Dr. Prochazka, or Dr. Zuckerman or…there’s another one I met just this evening in the smoking room, can’t recall his name.” Under his breath, Jonathan muttered, “The place is crawling with damned doctors, surely one of them could be found at this hour to do what he’s paid to do.”
Jonathan DuChamps rose another notch in Inez’s estimation, even as Harmony whispered, “Jonathan! Language!”
The front door squeaked open and Nurse Crowson entered, covered neck to toe in a voluminous cape and carrying a black leather bag. She froze as she took in the scene on the crowded stairs, but when she spoke, her voice revealed no surprise, only mild curiosity. “Is something amiss? Mrs. Stannert, did you fall?”
“She was sleepwalking and fell down the stairs,” explained Agnes. “Her arm bothers her.”
Nurse Crowson set the bag by the newel post at the bottom of the staircase, and knelt by Inez. “Let’s see, then.” She reached out.
Jonathan DuChamps snapped, “We need a
real
physician, Mrs. Crowson.”
Inez held her breath and through a haze of pain, watched to see how Nurse Crowson would take this inadvertent slap to her vocation. All she said was “Dr. Prochazka is often up late. I’ll see if he is still in the clinic.”
She rose, retreated down the stairs, picked up her bag, and vanished toward the back of the hotel.
Inez closed her eyes just as Harmony said, “What was Mrs. Crowson doing out this time of night?”
“Maybe taking a walk. Who knows?” Jonathan sounded tired.
“He, or she, knew my given name,” Inez said.
“What?”
Inez shook her head, hurting too much to repeat it.
Whoever came to my door, whoever drew me out, called me by my first name.
People had begun to drift back to their rooms when Dr. Prochazka hurried up, not a handful of minutes later. He still wore his rumpled evening clothes from that night’s concert, but now had a half-buttoned laboratory coat over them.
Without preamble, he said, “Nurse Crowson said you fell down the stairs. That you have an injured shoulder.”
“She was sleepwalking,” said Aunt Agnes promptly. “What a rude awakening, I’m sure. She certainly woke most of us on the second floor with her crashing down the staircase.”
Prochazka didn’t seem to be listening. He set one surprisingly gentle hand on the misshapen shoulder area. Inez winced.
“A humeral dislocation. Or, as often said, your shoulder is out of joint. It is a simple procedure to correct. Although it can be painful.” He looked around. “Where is Mrs. Crowson? It would be best to give you laudanum beforehand. It will help with the pain and allow you to relax. This goes faster, easier, if the muscles are relaxed.”
“No laudanum,” Inez said through gritted teeth.
Dr. Prochazka adjusted his wire-rim glasses and peered closely at her. “You are obviously in pain. The laudanum is my own formulation. You will taste cinnamon, honey. It will work quickly, make my task easier, allow you to recover more efficiently. I use only the minimum amount of alcohol, if that is what concerns you.”
She shook her head. Inez didn’t trust laudanum in its various forms and concoctions. She had seen too many women—and men—fall under its power and fade into shadows of their former selves, as enslaved to its call as an infatuated lover is to an indifferent mate. “I’d rather take the alcohol. Brandy. Whiskey. scotch whiskey is best.”
The physician looked exasperated. “This is ridiculous.”
A sound at the bottom of the stairs, like a half-swallowed exclamation. Franklin Lewis, elegant hotelier, clothed in wrapper with the hem of a nightshirt doing nothing to cover an expanse of spindly white shins, knobby ankles, and feet stoppered by slippers. Nurse Crowson stood at his side, hands folded into her voluminous cloak. Lewis held a candle in another of the hotel’s brass holders aloft for light. The flickering of the flame bounced off their twinned, square-set faces.
“Mr. Lewis,” said Prochazka. “Please bring a large dose of scotch whiskey, as the lady requests. Quickly. Mrs. Crowson, please measure out two doses of my laudanum. You know which cabinet.” He fished in the pocket of his white cotton coat and tossed her a ring of keys. “Mrs. Stannert insists on arguing she does not want it. However, she may change her mind later.”
He looked at Jonathan DuChamps. “It would be far easier if she were lying down.”
“Take her back up to her room, then,” Agnes suggested.
Prochazka looked up at the long staircase, and came to a decision. “The bottom of the stairs are closer. A hard surface is better than a mattress. She should, however, have a blanket to lie on.”
Jonathan promptly disappeared up the stairs.
Lewis reappeared carrying an alarmingly full glass of whiskey. “Mrs. Stannert, I advise you sip this slowly, as it is a very powerful spirit.”
Inez took the glass and held it to her teeth, which were chattering in pain. Normally, she would have worked her way slowly to the first sip, but this was not the time to savor the liquor’s complexities and nuances. The first sharp swallow brought tears to her eyes and anesthetized her throat. The next three slid down easier, creating a path of fire to her stomach.
She gasped slightly, feeling the fire burrow out to her limbs and down to fingers and toes. Cradling the half-empty glass, she said, “I believe I’m ready.”
“I can reduce—that is, repair—your shoulder very easily,” Prochazka said. “It is not a complicated procedure. It will take but a moment, and the intense pain will be gone. Like this.” He snapped his long fingers.
The sound put Inez in mind of a bone breaking. She shivered.
Jonathan reappeared with a blanket and a shawl draped over his arm.
Dr. Prochazka helped her to her feet and supported her around the waist, much as Aunt Agnes had done with Harmony hours previously. Jonathan spread the blanket on the polished wood entryway. The doctor lowered her to the blanket with Jonathan’s help, and said, “Wait.” He looked at Jonathan. “It would be best if you kneel by her as well. Hold her right arm, help her stay still.”
The physician positioned himself next to Inez’s injured shoulder. Inez looked from one kneeling man to the other, suddenly put in the mind of a
tableau vivant
.
But if it were a real tableau I wouldn’t have the urge to scream. I do hope screaming won’t be part of this scenario.
She wondered if she needed more whiskey, but decided that she’d best save the rest of the glass for a celebratory knockout once the worst was over.
Dr. Prochazka firmly grasped her wrist and elbow, and said to Inez, “I have done this many times. It will be quickly over.” He gave Jonathan a nod. Jonathan placed hands on the upper portion of her right arm, holding her steady. The physician pulled her left arm down and out, away from her torso, then rotated her forearm up and out. Something in her shoulder shifted with a bone-deep pain. She clenched her jaws to keep from crying out loud. An agonizing stretch on her shoulder, and something slid, popping into place.
She couldn’t help it. A squeak escaped. But at least, it wasn’t a scream.
The pain, indeed, had miraculously disappeared, leaving only a deep ache, camouflaged by woozy warmth. How her shoulder would feel once the whiskey wore off, she couldn’t guess, and frankly, didn’t want to know.
“Done,” said Prochazka. “Now, to retire and rest.” He turned to Nurse Crowson, who had suddenly appeared, back from her errand for the physician. She handed him a small tonic bottle along with the ring of keys. Prochazka gave the bottle to Jonathan, instructing, “A teaspoonful now, before she sleeps. Another tomorrow, should she need it.”
Inez sat up slowly, and eyed the quantity of whiskey left in the glass on the floor by Jonathan. It would be more than enough, she decided, to ensure she wouldn’t need any of what was in the small brown bottle.
Harmony, who was hovering by the stairs, said, “Mrs. Stannert was going to join us in a trip to the Garden of the Gods tomorrow. Is that still wise or should she stay here and rest?”
Prochazka shrugged. “As long as she is not at the reins or climbing the rocks, I see no harm in that.”
Inez raised her arm—to her surprise, it obeyed her—and rubbed her eyes. She said, “Thank you, doctor.”
He stood, helped her to her feet, and said, “You are lucky I was here. The sooner the shoulder is put back in place, the easier it is. Too much time passes, and it becomes more painful, more difficult.” He looked at the grandfather clock. “I must get back to work.”
To work? When does he sleep?
“Let us help you to your room,” said Jonathan. He picked up her glass, and Harmony came across the floor to join them.
Aunt Agnes added, “We’ll all walk you up the stairs, Inez, and make sure you are well in your room for the night, or what’s left of it. Goodness, what a fright you gave us all.”
Inez turned to accept the glass from Jonathan and caught a glimpse of Lewis and the nurse, conversing in low tones by the reception desk. The intensity of their whispers caught her attention as well as something about their stances. They bent toward each other. Lewis was doing most of the talking and he looked…angry? worried?
Mrs. Crowson was shaking her head slightly. She suddenly laid a hand on Lewis’ sleeve with a single word. They both turned to look at Inez, similar expressions of suspicion, doubt and…
Could it be fear?
What have they to fear from me?
Jonathan on one side of her said, “Slowly up the stairs, Mrs. Stannert,” while Agnes on the other side said, “Just how much of that liquor did you drink, dear niece?” Harmony placed an extra shawl gingerly over her shoulders. It occurred to Inez that maybe it wasn’t her they were scrutinizing.