Freeing Ebony

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen    

 

Ebony wasn’t sure if she felt sick when she saw James’ blood travel down a cylindrical tube from his arm into Henry. James didn’t appear fazed by the pain, he simply watched in anguish as Harrison set to work on repairing the damage to Henry’s abdominal organs.

Little J monitored the amount of blood that was taken from James carefully while also feeling Henry’s pulse. She murmured numbers to Harrison while he worked that Ebony didn’t understand. All she did was watch the shallow rise and fall of his chest intently. So long as it kept moving then she too could breathe.

“It’s his spleen,” Harrison told Little J. “It’s torn.”

“Is that bad?” Ebony panicked. She wasn’t sure what the spleen was or what it did, she just prayed it was fixable.

Harrison and Little J didn’t respond, and Ebony didn’t blame them. They needed to concentrate.

Little J stopped the blood flow from James and told him to stay sitting until she’d had a chance to fetch him some water and a biscuit. She looked inside Henry’s open wound and murmured something about repair.

‘Good,’ Ebony thought. ‘They can fix it.’

She watched intently as Little J and Harrison worked in perfect harmony, sewing and burning – or as they called it ‘cauterising’. Every few minutes Little J would check Henry’s pulse and report a number again.

After a few hours of careful repair and monitoring, Little J announced that they were ready to close Henry’s wound and then monitor him for infection. He was not out of the woods yet, and he would not be safe for a long while. But he was alive, and that was the main thing.

Once Henry was had carefully and safely been placed in a bed upstairs, Harrison and Little J tended to Ebony and Ellen. Harrison had taken Ellen into his office to correct her nose and Little J stitched the cut on her forehead. James had departed after having something to eat to collect Henry’s parents.

It hurt each time Little J’s needle touched her skin but she didn’t complain. “I know I don’t have any right to him, but thank you for saving him.” She’d never met a female doctor before, but she could tell Little J was a talented one.

Little J smiled slightly as she fixed the last of her stitches and began to clean her forehead from any dried blood. “Henry would want you to have a right to him,” she replied. “He’s always been so painfully awkward around women. I’d wager he’s barely spoken three words to one since his first ball. It would take someone very special to inspire these events.”

Ebony bit her lip as a wave of guilt washed over her. She hadn’t considered her own fault in the events. Had she never asked Henry to find Celeste then he wouldn’t have gone across the country looking for her. If he hadn’t found her, a letter would never have been sent and Vernon would never have learned of Celeste’s rescue and she would never have been imprisoned in his Aunt’s cellar. In turn, Henry would still be alive and well. Now he was just alive. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “You are right. It is all my fault.”

Little J frowned. “That was not what I meant, Miss Seaver. I meant you are the one who inspired him to take charge, to show strength and gumption. Henry is the most level-headed of us all. He would not have chosen to do anything if he didn’t want to. He obviously thought you worth it.”

Ebony felt a little bashful at Little J’s comments. She’d noticed Henry was shy, it was evident by the fact that he’d blushed and said the wrong things around her. He wasn’t a very confident person. But she’d seen a transformation from the timid man she’d met in her dressing room to the strong, determined man who’d burst into the cellar to save her. “You really think so?”