So, there it was. Martin not only had a cough, he'd been walking around with it for some time without anyone knowing about it.
"Pleural conditions are nasty." the doctor said. Less established than Dr. Watson, he was also more affordable to their budget after what happened to Geoffrey (Watson never charged a Yarder if they were injured in the line of duty and Holmes was involved, but they still faced weeks of reduced pay).
"How could he walk around at risk of pneumonia and not know it?" Clea asked suspiciously. Her reward was a complicated-sounding lecture that, if she picked out four words out of thirteen, seemed to mean that with the weather changes, the lungs reacted badly, and "dry" patches developed in the lungs which were prone to infection. "This should help rehydrate those lungs," the man finished with a flourish of the freshly-torn paper off his prescription note-book.
Clea thanked him with a slight glaze to her eye, ushered a miserable ten-year old back out on the street, and soon received a bottled concoction of pure vileness that made poor Martin feel as though he were "eating rotten chestnuts" and chasing it all down with harsh, thick syrups.
The combination was infernally inspired, but his recovery was slow even if his cough grew worse before it grew better. Clea began losing sleep after the second night, but Geoffrey, who wasn't sleeping anyway, would get up and see to him. They both might as well be miserable together, he reasoned practically, and it didn't take two hands to pour a medicine bottle. Out of pity he told Nicholas he could move to the spare bedroom if he wanted to get away from the nightly upset.
Out of brotherly loyalty, Nicholas refused.
"Now that's affection for you." She said over the breakfast table.
Geoffrey blinked over his teacup. "Mn?" He rasped. Bloodshot eyes tried to focus on her face.
"Never mind, dear." Clea sighed. If only Geoffrey wasn't out of commission too. And why did it have to be an injured arm of all things? Arms were useful, but when they were injured they became worthless. It was impossible to rest at night. Lie on one's back, and the pressure from the muscle tugged at the tendons. Lie on the un-injured side, and the uneven distribution of weight created a dull throb. Lying on one's front was impossible. Sitting up at night was partially a possibility, but the back grew tired of having the arm folded over.
Clea had suffered a broken arm—once, decades ago in her green girlhood, and the memory was vivid enough that she made a point of not repeating that particular injury.
It gave her plenty of sympathy.
"Did you rest at all, love?" She ventured.
"Did you?" He mumbled. His face was in his cup.
"Geoffrey, drink your tea. If one needs a bath, they use the tub upstairs."
Geoffrey took a clumsy swallow, and put his cup down to wipe his mouth. He began a painfully slow attempt to butter the toast.
"Here. I don't know what's more frightening, Geoffrey," Clea took the task from him and dipped the knife into the salted Guernsey butter. "Watching you do that one-handed, or do it half-asleep." At least the butter-knife was dull.
"Thank you." He said blearily. Toast crunched. Thank God. Serious injuries could affect the appetite—she had a lifetime of tending injured brothers to vouch for that myth. "How's the little cat?"
"Geoffrey, you really need to start calling her something else besides that!" Despite herself, Clea was laughing. "She'll grow up thinking that is her name!"
"Better that than some of the names I was gifted with." Geoffrey appeared to be waking up. Slowly. "And what else are you going to call a baby who sounded like a kitten when she cried?"
"Oh, I don't know—her Christian name, perhaps?"
"Says the mother who has a pagan name for her Christian name."
"It isn't even that, Geoffrey. Remember? The clerk couldn't spell Clio."
"Splitting hairs." His side of the argument defaulted to surrender by a yawn just as the bell rang. "Blast…"
"Shush. Two of your childer are a-sleeping upstairs, and we have company." Clea was rising as she spoke, quickly brushing crumbs off her dress-front. Geoffrey smiled tiredly as she yanked on her pullover apron. Just as swiftly, Mrs. Collins was stepping to the door from…somewhere.
"I'll see to it, Mrs. Lestrade…"
"She was in the attic! How does she do that?" Clea whispered fiercely.
Her husband answered with a shrug. "I don't know, but she's been doing it for years."
"I wonder if she has a secret passageway..."
"If so, then it really is secret. I've had to paint that hallway four times since I moved here."
"Oh, good-morning, Doctor…they're in the kitchen having breakfast. Come have yourself a cup of tea." You as well, gentlemen…?"
"Gentlemen?" Geoffrey's eyes lost, for a moment, their abstracted and foggy look and was replaced by mild panic.
-
Clea had observed Mr. Holmes before, and usually as a tall, stick-armed gentleman in a frock coat despite most forms of the weather, with a voice that would be harsh and ringing were it not so carefully controlled.
She never failed to be impressed with his voice; it made her think of the overstated actors in her experience. Had they any wisdom, they would be taking lessons from her occasional patron of the kitchen-arts.
"Mrs. Lestrade," he was already doffing his hat; the other gentleman (she didn't know the third), followed suit. He seemed like a young, friendly sort. "I trust your family is recovering from their adventure?"
Clea needed but a split-second to remember she had yet to receive payment for Nick's squashed flute. "Hardly, Mr. Holmes." She responded with her usual tart humour. "Martin lost his muffler in the fuss and has been out of school with pneumonia, and Geoffrey's arm has yet to come out of the sling." And Nick is without his music, she thought with a private vow to bring the topic up, uninvited, if Mr. Holmes thought to leave without paying.
"Ah, which is why I am here, Mrs. Lestrade." Watson somehow gave the impression he was constantly tipping his hat to a lady when he spoke to her. "This is Dr. Albert Krume, a good friend of mine who specialises in bone-injuries."
Clea's personality was friendly, but she didn't always feel in the mood for a stranger to go poking at her family members. Still, she didn't have enough rudeness in her to say no. "Shall we bring you some tea first?" She asked formally.
-
Mr. Holmes was a distracting houseguest.
Clea struggled mightily as the visit wore on, but try as she might, 'distracting' was the most polite way she could have filed him.
Desperate to think of something better, she fell victim to her own internal distraction, which might have spared her a greater portion of the urge to be rude as the visit deteriorated.
To be fair—and Clea would give all their due—Mr. Holmes waited patiently throughout the first half-hour of the visit while the doctors poked, prodded, and asked Geoffrey the strangest questions. In the mean-time, Clea weighed the advantages of no smoking and Mr. Holmes' impatience with letting him smoke and them putting up with cleaning out the rooms later, and wordlessly produced the good ash-tray. Mr. Holmes flickered his surprise, and then gratitude before he sat in the window like a boy, knees drawn up to his chest, and soon produced a fair imitation of the stacks before Christmas.
"Have I what?" Geoffrey blurted, an eruption that brought her back to the present. Mr. Holmes pulled his pipe from his lips in interest. "Pick what up? Are you mad? I couldn't pick up a toothpick now if it was the closing clue to the Whitechapel Murders!"
"I am glad to hear you say so," Dr. Krume comforted. He'd managed—somehow—to talk Geoffrey into removing his sling and the bandages for the examination. Clea tried to think of something pleasant. The morass of bruises and mottlings under his sleeve was disturbing. One looked like a horse-shoe print.
Dr. Krume tried to be delicate and brief, but Geoffrey turned paler (as did Clea) while his arm was slowly manipulated within its range.
"I'm sorry I doubted you, John." Dr. Krume shook his head. "You're right. It really is a greenstick."
"I felt the same way." Dr. Watson confessed.
Clea gauged carefully. Mr. Holmes' patience was not infinite; he was twitching at the glass as it was. "You doubted he had a greenstick?" She queried.
"They're all but unheard of in grown adults…especially in older men who would be more likely to face the shattering of the bone."
"I wish it had. It would have hurt much less." Geoffrey grumbled under his breath.
"It is healing rather well, Mrs. Lestrade." Dr. Krume said helpfully. "Plenty of red meat and wine, eh?"
The Lestrades flashed arrow-quick glances at each other from their various vantages. It was occasionally charming how the finer sort of gentlemen assumed a person could afford such a diet…but in times like this it risked being deeply embarrassing.
As if, Clea thought in exasperation, one look at their rooms wasn't proof enough they hadn't money to squander…their décor was about eight years out of date and already used; the frames on the wall were of photographs, not paintings, and the floor wore druggets. The china belonged to her mother, so at least that was supposed to look old. She wondered if Mr. Holmes noticed they re-gilt the edges of the cups themselves.
She opened her mouth, on the verge of saying something (and knowing she could always be free to regret it later), but something about Mr. Holmes in the corner of her eye in the awkwardly-growing silence of the room gave her pause.
He thought that was a silly thing to say too.
So did Dr. Watson, for the faint blush in his cheeks.
"I come from a family of wrestlers, Dr. Krume." Clea fell back upon the old standby. "Our tradition is a bit…restrictive on how to treat an injured body." Nothing heavy or too rich, for one. That would bind up the blood in no time.
Dr. Krume looked interested, but also polite. "Well you have a fortunate husband, Mrs. Lestrade. If I am to judge by the force of the bruising, the fracture could have easily gone much worse."
"How much longer until I can return to work?" Geoffrey wasn't normally this blunt to a man in his own house, but he was tired down to his broken bones, weary of being in pain, and frustrated.
"I really couldn't say. I've never seen a man with this sort of fracture."
"You've never been anywhere near Lancashire." Clea pointed out. "We see this sort all the time at the Mills." She poured another cup of red tea to Geoffrey and passed it over.
"Perhaps I should." Dr. Krume used a voice of pleasant officiousness that was recognizable to all as a looming battle standard.
Clea made a note of it. Years down the road, she might still have the urge to crush him.
-
The rooms emptier by two, Geoffrey pivoted his head to glare at the detective by the window. "Dr. Watson was being kind when he used the word "friend," correct?" He wanted to know in that sort of voice just as Dr. Watson came right back from the outdoors.
Dr. Watson sighed, his cheeks blushing slightly. "I've been trying to prove that man wrong for years. It all started when he expressed doubt on my experience with the India Bone-knitters…" He clipped his stethoscope into his bag with relief. "I'd mentioned your injury in passing, and then he learnt we were heading here and…"
"Rudely hitched a ride." Mr. Holmes cut in.
"If you call them rude, Mr. Holmes, then I shan't disagree with you." Clea said blandly as she poured a fresh round of tea. Dr. Watson paused as he wondered if she was being leading; Mr. Holmes smiled as he suspected it, and Geoffrey hid his face in his good hand because he knew it. "How may we help you?"