Chapter 12 - Broken, But Still Whole
NB: So, yeah guys. I am chef by profession. So, I can write confidently about Molesley baking bread, but yeah, I'm fudging it here a little with the medical emergency stuff. Anything I got right, thank the Girl Scouts circa 1987 where I learned some basics and the Mayo Clinic's page on treating a compound fracture. Anything I got wrong, be gentle! ~ CeeCee
Isobel walked out into the fine late June afternoon, Violet Crawley beside her. They'd had a rather lovely time in the village's public tearoom, which was slightly less formal than either of their sitting rooms. Isobel was still taken off-guard at the fuss that was made of the pair of them, wherever they went in the village. Thankfully, her cousin had no such misgivings, embracing the veneration of the villagers as if it were her due.
It likely was, in many ways, Isobel concurred. And it was good to see the other woman venture out beyond the Dower House, or Downton itself, which seemed to happen less and less frequently these days, other than for significant social events.
Jack Davis, her driver, saw them exit the establishment and pulled the car up to the curb. He had just gotten out, tipped his cap at them, and was ushering them towards the car, when the serene afternoon splintered into chaos.
She saw, from the corners of her awareness, the various moving parts that collided, literally, to shatter the easy, summer bustle of the afternoon: two cars stuck in an intersection, with no way past, due to the large farm wagon, filled to the brim with produce spilling into the street; the irritated exclamations of the drivers changing quickly to shouts of warning; and finally, the whooping of the two young lads, astride bicycles, coming quickly downhill from one of the side streets, turn into screams of fear.
One boy was able to slow himself down enough to skid out, both rider and cycle falling sideways, spinning low, kicking up dust and grass, hitting the ground with a thud, nearly sliding underneath the frame of the second car at the intersection.
The other lad wasn't as fast, or as lucky: his bike was moving speedily towards the three stalled vehicles, on a certain collision course with the first car; he tried to steer his ride sideways, but it was too late, and Isobel's heart dropped: the boy and bike hit the car, flew up and over the shiny, smooth black hood. He came crashing down with a splintering crunch that she could hear from twenty yards away. Separated from his bike, he landed on the other side of the car, in the street.
Blood was splashed across his forehead. His right leg was laying at an angle that hurt her eyes to look at, and a sinister, deep red spot was blooming outward at the knee of his torn trousers. She took a deep breath, felt that calm coolness she remembered from her days in the surgery with Reg. A lifetime ago, but her body and mind remembered it, this detached sense of organization.
Standers-by were already surround both boys, including the distraught driver of the first car. She had to get to the boy with the leg injury now. Before panic and good intentions made things worse.
"Jack, please make sure Lady Violet is seated safely in the car. Then run to the hospital, tell them what's happening. Bring back Dr. Clarkson, or one of the senior nurses or residents." The young man immediately complied, but Violet Crawley let out a yelp of indignation.
"What are you doing, exactly, Cousin Isobel?"
"I need your cane," she answered, holding out her hand, locking gazes with this woman, her friend, her family. "Now, please."
Violet shrugged elegantly, passed it over. "You're going to throw yourself into the fray, I suppose?"
"Of course. If I don't, that boy may lose the full use of his leg. Or worse, lose it all together."
"You better get on with it then, as unseemly and middle class as it may be," Violet sat herself in the front seat of Isobel's car, looking somehow incomplete without her ornate walking stick.
Isobel ran, and for once, was grateful for her social status in the village. The small crowd parted easily, almost reverently, for her, and she knelt down on the hard dirt of the street where the boy lay. He was no more than twelve or thirteen, likely one of Joseph Molesley's students come the fall.
His eyes were half-shut and hazy, his skin grayish and covered in a sheen of sweat. She looked over at the driver of the first car, the one the boy had run into, over the child's prone form. The man looked seconds away from bursting into tears.
"M'lady," he managed. She vaguely recognized him, and was glad of it. People responded best in emergencies if you could focus them, and nothing focused one's mind than their own name.
"Mr. Avers," she answered briskly. She wanted him away from the scene of the crime, so to speak, but wanted him to feel useful. It would help assuage any guilt he was currently feeling over something he had absolutely no control over. "Can you please go into the tea room, or the Arms, and ask someone for a giant bucket of ice, please?"
The man nodded and was, his face already relaxing, now that he had something to do that he could handle. She turned back to the boy. His eyes were open, and she could, unfortunately, see the pain in them, making them glassy and bright.
"Well, hello there," she spoke firmly and clearly. "What's your name, then?"
"Johny," he replied. "I'm John Willis. Where's Eddie, then?"
"Don't worry about Eddie right now, someone's looking after him, John," she removed her glove, brushed her hand over the child's forehead, as much to soothe the lad as to ascertain, generally, his temperature. Without looking around, and locking gazes with him, she called out,
"If I could get some assistance from someone who believes they could, effectively, help out, I would be extremely grateful," she then leaned closer to John. "Can you tell me what hurts the most right now, John?" Waiting for the answer, hoping...
"My leg, ma'am," he replied. "Sort of...toward the bottom, and by my knee. It doesn't feel right..." he trailed off, the fear in his eyes smeared by pain and shock.
"What do you need, m'lady?" Someone said at her elbow and she nearly cried with relief, because she knew the voice, and well. It was Downton's housekeeper.
"I've no idea where you came from, Mrs. Hughes, but I am glad you're here," she turned to the woman, who was kneeling down next to her.
"This'll teach me to run my own errands," the woman replied tartly. "I saw the commotion, and of course, couldn't help myself."
Isobel bit back wild laughter. "I need to check his leg, stop the bleeding, splint it, if I can. What I need from you, Mrs. Hughes, is to distract him. I don't want him to see the state of it, if it can be helped, and it's going to hurt him quite a bit." She paused, thinking. "Do you have your scissors on you?"
They were handed to her nearly before she finished the sentence. She switched places with the other woman, moving away from the boy's head, his worried, young face, and focusing on the real problem, his leg. And she needed to see how big of a problem it was. Again, that cool, detached feeling washed over her, and she cut into the leg of the boy's lightweight summer trousers.
She heard a few of the surrounding crowd gasp, heard poor John whimper, heard Elsie Hughes' soothing, quiet litany of comfort, but all it felt very far away. She looked down at the boy's mangled knee and shin, assessing, around the blood and grime, how bad it really was. It was bad, the bone poking through in one spot...but not terrible. He'd not lose it, at least, nor, did she think, it would affect his gait.
However, she needed to stop the bleeding, which was significant. And was going to certainly cause the boy pain. She paused for a second, then removed her jacket. She caught Elsie Hughes' eye, nodded. Pressed down on the wound, as carefully but as effectively as she could. She ignored his scream, and the responding, empathetic ones of the surrounding crowd.
"He's out, m'lady," Elsie Hughes murmured, stroking the boy's clammy forehead.
"Good," she replied briskly. "He needs a break from all of this, don't you think?" The crowd parted again, and she hoped it was the doctor, but she knew not enough time had passed for that to be possible, for someone from the hospital to be here yet. Time slowed down in these situations, if you were lucky and stayed calm. It'd likely only been five or six minutes since this boy flew through the air, landing in this unlucky way.
It wasn't the doctors then, no. Avers had returned with the ice, and some kitchen towels. Excellent.
"Mrs. Hughes, can you come down here, hold the ice against his leg, right beside his wound?" She didn't wait for a reply. The woman wasn't the sort that needed to be told twice. She looked up, at the circle of worried faces bent over them.
"Mr. Avers, might I have your necktie, please? And a few other gentlemen's?" The strips of fabric were laid in her outstretch palm: a striped, a paisley and two polka-dotted ones.
"Now what, m'lady?" Elsie Hughes glanced up at her, her cheeks pink with the heat of the day.
"We splint it," she replied, setting Violet's cane alongside the boy's crooked leg. It was exactly the right length. She positioned herself, gesturing for Elsie to do the same. "Hold it straight, and steady. I'll tie it on with these, but it's going to take some time to do it correctly." Her eyes stung as sweat rolled down into them, and she brushed her forehead distractedly.
She was fastening the second tie around the makeshift splint when the crowd parted again. And Richard Clarkson was suddenly across from her, next to Elsie Hughes, on the other side of the boy's leg. His eyes moved efficiently over the boy's prone figure, assessing. He pulled his eyelid back, nodded. Leaned over, listened to his breathing, nodded again, a small smile on his face now.
Looked at the two women: Elsie, pressing the ice pack to the boy's joint with one hand, holding Violet Crawley's cane with the other. Isobel, confidently securing the same to his leg, two ties thrown over her shoulder, awaiting usefulness.
"Good afternoon, ladies," he breathed, and held Isobel's gaze for a long moment. "Lady Isobel, can you give me an assessment of the patient? Mrs. Hughes, would you mind terribly trying to find this lad's mother? She works at shop at the top of the street. Tell her to go directly to the hospital. Walk her there, if you need to. Thank you, Mrs. Hughes."
Isobel watched Elsie Hughes dash away, then filled Richard Clarkson in on everything that had happened in the past fifteen minutes, as they worked together, quickly and efficiently, finished securing the split to his leg with the last two neckties. Two burly men arrived with a stretcher and loaded the lad carefully onto it, then walked him in the direction of the hospital.
The crowd was dispersing now that the excitement was over, some of them stopping at the disabled farm wagon, starting to clear it from the road. She saw the other cyclist, the boy who'd skidded at the end of the hill under the car, being tended to on the curb by a nurse and a younger doctor. He looked as if he'd lost the topmost layer of skin down the length of his left leg, but was otherwise unscathed.
Down the road, she could see Jack Davis standing by the car, and Cousin Violet ensconced in her rightful spot, in the back seat. Jack tipped his hat grandly at her, shaking a fist in the air in a triumphant gesture.
"Your driver is waiting, Lady Isobel," Richard Clarkson finally spoke.
"And your newest patient is waiting, Doctor," she answered. The cool clarity was gone. She felt tired, but proud.
"We both have places to be then," he snapped his bag closed, heaved a sigh. "It'll be messy, but that leg will heal properly, thanks to you."
She knew it; of course she did. She'd said as much to Violet Crawley when she dashed over here. Why, then, did it sound so gratifying, coming out of his mouth? Why did she care, exactly?
"I'm not at all certain about the neckties, but I will get Lady Violet's walking stick back to her, as soon as I can," he continued. She chanced a glance at him. His eyes were dancing with humor, and she felt her own mouth twitching. She burst out laughing, then so did he. Goodness, did it feel grand, to laugh like that.
"How pedestrian, using one's cane to splint a wound," she intoned, and they both laughed again. "That being said, Doctor, I best be off now, as should you. Good day to you." She started walking towards the car, towards a ride full of explanations and asides.
"Isobel," he said, and her breath caught high in her chest. She turned. "Lady Isobel. I know better than most you don't need me to say so, but well done. Very well done." His face was calm now, the laughter from a few moments before dried up. But he was still smiling at her.
She considered for a moment, than spoke before she could change her mind. "If the cane is salvageable, Doctor Clarkson, it makes the most sense for you to bring it to me, so I can ensure that, when it falls into Cousin Violet's hands, it's up to snuff."
She nodded, turned away from him. Kept her back straight and her pace easy, understanding she'd just invited Richard Clarkson to call on her, for absolutely no reason at all.