didn’t merely listen to her heart and her lungs, he asked a great deal of questions, and unlike the village doctor who had treated Maggie during her illness at Beasley Park, he seemed to be more interested in her answers than in the sound of his own voice.
Looking at him now, sitting across from her in the Trumbles’ library, his hair sticking up at odd angles and his spectacles twinkling in the sunlight that shone in through the tall windows, she felt a guarded sense of hope.
“Cases like yours are all too common, Miss Honeywell,” Dr. Hart said as Jane handed him a cup of tea. “Well-meaning family, and if you’ll forgive me, wrongheaded country physicians, who respond to any near brush with death by wrapping the patient in cotton wool. If I’ve said it once I’ve said it one hundred times, the sooner one resumes their normal day-to-day activities after such an illness, the sooner one is restored to health.”
“But how can I resume my normal life?” Maggie asked. “I’m not bedridden, it’s true, but I’m far from being able to walk all over the countryside, or gallop my horse, or any of the number of things I was used to do before I fell ill. Why, I nearly fainted after a simple stroll in the park last week.”
Having finished presiding over the tea tray, Jane took a seat beside Maggie on the library sofa. “Margaret is light-headed and faint whenever she overexerts herself. It’s my constant fear that she’ll swoon during one of our outings and crack her head open on the paving stones.”
Dr. Hart nodded in sympathy. “You are weak, Miss Honeywell. That I will not dispute. But while there’s certainly a portion of your weakness that can be attributed to the influenza, the majority, I believe, is a result of three years of enforced invalidism.”
Maggie listened as the doctor went on to explain how her already weak lungs had been made weaker still by her lack of activity, and in his opinion, two successive bouts of mourning that had kept her confined to the house with little opportunity for fresh air and sunlight—two items he deemed essential for recovery from any illness.
“I don’t hold with keeping my patients in darkened rooms with fires burning all year round. The outdoors is the place for healing. The countryside, ideally. Fresh air, sunlight, and short bouts of exertion several times each day. A turn about the garden, perhaps, or a walk down the drive. It needn’t be strenuous.”
“Then you believe Margaret can recover?” Jane asked. “That there’s a chance she’ll be well enough to do all that she did before?”
Dr. Hart scratched the side of his nose. “Well…No. Not precisely.” He looked at Maggie. “By your own description, your life preceding the influenza was a very active one. It’s unlikely you will ever be strong enough to resume that level of vigor. But you’re still relatively young. There’s no reason to say you won’t recover enough to ride again or to go for walks. It’s a matter of building your strength by slow degrees. Pushing yourself just enough without going too far, if that makes sense.”
The doctor remained another quarter of an hour, outlining his course of treatment while he finished his tea. He might have stayed longer if the butler hadn’t entered to inform Jane that Lord St. Clare and Lord Mattingly had come to call.
“I told them that you were not at home to callers today, Miss Trumble, but…” He gave a discreet cough. “Lord St. Clare was most insistent that I tell Miss Honeywell he was here.”
A smile threatened at the edge of Maggie’s mouth. In the week since St. Clare had first taken her driving, she’d seen or heard from him nearly every day.
One morning he’d contrived to accidentally run into her and Jane at Hookham’s Library. Another morning he’d crossed their path as they were exiting a shop in Bond Street. He’d twice sent her a large bouquet of flowers. And on two separate occasions, he’d come to call on her in Green Street.
Their interaction in town had been limited to a cordial greeting and an equally cordial “I’m obliged to you, my lord” when he’d offered her some assistance. Whether it was reaching a book for her from a high shelf at Hookham’s, or handing her up into the barouche outside the milliner’s in Bond Street, St. Clare never lost an opportunity to do her some little service.