Page 5 of It Happened in the Highlands
“Dr. McKendry is looking for you, Captain. He’s in his office.”
Telling the former purser that Cuffe would likely be absent from his afternoon lessons, Wynne then ascended the stairs. He walked past his own office—an oasis of order and calm—and entered Dermot’s chaotic workplace. Regardless of the constant nagging of the housekeeper during the weekly cleaning, every surface of the spacious room was covered with papers and folders, and the floor was little better. Textbooks and medical journals were scattered about and piled in corners. Volumes lay open on every available chair and on top of stacks of paper.
Each man had his own method of managing his affairs, and neither interfered with the ways of the other, though Wynne was often sorely tempted by the sight of Dermot’s mess.
Standing at a tall desk by a window, the doctor was inscribing notes in an open ledger. He turned around and tossed the pen on top of the book when he heard Wynne enter.
“You’re back.” He smiled, satisfaction evident on his face. “The most extraordinary circumstances have developed with our new patient.”
“Charles Barton?” Wynne asked. “A change in his condition already?”
“Come and see for yourself.” Dermot came around his desk.
Ten days ago, Charles Barton, fifty-six years of age, arrived at the Abbey emaciated and unresponsive, delivered for permanent care by his aging mother, a local landowner. Her son, Mrs. Barton explained, had arrived home at Tilmory Castle in this condition after sustaining a head injury during an explosion aboard some merchant ship months earlier.
Though the old woman had provided generous financial support to make certain her son would be well cared for in his final days, Dermot believed that Barton’s demise was not imminent.
“I heard an uproar of some kind coming from the direction of the gardens,” the doctor said, as they started down the stairs to the hospital ward.
Wynne nodded. “I understand the pigs had some extra greens in their diet, thanks to Cuffe.”
The men exchanged a look. Nothing more needed to be said. Wynne’s struggles with new parenthood weren’t lost on Dermot. “Well, I’m certain Hamish will have everything back on an even keel in no time.”
“I hope so,” Wynne replied. “I took your aunt’s recommendation and stopped down at the village and spoke to the vicar about providing Cuffe with some religious instruction. It was agreed that an hour a week would—”
“You should have asked Blane McKendry about golfing instruction instead.” Dermot shook his head. “I happen to know that old heathen can teach Cuffe more about niblicks and longnoses than he can about Psalms and Beatitudes.”
Regardless of the weather, the Squire and his brother the vicar met every day to chase their golf balls across the fields.
Wynne and Dermot entered the nearly empty ward. He’d seen many of the patients outside. At the far end of the long and spacious room, two handlers were settling Stevenson, the only unpredictable patient in the hospital. Still in his twenties, the former dockworker from Aberdeen had been diagnosed with “furious mania.” Highly disturbed, he had occasional bouts of violence, and any irritation could upset him. Even now, he was upbraiding the handlers with loud obscenities and clutching his tam protectively to his chest.
Wynne knew it took a special temperament and character to treat lunatics. Dermot would not permit the use of shackles, though they were commonly used elsewhere, and only Stevenson was restrained at night. The doctor believed attempts should be made to cure these men, and short of that, they should at least be allowed to live decently.
Charles Barton, their newest patient, was sitting by a sunny window halfway down the room with a secretary’s desk on his lap. Thin fingers moved a pencil lightly over paper.
“He’s conscious!” Wynne exclaimed.
“More or less,” the doctor said. “He has yet to speak a word.”
The two men crossed the ward to the window, but Barton didn’t look up or acknowledge their presence. The man’s greying curls were bound in a head wrapping, and his pale, sunken cheeks sported a thick beard.
“His mother made no mention of it, but we’ve discovered that Mr. Barton is an accomplished artist,” Dermot told him. “But the fascinating thing is that he likes to draw the same face, the same young woman, over and over.”
The old man’s eyes were fixed on a sheet of paper, his fingers becoming more insistent as he finished with a drawing and reached for a clean sheet.
“I’d like to know the subject of this man’s obsession.” Dermot handed the recently drawn sheet to his friend. “It might help with the patient’s recovery.”
Wynne gazed at the drawing in his hands. He’d seen those dark curls before in a thousand dreams. He’d seen them swept up, and he’d seen them falling gracefully over those slender shoulders. He’d seen those eyes, so precisely angled above the high cheekbones. The delicate nose, the set of the mouth. Those lips.
Recognition struck him like a bolt of lightning. He felt the blood drain from his face. It can’t be, he thought. Alarm and hope battled for dominance.
Wynne picked up another sketch. And then another. He stared at each one in turn. All the same woman. There was no question.
* * *
It was only yesterday, the first time they met.
The flushed faces of dancers in their gowns of gold and blue and green, and their evening suits of black, and uniforms of red and blue. Around him, his fellow officers were joking and pointing out prospective brides and conquests.
