Page 38 of Gallant Waif
Kate smiled slightly. “Do I, indeed?” Her face sobered. “Well, I did have two brothers and a father who died there. Now, have you had enough of a rest to continue, or do you wish to rest a moment or two more?”
That got him moving again. Kate was relieved, but, more than that, he’d given her the opening she’d wanted. “Not all doctors are butchers, you know,” she said after a time.
He snorted.
“It’s true,” she insisted. “I once met the most wonderful physician, descended from a long line of physicians, right back to the Moors, who used methods of treatment that enabled some terrible wounds to heal almost like new.”
“Humph!”
“For instance, with a bad leg like yours,” she persisted, “where the wound had healed, but the muscles had lost their strength, he would order that the leg be massaged three times daily with hot oils, the oil being rubbed well in and each part of the leg stretched and pummelled.”
“Ah…” he said ironically. “A torturer. I have heard that some of those oriental types have the most subtle and fiendish methods.”
“I know it sounds like that, but it is truly efficacious, though it is not at all comfortable at first.” Kate remembered the groans of anguish that her brother Jemmy had uttered when the treatment first began, and how it had taken all her will-power to continue the treatment.
“After a few short weeks, the limb begins to strengthen and, with added exercise, I believe that almost full power can be returned in some cases.”
“Rubbish!” he snapped curtly. “Unscrupulous leeches preying on credulous fools.”
Kate understood his hostility. Hope could be very painful.
“Possibly,” she said quietly. “I suppose it depends on the wound, but this treatment had my brother walking after our English doctors had told him he would never be without crutches again.”
She paused to let that sink in. “And his wound was very bad, enough to have them planning to amputate.”
Kate would never forget frantically clinging to the surgeon’s arm, begging him to wait for another opinion, and then the final relief when her father had burst into the tent and wrested the saw from the man’s drunken hand.
“Perhaps the method may help your leg.”
“I doubt it!”
“It could not hurt to try, surely?” she coaxed.
“Dammit! You know nothing about it, girl! I have been mauled enough by incompetents from the medical fraternity and I will have nothing to do with any more quack cures, especially those dreamed up by mysterious oriental fakirs!”
Kate felt a wave of frustration surge through her. It was perfectly obvious to her that he had been attempting to ride his horse in defiance of the medical prognosis he had been given and despite the pain his leg was so clearly giving him. It was sheer insanity to attempt to use a barely healed limb for strenuous exercise.
“Don’t be so stupid. You cannot simply ignore damage done to muscles and sinews and ride by will-power alone. You are just a man, with a man’s body. You were dreadfully injured and I am sorry for it, but you must face the fact of your injury, instead of pretending it does not exist.”
“What the devil would you know about it? I’m damned if I’ll give in to it,” he growled, attempting to thrust her away.
Kate glared right back at him. “And who said you should give in to it?” she demanded. “Not I—I said face facts, not give in.”
“Dammit, girl, you go too far. This is none of your concern!”
“Well, if you wish to ride that horse instead of falling off it all the time, you will have to do something differently,” Kate said furiously. “You may be able to walk on that leg, but it is so stiff and weak you cannot grip on to a horse. And if you keep doing what you are doing you will end up giving yourself a much more serious injury. You need to retrain your muscles and exercise them. The treatment I spoke of is specifically aimed to restore flexibility and muscle strength…”
The words died on her tongue. Jack was staring at her with such a mixture of humiliation, outraged pride and sheer fury that she recoiled, thinking for a moment that he might strike her.
“Damn you to hell and back, girl! Mind your own blasted business!” he exploded. “I don’t need your damned unwanted advice, I don’t need your blasted quack miracle cures and I don’t need your damned assistance. I can make my own way to the house!”
Kate knew she should stop, but she had to have one last try, using an analogy he might accept. “What would you think of a trainer, who, after a horse had fallen and injured itself, put it straight at the highest jump, and expected it to succeed? Would you not think him a fool?”
He was silent. Not knowing whether to feel encouraged or not, Kate continued, “A man who wants such a horse to jump again would surely walk it over low jumps, gradually raising them until it is strong enough and confident enough to jump anything. Well, wouldn’t he? Think about it, Mr Carstairs.”
He stared at her, and for a moment Kate thought her argument might have reached him. But, gritting his teeth against the pain, Jack pushed her roughly away and began to stump painfully towards the house.
“You stupid stubborn man!” raged Kate, going after him and inserting her shoulder under his again. “If you don’t want to listen to what I say, well, of course, that is your right, short-sighted as it may be…No, Iwon’tbe pushed away! How ridiculously…” she cast around for an adequate adjective “…manlike…to reject my practical assistance when you know you need it.”
