“A doctor can be present and still fail to act.”
“Who else will they admit?”
Augusta considered the question.
A physician named Ruthven Pierce had recently treated one of the colonel’s business partners and had enough standing to insist on examining a dangerously ill child.
He was not a friend of the family, but he valued his professional name and feared being accused of negligence.
“I will write him,” Augusta said.
“Will he listen to you?”
“He has before.”
Mercy carried the letter to his office that afternoon.
Pierce read it without interruption, then asked for the infant’s approximate age, symptoms, and known medical history.
Mercy answered what she could and admitted what she did not know.
“I cannot guarantee an intervention,” he said.
“I know.”
“And I cannot involve myself in an ownership dispute.”
“You are being asked to examine a child.”
The physician looked at her for a long moment.
“That much I can do.”
He traveled to Hawthorne with a medical bag and a note stating that Augusta had requested a second assessment.
Nathaniel tried to send him away, but Eleanor appeared from the staircase and demanded he be admitted.
“The boy has been coughing,” she said.
“I want another opinion.”
Pierce examined the child in the nursery while Avery watched.
He recommended warmth, rest, and continued attention to breathing, refusing to describe the infant’s condition in terms of inheritance or parentage.
“He needs care, not argument,” Pierce said.
Eleanor pressed her hand to the bassinet.
“Will he live?”
“I cannot promise that,” Pierce answered.
“But he has a better chance if you stop moving him from room to room to satisfy visitors.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“The trustees are coming.”
“Then let them wait outside.”
Pierce’s refusal surprised even Eleanor.
After he left, Avery accused her of humiliating him before another physician.
“I wanted my son examined,” she said.
“Your son?” Avery asked.
Eleanor froze.
“What did you mean by that?”
Avery took his bag and moved toward the door.
“You know what I mean.”
The exchange confirmed that the doctor possessed knowledge he was using to keep her anxious.
Eleanor understood suddenly that Caleb was not the only person trapped by somebody else’s threat.
But unlike Caleb, she had helped build the trap.
Chapter Twenty-Six: A Meeting Without Caleb
The winter trustees’ meeting took place in the library at Hawthorne on a gray morning when the river banks were rimmed with frost.
Three men arrived in black coats, accompanied by a clerk and a young lawyer named Marian Cross who had been asked to review the family settlement.
