Sweet Everlasting

by Patricia Gaffney

  Carrie Wiggins.

  Tyler handed the letter back. Stoneman took it without comment, averting his face—but not before Ty saw the shine of moisture in his eyes. The sight amazed him. Stoneman, the most cynical old bird he’d ever known, a vigorous atheist, contemptuous of anything approaching sentimentality—turning teary-eyed over a girl’s simple expression of sympathy. Or perhaps it was only the poignant memory of his daughter’s loss. Whatever it was, Tyler had to admit that something childlike and tenderhearted in the note had affected him, too. He cleared his throat. “But she’s a loner, you say?”

  “It’s more that she’s timid,” Stoneman said gruffly, pouring more gin. “Or afraid, more like—not without pretty good cause, either. This is a decent town, but it’s small and it’s got its share of small-mindedness. There’s some around here who don’t take to anybody who’s different.”

  A gust of wind blew an angry handful of sleet against the window; an answering puff of smoke belched from the vent in the coal stove door. Ty shivered, even though the room was warm.

  “Do you know about Carrie’s wildlings?” Stoneman resumed, sitting forward, elbows on his bony knees. “That’s what she calls all the sick animals she takes care of up there on the mountain. Starving orphans, birds with broken wings, gun-shot deer.” He sent Ty another look, as if daring him to laugh. “Sometimes she’s like a wild creature herself. She’s got this way of gathering herself in and withdrawing, shutting down physically when she feels cornered. An instinct, you know, a defense against danger. I’ve seen it,” he declared almost belligerently, although Tyler hadn’t challenged him by so much as a look. “And I’m telling you, it’s enough to break your heart.”

  The two men lapsed into silence. A few minutes later they roused themselves to argue about whether neurotic females outnumbered neurasthenic males, and a little later, about the best way to distinguish typhoid fever from appendicitis before the patient hemorrhaged and died. But their hearts weren’t in disagreeing with each other tonight. Before the clock struck eleven Stoneman stood up, drunk but dignified, and took his leave.

  Tyler put the kitchen light out and got ready for bed. Barefooted, shivering in his nightshirt, he went back into the sitting room to check one more time on Shadow and try to get a last dose of potassium bromide down her throat. The silence warned him, for he knew exactly how death sounded. He lifted the blanket. The black nose was dull and dry, the eyes vacant, lips drawn back in a pitifully harmless snarl. Carrie’s dog had given up the fight.

  4

  TYLER’S SHOVEL HIT A rock. Hard. The steely impact jolted up the length of his leg and exploded in the vicinity of the bullet lodged two inches above his kneecap, vibrating pain throughout his body like a struck gong vibrates sound. He stood still, breath gone, waiting for the pain to fade. It did, but the tinny ringing in his ears persisted. He knew too well what that could precede. Gingerly, he stepped up from the rectangular grave he’d just decided was deep enough. Across the yard, a flash of blue caught his eye in the second before the next pain, the real pain, struck.

  Then the shovel slipped from his fingers, and he dropped to his knees. He kept the ground from coming up and hitting him in the face by pressing it back with both palms and gritting his teeth. The unlocalized agony along his nerve endings continued at its own leisurely pace, in the rising and falling pattern he knew by heart; but even at its blistering worst, he was aware that the pain wasn’t as severe this time as it had once been.

  Through the ringing in his ears he heard the fast crunch of snow, and a moment later two arms came around his shoulders. He turned his head. Carrie Wiggins was kneeling beside him, holding tight, anxious-eyed, and trying to read his face. Already the attack was receding—they were shorter in duration than they used to be, too. A minute passed; “I’m all right,” he managed to say with a measure of truth at its conclusion. But she held on and didn’t let go, not until he took his hands away from the frozen ground and sat back on his heels. When he looked at her again she was staring at him, and in her dark gray eyes he saw grave concern mixed with what looked like guilt. She gestured toward the grave and gave a quick, remorseful shake of the head, and he guessed what she was thinking.

  He took deep, steadying gulps of the icy air. “No, it wasn’t the exertion,” he got out, wiping perspiration from his forehead. Not only that, anyway. “Once in a while I have spells, attacks of neuralgia. It’s a residual effect of a disease I contracted a year and a half ago. It’s nothing now, much better than it used to be.” She didn’t look reassured. “I’m all right, honestly.” He really was; he stood up to prove it. She reached for his arm to help, and only let go of it, warily, once he was on his feet. He knew how paper-white he could turn during these episodes, and spoke once more to set her at ease. “There, I’m fine, you see? Thanks for your help.” For a few more seconds she continued to eye him carefully: Then, apparently deciding he was telling the truth, she stepped away.

  He’d wrapped her dog in an old army blanket; the still, dark bundle lay a few feet away from the hole he’d dug in the hard earth. He watched her walk toward it, sorrow in every line of her slow, long-legged step, and sink to her knees beside it. For a few minutes he kept his distance. She had on a coat today, not the thin shawl; it was a man’s coat, dark blue wool, the too-long sleeves rolled back at the cuffs. Beneath it were the blue dimity skirts of the same dress she’d worn yesterday. Today he could see a series of faint lines at the hem; if he counted them, he would know exactly how many times the dress had been let down. Her ankles might be trim, even delicate, but it was hard to tell because of her mannish leather shoes and thick stockings. She had on a dented felt hat with a rather chewed-looking brim; it might have been black once, but now it was rusty green with age. For all that, she didn’t really look drab; in fact, he thought she looked almost elegant in her inelegant clothes.

  Finally he went to her, bent and put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d be able to make it down the mountain today, because of the snow. So—I thought it best to bury Shadow here. Is it all right?” She nodded without looking up. “Are you sure? If you’d rather take her back with you—” She shook her head, glancing up briefly. She was crying.

  He crouched down beside her. “I promise you, Carrie, she didn’t suffer. She just went to sleep. There was no pain at all.” She tried to send him a grateful look through the tears. “Would you like to see her?” She put her hand on her throat, as if it ached; he thought she would refuse, but a moment later she took a shuddery breath and nodded.

  He pulled the army blanket back from Shadow’s grizzled old head, thankful that the dog’s death-snarl had relaxed and her eyes were closed, not glazed and staring. He got to his feet and walked a little distance away. Dusk was closing in; the clouds were a livid purple in the western sky, gunmetal in the east. Delicate lilac shadows darkened the rolling, glittering snow-cover of his yard, shading to lavender under the yew hedges. In the distance he could hear the jingling song of a sparrow, high and light, like tinkling icicles in the twilight. When he turned back, Carrie was climbing to her feet and blotting her face with an oversized red handkerchief.

  They buried the dog together. When he’d thrown the last spadeful of dirt, he saw her look around his barren yard, as if searching for something that might serve for flowers, something alive, a token of remembrance to honor her friend. But there was nothing. Her eyes clouded. She knelt in the dirt and put both flat palms on top of the grave in farewell; a last caress. He wanted to comfort her, as he would try to comfort any griefstricken survivor of a lost patient. The fact that she mourned for a scruffy mongrel dog made no difference. Grief took many forms, he knew now, its objects innumerable and unaccountable. Only a fool disparaged another person’s heartache, and it didn’t matter if the mourned were a man, an animal, or an insect.

  At length Carrie stood up and looked at him across the grave. Dry-eyed, she tried to smile, but her quivering lips gave her away. “Come inside,” he invited, reali
zing she was shivering. She hesitated. “Where’s your wagon?”

  She shook her head, frowning.

  “You walked?”

  A matter-of-fact nod.

  “Come inside,” he repeated, stern this time. “You’re freezing—come in and get warm. Come on.” He started walking toward the house, watching her over his shoulder. Stoneman’s words came back to him: Sometimes she’s like a wild creature herself. She looked alert, wary, every sense tuned to the possibility of danger. Tyler stored the shovel in the shed under his porch steps, walked back, and put a foot on the first stair, moving loosely, casually—the way he’d learned to move when trying to calm a growling, distrustful dog on guard at a patient’s front door. “Come on,” he said once more, mildly. “I’ll make us a pot of tea. You can help me.”

  That worked. She paused for two more seconds, then followed him across the yard and up the stairs to his kitchen.

  He hung up his coat, a black, ankle-length wool duster that kept his legs warm on long trips in his rented buggy, and turned to Carrie to take hers. She backed up a step, smiling, giving a mock shiver to indicate she was still too cold to relinquish it. But he suspected the real reason was because she wanted its extra insulating layer of protection between herself and him. She slid her hat off, indifferently ruffling her hair where the hat had flattened it. He thought again that she had pretty hair despite the haphazard style; and yet she seemed unaware of it, or indeed, of any other aspect of her own femininity.

  He put the kettle on the stove and got down cups and saucers. “Would you like to sit down?” he asked over his shoulder. When she hesitated again, weighing God knew what nameless fears, he folded his arms and leaned back against the sink, telling her with his posture that if she sat she would be safe, because he meant to stand.

  She sat.

  “How long a trip is it up the mountain to your house? “he wondered conversationally.

  She pointed to her legs and held up one finger.

  “An hour by foot,” he guessed. “But faster with the mule?” That made her smile, and give a little rueful shake of the head. “No?” He laughed, and her smile broadened. She had a generous mouth, sensitive and self-conscious, with lips that curved up daintily at the corners. Her nose was on the long side, and sharp, almost pointed at the tip; it gave her a sober aspect in keeping with the serious gray eyes but not the wide, sensuous mouth, which seemed to Ty to hint, in an artless way, at any number of possibilities. Because of her coloring, he wondered if there was Irish in her ancestry. What sort of name was Wiggins? But no—that was her stepfather’s name, not hers. She flushed and looked down at her hands, and he realized he was staring.

  The kettle began to steam. “I can do it,” he told her when she started to get up to help. She lapsed back into her chair, and he could feel her eyes on him as he poured water into the teapot and milk into the pitcher, loaded a tray with everything, and carried it over to the table. He took the chair opposite her. Before he could do it, she reached for the teapot and poured out a cup for him. “Two,” he said, answering her silent question about sugar, and “Yes, a lot,” to the one about milk.

  She poured her own next. Her long-fingered, rather bony hands were strong and work-rough, but also subtle and expressive. How old was she, sixteen? Seventeen? He assumed she was not well-educated; obviously she was poor. Still, with the exception of his mother, he didn’t think he’d ever seen a woman pour tea with a more unself-conscious grace.

  He sipped his tea, leaning back in his chair. The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable, at least not to him. He broke it anyway, in case it was to her. “There’s a mule at the livery stable Hoyle Taber likes to rent out to me every chance he gets. Poison is his name. You’ve probably seen him around—he’s only got one ear, and something’s eaten about half his tail off.” Carrie smiled and shook her head. “I ask you, Miss Wiggins, how is a young doctor to maintain his dignity behind an animal like that?” That made her grin, showing even white teeth.

  “That mule of yours, now, I’ll bet he knows the way home by himself.” She nodded. “Well, certainly. Even the dumbest animal knows how to get home, especially the closer he gets to his dinner. Not Poison, though. The other night I fell asleep in the buggy, coming back from a call. I woke up just about frozen to death, standing still in the middle of Broad Street at two o’clock in the morning. That wooden-headed jackass was fast asleep with his lips on the ground. I swear I could hear him snoring.”

  Her silent laughter tickled him; he laughed with her. She’d gone so far as to unbutton her coat; she looked as relaxed as he’d yet seen her. Smoothly, gently, he asked, “How long have you been unable to speak?”

  The smile in her shadowy gray eyes evaporated. She made a vague, airy gesture with one hand and looked away.

  He waited, letting the stillness become awkward. When it was clear she wasn’t going to enlarge on that answer, he said, “How long?” again, quietly.

  This time she shrugged, and held both palms up in the air.

  “For as long as you can remember?”

  Another shrug.

  “How old are you?”

  She held up ten fingers, then eight.

  He masked his surprise; except for the adult wariness in her eyes, she looked younger. “Could you speak when you were a little girl? “She looked at him then, carefully, narrowly, as if gauging exactly how far she might be able to trust him.

  Not very far. She put her hand to her forehead and gave a futile little wave. I can’t remember.

  He didn’t believe her.

  She pushed her chair back and started to stand. To forestall her, he said, “I’d like to examine your throat sometime, Carrie.”

  The chair scraped the floor. She was on her feet, smiling tensely and shaking her head. Tyler stood, too, but made no move toward her. “No? All right, never mind, then.” She began to button her coat, never taking her eyes from him. “It wouldn’t hurt, though. All I’d do is look. Think about it. Maybe someday.” He stayed where he was and kept his voice light and casual, and after a moment some of the strain went out of her shoulders.

  She took something from her pocket and laid it on the table. He stared blankly down at a dollar bill. “What’s that for?” But then he guessed. “For Shadow? Thank you, I don’t want it.” Vigorous nods; she pushed the bill closer. “No, really, it’s not necessary.” She frowned. He took the bill and held it out to her. “Take it back, Carrie, I don’t want it. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more for her.” She took the money reluctantly, eyes troubled, and put it back in her pocket.

  A second later her face cleared and she reached into another pocket, withdrawing a small, bumpy-looking parcel wrapped in brown paper.

  “What’s this?”

  With a tentative smile, she laid it on the table. Before he could touch it, she turned and hurried over to the door, pulling her ungainly hat on as she reached for the knob.

  “Wait—” But she was already outside, starting down the steps. “Good night!” he called in the doorway, watching her retreating back. She didn’t wave, and the cold black night enveloped her quickly. He stopped himself from calling out “Good night” a second time; she couldn’t answer, and he didn’t think he wanted to hear this forlorn silence again in the wake of his words.

  He shut the door on the cold, imagining her long, solitary walk home in the dark. She would cry again for her dog, he was sure. She hadn’t finished her tea. He wished he’d thought to give her something to eat.

  The paper-wrapped bundle lay on the table. He reached for it—just as a sharp knock sounded behind him and the door squeaked open again.

  “Evening, Dr. Wilkes,” his housekeeper greeted him, already unwinding the bulky woolen scarf she’d wound around her neck about seven times.

  “Mrs. Quick, how are you this evening?”

  “About the same, not that perky. I think I got the dropsy in my shoulder.”

  “Your shoulder? Well, I doubt—”

  “Aches like th
e dickens. I can make your supper all right, but I’m not sure I can run the carpet sweeper or scrub this floor tonight.”

  “That’s all right, just—”

  “By the way.” She’d taken off her boots and hung up her coat, sweater, scarf, hat, and mittens, and she was facing him foursquare with her hands on her wide, white-aproned hips. She fixed him with her wrinkled-prune look, as he thought of it, and he knew he was in for one of her disagreeable diatribes about something or other. He’d inherited Mrs. Quick from Stoneman, who hadn’t minded her because “she’s sourer than I am, and that’s saying something.” She had a million aches and pains, more advice than an almanac, and never a good word to say about anybody.

  “I couldn’t help noticing that Wiggins girl coming down your steps just now,” she said aggressively, thrusting out the foremost of her several chins. “Maybe it ain’t my place, but this is a good Christian town, and some might say it don’t look right, you having a young girl up here alone with you in your house.”

  Tyler blinked in surprise and annoyance, and a minute particle of guilt. He couldn’t think of a thing to say. Except, “Thank you, Mrs. Quick, for your candor and concern. I’ll certainly consider your advice.”

  She nodded, gloomily satisfied. As she began to clear the tea things from the table, he thought of something else to say: Nobody in this good Christian town would know I had a “young girl” up here unless you told them, you potato-faced busybody. Instead of saying it, he snatched up Carrie’s parcel from the kitchen table and escaped into the sitting room.

  The problem, he thought as he stoked the coal stove and then dropped heavily into his chair, was that the old toad was probably right. Wayne’s Crossing was no more narrow-minded than most country towns its size, but he knew there were plenty of people here who would view his innocent entertainment of Carrie Wiggins this afternoon as compromising. Compromising. What a laugh. They’d disapprove of her drinking tea with him in his kitchen, but they wouldn’t think twice if she lay buck naked on his examining table downstairs, with nobody in the room but him. Private doctors in Philadelphia had women assistants present when they examined naked ladies, but there were no such amenities in Wayne’s Crossing. Nobody gave it a thought.