The Doctor Takes a Wife

by Laurie Kingery

  Still looking down, she shook her head. “I haven’t told Ma,” she said. “She’d be ashamed of me. She’d want me to keep to home now that I’ve ‘disgraced’ myself. She’s in church now, so she doesn’t know I’m here.”

  Was Mrs. Spencer a church-going hypocrite, praying for the heathen in Africa while oblivious to the trouble within her own house? He was familiar with the type, but he hadn’t met the woman so he shouldn’t assume that was the case. Did Ada Spencer have no friends, then? But perhaps she had no one with whom she was willing to trust her secret.

  “I just want to make sure the baby’s healthy,” she murmured, glancing timidly up at him, then away again.

  “Where is the father?” he asked, careful to keep his tone neutral.

  “Dead,” Ada said, her tone as lifeless as the word. “He died when the Comanches attacked in October.”

  “I see.” Simpson Creek had suffered half a dozen casualties that memorable day he’d arrived. And now there would be a child born who would never know his father because of it, and a woman who might be bowed down with shame the rest of her life. “I’m sorry.”

  A tear trickled down Ada’s sallow face. “He wasn’t going to do right by me anyway,” she said. “He was leaving town that morning. It was his bad luck he happened to run into those savages.”

  Nolan remembered the man who’d appeared at the church, tied onto his horse, who’d lived only long enough to give a few moments’ warning of the impending raid.

  “And what do you plan to do, Miss Spencer? It’s none of my business, of course, but if you stay around town, people will eventually know that you’re with child. Have you considered relocating to another town—even another state, where you could say you were a widow?”

  Again, she shook her head. “Ma and Pa are old. I’m the only one left at home to take care of them. They won’t turn me out, even once they know.”

  But they won’t give her emotional support, either. He sighed, and wished he had a nurse he could call on to be present.

  “Very well, let’s have a look,” he said, opening the door to his exam room and beckoning her inside.

  Afterward, he waited for her at his desk in the adjoining room.

  “If you’re expecting, it’s very early,” he said, after she came in and sat down. “At this stage, I can’t be certain. When did you…that is…” He stopped, aware of the awkwardness of his question and wishing he could just spit it out instead of having to dance delicately around the point. He’d been so much more comfortable around soldiers, saying what he meant without having to think about it so carefully.

  “In September,” she said, thankfully sparing him having to come up with another euphemism. “It…it was only once or twice….”

  Nolan Walker sighed. Obviously once or twice had been enough. It was useless to wish the dead man had behaved honorably and married the girl before leaving her with child and getting himself killed.

  She wasn’t a bad-looking woman, he thought, though in her present depressed, shame-faced state it would be hard for a man to see her better qualities. How did one go about suggesting to a woman in this predicament that if she held her head high and was pleasant and charming, some good man might well come to accept her and the coming baby?

  Ah, well. He was a physician, not a counselor or matchmaker. Perhaps he could persuade her to trust Reverend Chadwick with her secret. The minister seemed like a decent man who wouldn’t shame this poor woman still further, but could give her good advice. And perhaps in time, she would trust one of her friends enough to enlist another’s company at her appointments with him, if her mother wasn’t willing once she knew the truth. Ada Spencer belonged to that Spinsters’ Club, didn’t she? So she must have some acquaintances, at least. He’d feel a lot more comfortable when he needed to examine Miss Spencer if she brought another female with her.

  “Very well, Miss Spencer,” he said. “If all goes well between now and sometime in the middle of June, I see no reason that you cannot deliver a strong healthy child. I’ll need to see you a few times before then, of course.”

  “The middle of June? That’s when my baby will come?” A spark of joy lit the woman’s narrow face, and he marveled. Even while she risked disgrace, a woman could find joy in the thought of a coming baby.

  “Based on what you told me about when the child was conceived, yes. Though babies, of course, have a mind of their own and can come earlier or later than when a physician predicts.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.”

  “You’re quite welcome, Miss Spencer.” He rose to indicate the appointment was over, and she moved quickly toward the door.

  “Oh, and Miss Spencer,” he said, trying to make his request sound casual, “why don’t you bring a friend with you next time you come? I’m sure it would be wiser for the sake of your reputation.” And mine.

  She looked back at him, then bolted out the door without another word.

  Chapter Four

  “My message,” Reverend Chadwick began, “is one I have felt compelled to preach today, the subject of forgiveness. Certainly this is a timely subject, in view of the recent national conflict that nearly tore our country in two forever. Maybe the Lord wanted me to speak on this because one person present is struggling to forgive another. But really, it doesn’t matter whether one person or twenty needs to hear it. I take my text from Matthew Chapter Eighteen, in which Peter is asking Jesus how many times he should forgive his brother.”

  Sarah winced inwardly. Of all the subjects for the pastor to preach about! And just after she had been thinking that his failure to attend church served as an additional reason why Dr. Nolan Walker deserved neither her forgiveness nor her friendship…

  Reverend Chadwick went on to describe how Jesus had decreed one should forgive seventy times seven. “Now, does the Lord mean we are only to forgive four hundred and ninety times? No, dear people, He means infinitely. If we don’t forgive, we aren’t forgiven—simple as that.”

  Sarah shifted uncomfortably in the pew, hoping the elegant Lord Edward and his kindly brother Richard didn’t notice. The white-haired pastor seemed to be speaking straight to her, though he wasn’t looking in her direction.

  “In fact,” Reverend Chadwick went on, “the Bible goes so far as to say if we take our gift to the altar, and discover we have something against our brother, we’re to go and make things right with him first.”

  Very well, then. She had brought a tithe of her profits from her bakery sales to put in the collection plate, but she’d hold on to the coins until she’d had a chance to speak to Dr. Walker. That was the right thing to do. It wouldn’t be easy—much would depend on how he responded, but surely Pastor Chadwick’s choice of this topic meant that she was to forgive Nolan Walker for serving with the Union Army. She could pay him a visit this very afternoon, after she and the Brookfield brothers met with the Milly and Nick for dinner and she saw them all off to Austin. After all, she was already in town, and had left dinner on the stove for the cowhands, so she didn’t have to get back to the ranch soon.

  She sighed, at peace with herself now, and admitted she was even looking forward to seeing the blue-eyed doctor and hearing him talk in that outlandish accent again. With some difficulty, she forced her attention back to the sermon.

  “Time to go see the newlyweds,” Edward murmured, after they had shaken hands with Reverend Chadwick and had spoken with several members of the congregation.

  “Yes. I think marriage will be good for Nicholas, especially marriage to your dear sister,” Richard told Sarah. “He’s made an excellent choice. Just think, Edward, now there’s only Violet for us to see safely married….”

  “As she’s hardly out of the schoolroom, I hope that will be some time from now,” his brother said, but Sarah was no longer listening.

  Instead of gazing down the main street of Simpson Creek to her right, toward the hotel where they would meet Nick and Milly for dinner, she had glanced to her left, where a low white picket fence
surrounded the doctor’s office.

  Just as she looked, the door opened. Perhaps Nolan had peered out, seen her emerge from the church and was coming to greet them? Perhaps she could say something to indicate she would like to talk to him later?

  But instead of Nolan Walker, she saw a female figure emerge, glance furtively at the townspeople strolling away from church, then turn away and walk quickly down the alley that ran past the side of the doctor’s office. A dark bonnet hid her features as soon as the woman turned her head, but in those brief seconds when she had been facing toward the church, Sarah recognized Ada Spencer.

  What is she doing there? Doctors don’t have office hours on Sunday mornings. Therefore she must have been there for a completely nonmedical purpose. Thinking about Ada’s secretive manner, Sarah was suddenly sure the two had been Up to No Good.

  She thought back to the summer, when Ada had been giddy with excitement over being courted by that Englishman Harvey Blakely. Blakely had come to try to blackmail Nicholas about his past or, if he wouldn’t cooperate, to expose Nick’s disgrace in India, but after failing to discredit Nick, Harvey had been the first casualty on the day of the Comanche attack. Ada had been a virtual recluse ever since, and never came to the Spinsters’ Club meetings. When she thought about her, at all, Sarah had assumed Ada was still mourning her English beau, scoundrel that he had been. In the excitement of her sister’s wedding, Sarah had forgotten all about Ada.

  Now, though, it seemed that Ada had set her cap at a new bachelor, and perhaps Nolan Walker was all too willing to meet with the vulnerable woman in his office at a time when they wouldn’t likely be interrupted by patients.

  They probably hadn’t even remained in the office. Behind it was the doctor’s private living quarters— Sarah knew this from her long friendship with Maude Harkey, the late doctor’s daughter and also a member of the Spinsters’ Club who had shared those quarters with her father until his death in the Comanche attack. When Dr. Walker had taken over as town physician, he had been offered the space, and Maude had moved in with a married sister in town.

  Sarah’s heart sank. Though she had been looking forward to clearing the air with Dr. Nolan Walker, and perhaps more, she knew now she had been right all along about him.

  Dr. Walker was nothing but a Yankee opportunist—little short of a carpetbagger. And now, it seemed, he was a womanizer as well, and was engaged in an improper relationship with a woman who had already proven she was more than willing to go to any lengths to have a suitor.

  Resolutely, Sarah turned her face away from the doctor’s office, and gazed directly ahead of her toward the hotel. She’d go straight home after her dinner with Milly and her new husband. She’d cook a fine supper for the cowhands and perhaps begin planning for her move to the cottage she would be sharing soon with Prissy.

  It was a good thing she’d found out about Dr. Walker’s true character before she’d made a fool of herself. Perhaps she should warn the others in the Spinsters’ Club, she thought, firmly ignoring the ache in her heart.

  The time had gone by quickly. Milly and Nick had arrived home December 23, and Sarah welcomed them back with a wonderful supper.

  “Oh, Sarah, why don’t you stay till after New Year’s?” Milly said the morning after Christmas. “It doesn’t seem right, your moving out right now. Why not stay till then?”

  “It was a wonderful Christmas, wasn’t it?” Sarah said. “Your first one as husband and wife,” she said, smiling at the couple across the table. “But Milly, I can’t keep putting it off. Today’s the perfect day. Bobby and Isaiah are already set to load up the buckboard right after breakfast, aren’t you?”

  Down the table, the two cowhands nodded.

  Sarah looked forward to sharing the cottage with Prissy, for her lively and vivacious friend knew no strangers. It would be fun teaching Prissy how to cook and manage a household. And what would it be like, not having to cook three square meals a day for hungry cowboys, and hitch up the horse whenever she had baked goods to deliver?

  An hour later, all was in readiness for her departure.

  “Now remember, you—”

  “Can always come back,” Sarah finished for Milly, from her perch on the driver’s seat of the wagon loaded with her bed and chest of drawers, as well as a pair of chairs Milly said she could spare. “I know. And perhaps I will, after I teach Prissy a few basic kitchen and housekeeping skills.”

  “She couldn’t possibly be any slower to learn to cook than I was,” Milly said. “Now, with the fried chicken, you dip it in the beaten eggs, then the flour and spices, right?” She was to cook her first dinner without help tonight, and she’d already admitted she was nervous about it.

  “Right. Actually, I’m more worried about teaching Prissy how to launder clothes than the cooking,” Sarah said. “She still thinks doing the laundry consists of handing her dirty clothes to the housekeeper. But don’t worry, your first supper will be fine.”

  “Of course it will, darling,” said Nick, who’d been helping Bobby and Isaiah load the wagon. He put an arm affectionately around his wife’s waist.

  Sarah watched them with a certain wistfulness. She was so happy for her sister, yet wondered if she would ever know this happiness herself.

  She straightened and nodded to Bobby, sitting next to her and holding the reins, and Isaiah, who waited on his horse beside them. They were coming along to help her move her furniture into the cottage. “We’re burning daylight, as Josh would say. I reckon we’d better get going.”

  By noon, the men had unloaded everything on the wagon, placed it all wherever Sarah and Prissy had directed in the little cottage, rid the house of a mouse that had sent Prissy shrieking in panic out into the yard and departed. Now Sarah and Prissy sat down and enjoyed the sandwiches Sarah had packed for their midday meal.

  “It’s shaping up well, isn’t it?” Prissy said, surveying with satisfaction the room that served as a combined dining area and parlor. They had arranged the round oak table between the kitchen and the couch and chairs, and there was a fireplace along the back wall. Behind the dining room and parlor, a short hallway divided the two bedrooms.

  “Small, but cozy,” Sarah agreed. “But I just realized something I should have thought of before…”

  “What’s that?”

  “Now that I’m here, I won’t have the wagon to deliver my baked goods to the hotel and mercantile. It’s a lot to carry, so I’m either going to make at least a couple of trips back and forth to the cottage, or—”

  “I could help you carry your pies and cakes,” Prissy offered.

  “Thanks, but it’s not fair for you to have to do that several times a week. I think I’ll just go see if Mr. Patterson has a little pull-cart he could trade me for this week’s pies.” She arose, and took her woolen shawl and bonnet from the pegs by the door. “I need to discuss with him and the hotel owner when I can start delivering again, anyway.” She had notified her customers she would not be baking again till after the move. “Do you want to come with me?”

  “No, I think I’ll work on arranging my bedroom,” Prissy said. She stretched and rubbed the small of her back. “I have a feeling my bed’s going to feel very good tonight, after all the boxes we’ve been carrying and the furniture we’ve been arranging and rearranging. Oh, and while you’re there, would you look and see if they have anything lighter for curtain material? Mama’s castoff damask curtains are just too dark and heavy for this room, don’t you think?”

  Sarah nodded her agreement. “I’ll look at the bolts of cloth while I’m there. Perhaps a dotted swiss…” Sewing was Milly’s area of expertise, but surely she could sew a simple pair of gathered curtains.

  It only took her five minutes to walk from the cottage on the grounds of the mayor’s property, out the wrought-iron gates and down Simpson Creek’s main street to the mercantile. The weather was cool, and lowering clouds in the north promised colder weather still, perhaps even a “blue norther.” Might they even have som
e snow? It was too bad it had not come in time for Christmas, if so…

  Distracted by her thoughts, she didn’t remember to look out for the warped board that lay halfway between the hotel and the mercantile—

  —and suddenly she was falling headlong, her arms flailing in a vain attempt to regain her balance. She cried in alarm as her shawl slid off backward and her forearms skidded along the rough boards. The fabric of her left sleeve snagged on a protruding nail which sliced a three-inch furrow into the tender flesh of her arm, leaving stinging pain in its wake.

  And blood. A crimson trickle, then a rivulet welled up from the lacerated flesh, staining the cloth. Dizzy and nauseated at the sight, she closed her eyes, hoping she was not about to faint.

  Then there were voices and running footsteps from inside the store, and a pounding on the boards as someone ran up the walk from behind her. “Miss Matthews! Are you all right? I saw you fall.”

  Sarah recognized the voice of Mr. Patterson, the owner of the mercantile. She heard another voice asking, “Wait, don’t try to move her. Can you hear me, Miss Matthews?” She recognized that voice, too—that of the very last person she wanted to have witnessed her humiliation, Dr. Nolan Walker.

  Her recognition galvanized her and kept her from giving into the blackness that she might well have surrendered to otherwise. She opened her eyes. “Of course I can. I’m fine. Just…give me a minute.”

  She opened her eyes, and saw that he was kneeling beside her.

  “Can you move your limbs, Miss Matthews?”

  “Of course I can,” she said again, and to prove it, struggled to sit up.

  “Wait. Just lie there a moment, get your bearings.” he commanded her, coolly professional. “Lift your head.” He wrenched off his coat, and laid it under her head.

  “I assure you, Dr. Walker, I have my bearings.”

  He ignored her. “Mr. Patterson, could you please get me some clean cloths and water?”

  By now a trio of curious cowboys riding by, and a couple of small boys who’d been shooting marbles across the street, had stopped to gawk at her, and she felt her face flaming with embarrassment. “Please, I don’t want to be a public spectacle.” She reached out a hand. “And it’s cold. Help me inside.”