by Rose Lerner
Breath clogged in her throat and she felt overwhelmed with gratitude for him. For his understanding.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Go, before Steven finds us and punches me in the nose for fun.”
That he could joke in the end, was the best proof that this was not the end of them.
Chapter 19
* * *
The next morning, James was called away.
Over morning coffee Annie tried to explain how Gordon Hughes’s intervertebral discs had collapsed in the night due to the haematogenous spread of tuberculosis from his lungs.
Helen didn’t understand a word of it, but she imagined James, competent and solemn, doing what he could for that man and she was proud.
And, shamefully, relieved he wasn’t here to see her off. She was a bit of a mess this morning. Her emotions erratic. And she feared one look at him might reveal to everyone in the house what they’d done in front of that fireplace.
What she longed to do again at the nearest opportunity.
So, with very little fanfare, she gathered up what little she owned, and Steven took her in the wagon to the Inter-Ocean hotel.
Where she reserved the corner suite, with views of the river and the distant mountains. Where the bed was hung with heavy satin and the tea service was made with china rimmed in real gold.
Immediately it was obvious she was far too shabby for this room, and she stuffed her reticule with money and went shopping.
Stationery and toiletries. A whole new wardrobe. New dresses. New hats. Boots. A warm cloak. As a thank-you for all her care, she picked up a bright, warm bonnet for Annie, because the very practical woman had a surprising weakness for such things.
And then, because she was a worldly woman with means, she also bought for Annie a very fine silk chemise with a pretty red ribbon strung through the neckline. A gift, she imagined, for Steven as well.
For Elizabeth and the baby, a few toys and warm clothes. And books, because Elizabeth was hopeless for stories about riverboat captains.
She had all those things delivered to Annie’s house with thank-you notes.
She bought James a new waistcoat. A dark red one, the color of wine, trimmed with black velvet. It was so elegant, and the thought of how he would look in it was a giddy little thrill.
She had that package delivered, as well, with a note just for James.
The ragged old day dress she left in a heap on the floor of the dress shop and wore one of her brand-new purchases out into the bright, wide world.
She had one more stop to make.
With her chin held high and her back ramrod straight, the peacock feather on her new hat bouncing in time, she marched right into Delilah’s.
“Well, this is a fine turn of events,” Delilah said. She sat at the bar, not yet dressed for the night. She wore a plain dress and her hair was braided down her back. It occurred to Helen that she had no idea how old Delilah was. She seemed timeless in the way of some women. Helen’s mother had been that way.
“Are you here for your birdcage?”
Helen laughed. “No.”
“Good, because Agnes has grown partial to it. She doesn’t sing as well as you do but she shows a little more skin, so the act is an unqualified success.”
“Glad it’s being put to use. I’m here because I want to give you back the money you paid Charles to bring me here.”
Delilah for just a moment looked stunned.
“You don’t have to do that,” she said.
“I do.” Helen put the small bag of bills onto the bar.
“I…can’t take that. Not after keeping you here that night.”
Helen thought of James and Annie and Steven and what she would do to keep them safe. The things her own mother did to keep Helen safe.
There were six women upstairs, to say nothing of Kyle and his legion of boys doing work around the place. All of it on Delilah’s shoulders.
Sometimes there were nothing but very hard choices to make.
“Indeed. You should be ashamed of yourself. But I understand. You were trying to take care of your kingdom.”
“My kingdom,” Delilah said sardonically.
“I know that you were orchestrating things that night and probably from the moment you had Charles bring me out here. I’m not saying you’re forgiven for keeping me locked in that room. I’m saying…I understand and respect your efforts to control the situation.”
“Well.” Delilah tilted her head. “Only a stupid woman chooses not to control the things she has the power to control.”
“And you’re not stupid.”
“Neither are you. How are you without the morphine?”
“Better some days. Worse others. James tells me that’s to be my life from now on.”
Delilah nodded. “Suffering a little is always better than forgetting who you are,” she said.
“That’s very true.”
Delilah went behind the bar and pulled from a small safe a similar bag, heavy with coins.
“Here’s what all the men ponied up to play for you. Park’s half and mine.”
“I don’t want that,” Helen said, staring at the money that somehow found all the seams in her new fine dress and made her feel dirty.
“You earned it. A thousand times over, you earned it.” Delilah pushed it over on the bar. “Take it. Do something good with it.”
They stood at the bar, exchanging small bags of money, nearly identical in value.
It was enough to make Helen smile.
“I was going to offer you a job,” Delilah said, leaning back against her bar just as Helen imagined Queen Elizabeth had on her throne. “But I can see you don’t need any work from me.”
Helen was in a fine day dress of blue velvet, nearly the same shade as her favorite Northern Spy dress, but this was buttoned up to her neck and the skirt went all the way to the floor, trimmed with satin. The bustle was so intricate it was artwork.
There was a good chance it would not survive the walk in the snow back to the hotel, but Helen had all this money and a long-buried love of the finer things.
She wanted to be covered head to toe in satin and velvet, starting with the four layers of undergarments beneath this dress. To her hat. To her shoes.
Delilah tucked the bag of bills into the belt of her gown, where it left a suspicious bulge. Helen put the small bag of coins into her new reticule.
Delilah smiled and took a sip of coffee from her mug. The bright afternoon light did the older woman no favors. But she was all the more compelling for her flaws, for the wrinkles around her eyes.
“If you’re looking for people to thank, I hope you haven’t overlooked Dr. Madison,” Delilah said. “He’s the one who saved you.”
Helen nodded. Yes. Dr. Madison. She could not stop the blush rolling up her chest, across her cheeks.
“Ah-ha,” Delilah said, with a knowing grin. “I see you’ve already done that. That house on the edge of town has turned into quite a love nest, hasn’t it?”
Whether Delilah meant it as a reminder that Helen’s actions reflected upon the people that had opened up their home to her, Helen wasn’t sure, but it certainly struck her that way.
“Well, thank you, again,” she said, feeling awkward with her thoughts.
Helen turned to go, enjoying the rustle of her fine skirts against the wood floors. A boy, one of Kyle’s kitchen help, wearing a pair of Charles’s black pants, was mopping up in the corner.
The sight made her outrageously happy.
“Can I give you a thought to entertain?” Delilah asked when Helen was at the door. She turned to find Delilah studying her coffee cup. Kyle stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching her.
“Sure,” Helen said, feeling as if the air in the room was full of broken hearts.
“Consider saving the doctor,” Delilah said. “In return for his saving you.”
* * *
James returned in the late afternoon, knowing the second he walke
d into the house that she was gone. There was a certain lack in the air in her absence. A missing smell and sparkle.
And for a moment he missed her so deeply he hung his head, letting it wash over him.
Annie and Steven were talking in the kitchen, and James silently went into his own room, avoiding Annie’s too-sharp gaze seeing the things he could not keep hidden.
The banked fire in his room burst into flames with a fresh bit of wood and a little poking, and he collapsed at his desk, tired down to his feet.
It took a while for the light in the room to grow bright enough that he saw the parcel and telegraphs on his desk.
The telegraphs were from Dean Ballard, head of the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D.C., and from the administrator of the Naval Asylum in Philadelphia.
The telegrams were short, but full of information.
Each of them expressed concern about the growing number of inebriates in their care. The proliferation of morphine thanks to the advent of the syringe and their general concern that this was a growing tide in former soldiers. A tide they could not stop alone.
We are not alone, he thought with a certain manic glee, a powerful sense of camaraderie.
They referenced the Soldiers’ Heart, too, a condition that seemed to involve a certain lack of impulse control and sudden and deep fogs in which the soldiers believed they were back in the war. The head of the Naval Asylum said his worst patients were prone to seizures and weeping fits. They tried to harm themselves.
Many succeeded.
Each asked for more correspondence.
James quickly wrote back, referencing the man who’d shot himself in the room with Annie a few months ago. He suggested an exchange of information and discussed exercise as treatment.
Beneath the letters was a package with no address. He pulled open the twine and inside was a beautiful satin-and-velvet vest. The rich color of wine.
“My God,” he breathed, running his fingers over the fabric.
A piece of parchment fluttered down to his feet and he picked it up, bending it toward the fire to read it.
Dear James,
I saw this and thought of you and could not stop myself from buying it for you. You may thank Charles, he gave me the money.
He imagined Helen’s arch tone and it made him smile.
I have spent the day buying myself a new wardrobe. When next you see me you will not recognize me.
Or perhaps you will. I have always thought that about you, that you have always somehow recognized me. Even when I could not recognize myself. Thank you for your care, dear Doctor.
I have never been friends with a man. And I certainly have never had a lover. I am hoping we can figure this out as we go?
Helen
Immediately he pulled a piece of paper from his desk and wrote back.
Dearest Helen,
The vest is spectacular. I will wear it with pride and think of you. As I do, most minutes of most days. Think of you, that is, not wear waistcoats. Though now, I imagine even that will bring up thoughts of you.
With your parcel today I had two telegraphs from the doctors I had written enquiring about their treatment of The Soldier’s Disease. Each of them is eager to share information and both of them reference a former colleague at Massachusetts General. I will write him next, but I fear he will not respond as he fired me years ago. An event I barely remember thanks to the chloroform I’d been inhaling.
I feel I need to tell you that all I have ever wanted from the moment you opened your eyes at me in Delilah’s was for you to have a choice.
A choice in your life. In your future.
That’s all I have wanted for you.
I hope the hotel and the money —I hope they give you choices.
And in the end, I would be lying if I did not say I hope that choice is me.
I would recognize you anywhere. Under any circumstance.
Your friend and lover,
James.
James seemed to have taken over the care and feeding of Davey in the week since he left Delilah’s, and the boy ran errands for the entire household.
James went into the kitchen to find him sitting at the small dining table, shoving fresh bread into his mouth at an alarming rate.
Elizabeth was with him, the baby in her lap. A stack of new books at her elbow.
“When you’re finished inhaling that bread, could you deliver these for me?” He gave the instructions for the three letters to the doctors to go to the post, and the letter for Helen to the Inter-Ocean Hotel.
The boy, cheeks bulging, nodded, took the letters and shoved them in different pockets as if to keep them separate.
A fine system, James thought.
“Are you in school?” James asked Davey, and then waited as he chewed and swallowed.
“No sir.”
“Why?”
“Kyle said it was a waste of time.”
Kyle would say that. “Come back here when you’re done delivering the notes,” he said.
He turned toward the kitchen with thoughts of coffee, only to find Steven and Annie staring at him.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Steven said. But Annie beamed at him.
The boy returned with a reply from Helen an hour later.
Dear James,
A letter? From you? I am charmed.
It is quite nice here at the hotel. It has only been a day but I have grown accustomed to room service. And hot water in under a minute. I keep tugging the rope and within a minute there’s a knock on my door. I have three very fine buckets in my room filled with hot water.
I am horribly spoiled.
I have sent letters to the banks in St. Louis and another to a trusted friend in Charleston to see what he can find out regarding my home.
It is remarkable to have lived so long without hope, and now I find it everywhere. I am constantly and consistently hopeful.
And the freedom of choice is one I will never take for granted again.
I know what you are doing, and part of me wants to warn you away from such hope.
The other part of me enjoys this letter-writing and would like you to send me another.
Fondly,
Helen
Very soon after Helen’s letter arrived, he and Annie were called away and it was not until the next day, exhausted, James put pen to paper.
Dear Helen,
Yesterday, Annie and I helped a mother bring a baby into the world. Eighteen hours of labor resulted in an eight-pound baby girl. Today we are exhausted. Steven is cheerfully scrambling eggs for Annie and bringing them to her in bed. He offered to scramble one for me, but he was lying.
You should know, in case it is not clear, I am courting you. This is courtship.
I miss you and would like very much to touch you again. I would like to touch your lips and that wrinkle you get between your eyes. I would like to hold your hand, is it possible, I have never held your hand?
James
He fell asleep still in his boots and when he awoke, her return letter was there.
Dear James,
Oh, I am so sorry no one was there to make you scrambled eggs. If you were here, I would have ordered room service for you.
I am impressed. You’re very good at courtship.
We have not held hands. It’s true.
There is quite a bit we haven’t done together. Christmas is coming. What would you like for a gift?
Sincerely,
Helen
Fuzzy from the sleep, his blood humming from this strange courtship and a vivid dream of her, he wrote back quickly.
Dear Helen,
For Christmas I want you. Only you. Under the tree or any way I can get you.
James.
Chapter 20
* * *
The letters went back and forth for two weeks. He fought, every time he put pen to paper, not to ask if she’d made her choice. Or perhaps to make his case more plain.
C
hoose me. Please. Choose me.
But in the end, he did not force her to make that decision. They flirted by post. Frustrating, yes. But also…nice in a way.
A normal courtship he thought he’d been far too ruined for.
He imagined she felt the same way. That these letters wore smooth a jaded and sharp part of their hearts. Returned something to them they’d never had the chance to enjoy.
Work kept him busy, and from what she told him in the letters she was also busy, managing and investing her money.
Denver became festive for the upcoming holiday. Annie filled the house with tree boughs and strung popcorn and cranberries.
She made egg nog. Terrible, terrible egg nog.
He read and reread Helen’s letters and felt an almost painful pride and an even more painful desire for her.
When impatience swamped him, he reminded himself that this was about choice, and that he had to be patient.
“Doc?”
James looked up from Mr. Brook’s very nearly severed thumb, which he was reattaching with Annie’s help. Remarkable, considering a few months ago he would have just told Annie how to amputate it and then sat in the corner and dozed.
In the doorway, Davey held a telegram.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” James asked the boy.
Davey shrugged. “I’m learning stuff. What are you doing?”
“Reattaching a thumb. Something I know how to do because I went to school.”
Davey craned his neck to see better.
“Leave the telegram, go wash up and you can sit in the corner and watch.”
The boy leapt and ran and Annie beside him laughed.
Two hours later, he finished. Both he and Annie stepped back and stretched out their backs. Davey had gone from bystander to handing them equipment.
