The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  “How far is your home?” he asked. Perhaps surgery would be best done there, where he wouldn’t have to be moved for recuperation. Cal preferred surgery anywhere but in a hospital, where disease seemed to abound. “Did you carry him here?”

  She nodded. “It took me a half hour, but I had to stop often to rest. He’s getting so big!”

  Cal took the boy up into his arms; he barely seemed to notice it was not his mother coddling him. “Lead the way, and hurry,” Cal said, blasting himself for not having his carriage. Certainly that would be faster and more comfortable for the boy.

  They’d just exited the house when he heard a call after them.

  “Wait! Where are you going?”

  “I’m Dr. Tallery,” Cal called over his shoulder without even looking back. “And this boy needs surgery. Immediately.”

  Instead of following, instead of calling after them again, the man Cal assumed to be Dr. Van de Klerk disappeared. Cal didn’t look back to see where he went, but he’d barely walked a half block behind the woman when he heard the wheels of a carriage clank against the cobbled street.

  “Bring him up,” said an older man dressed only in a white shirt, dark trousers, and open vest thrown on but not buttoned. “Madam, have you a clean room? A kitchen table large enough to accommodate your son? A bed all to his own in which to recover?”

  Blast! Cal hadn’t thought to ask any of that. If the woman lived in a hovel, even a germ-infested hospital would be preferable.

  “Yes, my husband is away at sea, but we have a home near the Battery. It’s not large, but it’s clean, and our kitchen table is long enough.” Though her words were calm, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Surgery is truly the only hope? Is that—really necessary?”

  Dr. Van de Klerk, sitting where a driver would have sat in a carriage better designed for two than four, nodded grimly. “If it’s his appendix, then yes, madam, I’m afraid it is. He’ll die otherwise.”

  And, Cal thought grimly, perhaps anyway.

  Chapter Six

  Abigail dismissed Bromley from the dining room, knowing he would stand in wait until the house crumbled if he thought the slightest possibility existed of her calling for him. Instead of sending for a meal that had already been holding for well over an hour, she stood and extinguished the nearest candle on the table. There was still no sign of either her father or the enigmatic Dr. Tallery. Try though she had, she possessed no appetite to eat alone. Besides that, the new gown she’d brought from Mindia’s dressmaker pinched just below its high bodice, and the ribbons in her hair were tied so tight she’d developed a headache.

  She was used to waiting for her father if she wasn’t at his side; often their obligations took them in two different directions, leaving one or the other to dine alone. But tonight was different. No one seemed to know when Father had left the medicine room, or even if Dr. Tallery had arrived to accompany him on his rounds as arranged. Bromley only knew, since the horse, Sissy, and the carriage were both gone, that Father must have set out without notifying anyone of his departure. That signaled an emergency of some kind, which wasn’t unusual, but she’d still hoped he might be home for the promised dinner with Dr. Tallery. When he hadn’t arrived she assumed Dr. Tallery must be in on whatever emergency had taken Father away.

  Surely Father wouldn’t expect her to leave in the morning, without having met Dr. Tallery in her role of hostess? She wandered from the dining room into the library, where a number of periodicals waited on her father’s desk. They often went over them together, studying the papers written by colleagues eager to share their knowledge or expertise. Settling into the chair she usually occupied in front of the fireplace—which remained unlit in the warmth of the night—she decided to start reading without Father, but soon her eyelids grew heavy.

  Abigail had no idea what woke her, and so, confused at first as to her whereabouts, she sat up and listened. The clock ticking on the mantel was barely visible in the dim light; the oil in the lamp was low, the light scant. Past eleven o’clock. Surely Father was home by now!

  She stood, and the periodical fell to the floor. Scooping it up, she replaced it on her father’s desk, and, adjusting the lace at her nearly bared shoulders and another ribbon in her hair, she went out to the hall to make her way upstairs. The lace suddenly scratched at her skin, and she wanted to be free of it.

  But in the foyer she stopped. Her father was indeed home, and at his side was Dr. Tallery. Bromley greeted them while taking Dr. Tallery’s hat and gloves. Father didn’t seem to have either, confirming that he’d been called out unexpectedly with Dr. Tallery.

  “Good evening,” she greeted them, and both men turned to her with similar looks of surprise.

  “It’s late, darling,” her father said, coming to her and bestowing a kiss on her forehead. “I didn’t expect you to wait up. You’re as bad as Bromley.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to remind him of the many times she herself had kept Bromley waiting, but she refrained for what it would reveal to Dr. Tallery. Instead, she forced a smile to her reluctant lips and faced the young doctor.

  “I see you’ve met my father.”

  He bowed. “Good evening, Miss Van de Klerk.”

  “We were about to ask Bromley if he might put together whatever’s left of dinner,” Father said. He might be exhausted from the day, as he always was at this time, but he hid it well. Not even his voice sounded tired. “Would you care to join us, if only to watch two hungry doctors outeat one another?”

  “As a matter of fact,” she said coolly, “I haven’t had my own supper. I waited, you see, but then must have dozed in my chair. So yes, I will join you.”

  She knew she wasn’t playing the best of coquettes, not at all the way Mindia had modeled, but between her own suddenly growling stomach and having been left out of whatever had kept them busy since that afternoon, she was short of temper.

  Cal watched Miss Van de Klerk approach the seat to the left of her father at the head of the table. Seeing past the ribbons and frills, trying not to notice the creamy quality of her skin that the new fashion revealed, it was clear she was miffed. Last night, with the exception of her final words, her behavior might have been frivolous, but at least she’d been far warmer. Tonight she was brittle, just as he imagined any doctor’s wife might be should a physician be unfortunate enough to have one. Miss Van de Klerk personified the neglected, ignored, forgotten women he’d been hesitant to envision when first warned of them in medical school.

  The butler scrambled to show the way. After the dining room was alight, he hurried out ostensibly in search of the long-delayed meal.

  Three and not two table settings awaited, attesting to Miss Van de Klerk’s claim that she’d forgone her meal to wait for them.

  “I assume an emergency kept you away,” she said, her voice guarded. “Care to share any of the details?”

  What an odd question, even from the daughter of a physician who might have heard far too much of his business.

  “Now, Abigail,” Dr. Van de Klerk said gently, “we won’t talk of such things except to say we’re both sorry to have kept you waiting all of this time. Aren’t we, Dr. Tallery?”

  “Indeed,” he said, though even to himself he didn’t sound very convincing. It hadn’t occurred to him that he might have been expected to dine with Van de Klerk and his daughter; in fact, he’d asked Van de Klerk to take him home after the last visit of the night. The removal of the boy’s appendix had taken several hours, so they visited only one patient after. The family had been grateful for the late-night call, awake and standing vigil over their soon-to-die loved one. But death’s hour was as unpredictable as ever, and so they had left knowing the family was as prepared as they could be.

  Cal hadn’t wanted to come to dinner; in fact, he didn’t know why he’d agreed. He certainly hadn’t expected Miss Van de Klerk. He wondered if she always gave her father such a chilly welcome whenever he was late. Yet in the very next instant, as she shifted
her gaze to Cal, a small transformation seemed to take place. With a sigh, almost one of acceptance or resignation, a smile slowly grew on her face, and if the candlelight didn’t deceive him, he thought she even offered a leisurely bat to her eyelids. The gesture was oddly discomforting, and he wished he hadn’t stayed. Her changeable mood was harder to accept than her previous chill.

  “Father is right, of course,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve both had enough worries of the day so we’ll talk about something more enjoyable. You must take the time to see a new play about Joan of Arc at the Park Theater. I went with the Pipperdays and thoroughly enjoyed myself.”

  “Did you?” said Dr. Van de Klerk, with more surprise than such a trivial admission warranted. Didn’t all ladies in the Pipperday and Van de Klerk circle go to the theater? “Tell us about it.”

  And so she went on, even beyond the time it took for the butler to return and serve the meal. She spoke of the costumes, the spirit of liberty infused in every breathing word, even of the lighting and quality of acting. Cal was covering a yawn with a sip of water when she looked at him directly.

  “Dr. Tallery, perhaps you might tell us about Dr. Woodridge. He was a great friend of Father’s, so I’m sure he must have been a pleasure to know.”

  “Yes, he was,” Cal said, tempted to leave it at that. The barrier of caution he’d ignored since caving in to Dr. Van de Klerk’s dinner invitation now waved like black flags in the recess of his mind. On the wind of those flags came clear warning: Do not share your grief over losing Charles. Sharing too often led to caring and that inevitably to loss.

  Still, to leave his answer so brief was rude. So he added, “He spoke highly of you, Dr. Van de Klerk, so I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to accept your invitation into the medical community here.”

  “After today, you certainly have that,” the old doctor exclaimed. “Abigail, you should have—” But then he cut himself short with a wave of his hand. “Ah, but I won’t trouble you with details. I’ll be happy to introduce you to other colleagues, Dr. Tallery, starting at New York Hospital just up the street, and then to the health commissioner and various officials who will be important to know sooner or later. Have you a place to set up your own office? Or might I hope you could join me here?”

  “I do have a home large enough to accommodate an office,” he admitted. “But I’m currently sharing it with my cousin. Once he finds his own footing, I will make modifications for an office. I live about twenty minutes north, by foot, so the location might be beneficial to patients from that area, if there aren’t any other doctors immediately around my home I’m not aware of.”

  Dr. Van de Klerk mentioned a name or two of those who might be close by. “There is another hospital up the river,” he added. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t call it that. It’s our almshouse, but the entire upper floor is dedicated to treating the sick. Fever victims, mostly. I imagine you’ve seen a number of fevers in the islands?”

  “Yes, some,” he said. He didn’t add that he himself had wrestled with a slight case of yellow fever only last summer, and it was that same fever that had killed Charles only a couple of months ago.

  Between Miss Van de Klerk and her father, the conversation was carefully directed toward social niceties: questions about life in Saint Kitts, acquaintances they might have in common through his family, his recollection of the Pipperday gala just the night before. The only remotely serious topic came unexpectedly from Miss Van de Klerk, who asked details about his recent ship voyage. Had he worried about the trouble from a new French general called Napoleon? But then she commented on the cut of “pretty blue French uniforms,” and whatever depth Cal mistakenly detected disappeared with the silly observation.

  It wasn’t as hard as he’d expected to remain aloof, because this was just the sort of polite conversation he detested. Perhaps it was the normal course of things between people who barely knew one another, but he had no wish to waste such time. Eating alone was far more efficient.

  By the end of the meal he couldn’t have been more exhausted, even if he hadn’t spent the afternoon cutting open a boy who screamed in agony before blessedly falling into a stupor.

  The only good thing that had happened all day was that the boy had revived and, despite the lingering pain, was likely to recover if infection didn’t set in.

  Cal planned to take that satisfaction to bed and forget all about this tedious dinner.

  Chapter Seven

  One Month Later

  Abigail hid a yawn behind her fan. As frivolous as she’d first thought them, fans did come in handy. Particularly during this wet summer’s heat!

  She’d been back with Mindia’s family for a month and had been to more balls and dances than she cared to recall. Father hadn’t actually ordered her back to the Pipperday home; she’d returned willingly the morning after the disappointing meal she’d shared with Father and Dr. Tallery. She’d have been a fool not to recognize he had absolutely no interest in her, and she wasn’t about to parade herself before him. She vowed if she ever saw him again she would present herself in complete candidness; no more pretending to be the society maiden Mindia was trying so hard to make of her. It was arduous, this effort to stir a man’s interest, but as soon as she was finished with the task, she could return to work. She had no doubt her father would be true to his word; once she found a beau, she could return to the work she was called to do.

  Abigail had become so proficient at dancing she didn’t shy from the most intricate minuet. She’d developed genuine fondness for many of Mindia’s friends and acquaintances, and for Ordell Lebsock in particular. Of the three gentlemen Mindia had identified as potential mates for Abigail, if Abigail had to choose it would be Ordell. He was pleasant looking; had strong faith in God; and although he wasn’t the best dancer, gave every spin his best effort. As a new pastor assisting the older leader of a prominent church, Ordell wasn’t as financially blessed as DeWitt Henshaw, nor as handsome or graceful as Reginald Marks. But she sensed the manner in which Mr. Henshaw had accumulated his wealth had as much to do with enthusiastic frugality as with anything else, and she’d caught Mr. Marks in earnest conversation with several other girls and knew she hadn’t been the only lady to catch his eye.

  Of course, the name Lebsock lacked the elegance of Van de Klerk, and she also had to admit that the yawn to which she’d just succumbed hadn’t been the first in his company. He did tend to talk quite a bit about morbid things like burial procedures and the best sort of songs for funerals. He had also gone so far as to recommend she ask her father, knowing he was a physician, if he might tell families to request a layer of straw be laid upon a coffin at the gravesite service before the first clods of dirt were thrown in. The straw, he whispered, softened the ugly, echoing sound of dirt meeting the loved one’s final resting place.

  She forgave him his tendency toward the morose in light of the fact he was just getting used to performing funerals. Some small part of her, perhaps equally morose, thought a doctor and a pastor would make a fine team, since even the most dedicated and modern doctors like her father and herself lost far too many patients. How reassuring, not to mention convenient, to have Ordell handy to administer the spiritual consolation so vitally needed after the few tools of medicine failed.

  Just now, happening to see Mindia alone for once, Abigail excused herself from Ordell and made her way quickly to her friend. They walked to the punch bowl together, something they’d done often during the past weeks. It wasn’t only an opportunity to fill in one another on the night’s doings; the summer had been unbearably hot not to mention rainy, and other than their fans, punch offered the only respite.

  “I see your young artist hasn’t shown up tonight,” Abigail said sympathetically. Whenever Mr. Goodwin’s name came up, which was often when she was alone with Mindia, Abigail couldn’t help but think of the man’s cousin. Other than the Independence Day gala, Dr. Tallery hadn’t attended a single social event this summer. She liked to think M
rs. Pipperday was the only one disappointed in the lack of opportunity to get to know the eligible doctor, but Abigail’s pride still stung.

  Mindia hardly looked disappointed. In fact, she was grinning over the rim of her punch glass. “He sent me a note! Will you come with me tomorrow afternoon to the park? He’d like to meet me there!”

  Abigail, only a little shocked, glanced about to be certain no one overheard. “Are you sure it’s wise? Since your mother hasn’t changed her thinking of him?”

  “Oh, fiddle on that. Father thinks Early is a fine young man, and I’m not afraid to remind Mother of such a fact. Besides, we’ll only take a stroll—if it’ll just stop raining long enough! Say you’ll help, Abigail. You will, won’t you?”

  She squeezed Mindia’s free hand. “Of course I will. You know that.”

  “And now for your future,” Mindia said, though her excitement cooled as she looked over Abigail’s shoulder at the waiting Reverend Lebsock. “Have you spoken to him about your plan to work after you’re married?”

  Abigail paused, waiting to feel an intimate reaction at the mention of marrying Ordell. A wave of delight, anticipation, something to inspire the kind of excitement she’d seen on Mindia’s face over a rendezvous with Early Goodwin tomorrow. Nothing. Her heart and mind remained as calm as ever. Perhaps Abigail was too old for such a fanciful reaction. She was, after all, two years ahead of Mindia and had a far different upbringing. She’d seen the harsher side of life, the suffering and stink of a sick human body. Necessarily, she was more objective than emotional. It made perfect sense for her to marry Ordell; she could easily grow to love such a sweet and honorable man. Provided, of course, he allowed her to do the work she hoped to do.