“Please sit.” Miss Stern motioned to the wooden chair across the desk from her.
Prosperity sat. She carefully arranged her skirts and apron before folding her hands on her lap and straightening her spine so she could look the matron in the eyes.
“Let me get straight to the point,” Miss Stern said. “Dr. MacNees informed me this morning that Dr. Goodenow requested your assistance last night at a birthing.”
Since the woman waited for a response, Prosperity nodded.
“This is not part of your duties. You are a laundress and housekeeper. Understand?”
“Yes, Miss Stern.”
“Women do not assist physicians. Understand?”
“Yes, Miss Stern.” Though Prosperity gave the expected response, her gaze drifted to the books. Dreams could be crushed, but Dr. MacNees had approved of Prosperity joining Dr. Goodenow. Surely he would not disapprove of Miss Stern’s ambitions. “But a woman did assist Dr. Goodenow.”
Miss Stern’s expression tightened.
“The midwife,” Prosperity added. “She was the one who sent for the doctor.”
“That is not the point, Miss Jones.”
Perhaps fatigue had emboldened her, but Prosperity could not let it go. “Women are fully capable of nursing a patient.”
For the briefest of instants, hope flickered in Miss Stern’s eyes, but it soon dimmed. “Our ability is not the issue, Miss Jones. Propriety is. Dr. MacNees assures me that your attendance was at his request and that of Dr. Goodenow. He seems to believe that excuses the breach in propriety. It does not.”
Prosperity could not breathe. Her predecessor had been dismissed for impropriety. She closed her eyes and steeled herself for the words that were certain to come.
“I will not tolerate a repeat of such conduct. Understand?”
Prosperity’s eyes shot open. Miss Stern was not dismissing her? “Then I still have my position?”
“As long as you abide by the rules, but let me warn you that any association with physicians or patients outside the strict guidelines of your position will be grounds for dismissal. Understand?”
“Yes, Miss Stern.” Prosperity must not see Dr. Goodenow anywhere near the hospital. Their walks could not take place within Miss Stern’s sight. Alas, his journal was still in her possession, and he would doubtless arrive this evening to escort her back to the O’Malleys’ house. She must inform him of Miss Stern’s directive and send him away. If anyone saw her hand him his journal, the gossip would send her back to the matron’s office.
“Miss Jones?” The matron scowled at her. “You may leave now.”
“Yes. Of course.” Prosperity hurried away, deep in thought. How could she return the doctor’s journal if they never saw each other again?
An orderly carried a tray with tea service toward the dining room. Tea! Of course. Dr. Goodenow often attended Elizabeth’s teas, which she held every other Tuesday. That gave her three full days to wade through his scribbling and copy the parts that most intrigued her. Elizabeth had grown up on the island. She could point out the plants, and then Prosperity could connect them to the notes in the journal.
“There you are!”
She had been hurrying along at such a pace and so deep in thought that the man’s exclamation made her jump. It took no time to spot the source of the comment.
“David.”
He looked dreadful, even worse than last night. Dark circles underlined his eyes. His curls stuck out in every direction. His shirt hung loose, soiled by dust, its collar missing. So too did he lack a coat and hat. Any effort at military correctness was gone. He looked like a man who had spent the night in a tavern.
She instinctively backed up a step. “What do you want?”
His dry lips moved before any sound came forth. “To talk.” His voice rasped like a planer against rough wood. “You are my friend. My only friend.”
Oh, if a man’s words could drive tears to her eyes, David’s could. But she knew the futility of this path. “Your wife.”
He turned away, overcome.
Her heart raced. Had her wicked desire come to pass? “She lives?”
He nodded, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. At least she was not guilty of murder with her thoughts.
“The baby?”
He looked back at her, eyes red and mouth twisted. “A boy.”
A son. Her heart ached. It should have been hers. Theirs.
“Congratulations.” Even to her ears it sounded hollow.
Yet, all was as it ought to be. Then why was he here? To stab her over and over with what she had lost?
She crossed the hall. “I must return to work.” She tried to slip past, but he grabbed her arm.
“Prosperity.”
She froze. His touch still sent shivers through her, but those feelings were wrong, so terribly wrong. “I can’t talk.”
“Tell me you understand. Tell me you forgive me.”
She knew she should. She knew what the Bible taught.
Instead she pulled her arm from his grasp. “I’m not allowed to speak to anyone when on duty.”
He wanted more, needed more. She saw it in his eyes. But she could not give it. Not now. Maybe never.
“Good-bye, David.”
He stared back with pleading eyes, his shoulders slumped.
She ripped her gaze from him and hurried down the hallway. Would he follow? Half of her wanted him to come after her. Half did not. She could not bear to look back, could not bear to know. Instead she kept walking, body steeled as her shoes pounded on the wood floor. At the end of the long hallway, she headed down the steps. On the landing, she paused, heart pounding.
No sound of footsteps.
No pleas.
Nothing.
She crept up the steps and hazarded a peek.
He’d left.
11
David did not return home. He went back to his office at the work site and did not leave. Private Jameson brought water so he could wash. His coat and hat hung on the pegs where he’d put them before heading to the marine hospital.
Prosperity’s rejection hurt worse than Aileen’s betrayal. The pair of blows cracked the foundation of his life. Without a strong base, nothing could rise. The future loomed so bleak that he could not look at it.
He did not shave or comb his hair. He left his uniform hanging. Work alone could scour away the pain.
Saturday passed in a blur. If he ate, he did not recall it. Any sleep happened when he collapsed onto the desktop. Then the terrible dreams would begin. The screaming would wake him with a start. He would light the lamp again and try to work, but his vision blurred. He rubbed the spectacles on his shirt, but they were not the cause.
Still, he pressed on. There was nothing else he could do.
No church services this Sunday. God had forsaken him when he’d cried out for help. Surely He could have revealed the truth before David married Aileen. Instead God had let him walk into the viper’s den. Only work remained.
When a persistent knocking woke him on what must be Monday morning, judging from the angle of the sun and the workers busy on the site, it took long minutes to shake the grogginess.
“Yes?” He rubbed his whiskered jaw and stretched his neck this way and that to relieve the knot that had formed.
“Letter for you, sir. Came in on the packet last night.”
David blew out his breath and rose. It was likely from his family. He had not heard from them since writing of his marriage. He cracked the door slightly. “I’ll take it.”
Private Jameson didn’t hide his disdain for David’s appearance, though he shoved the missive through the opening.
The terse handwriting revealed the letter was from David’s father.
“That will be all, Private.”
Jameson retreated, and David closed the door. He turned the letter over and over, hesitant to open it. His father’s cramped yet perfectly formed letters stared back at him. He could guess what Reverend Latham would
say.
A bitter laugh escaped at the thought of the stern abolitionist learning that he now had a colored grandson. That would stir the man’s emotions.
He broke the seal and opened the letter. His father did not waste space with pleasant inquiries or statements about family welfare.
Your letter shocked your mother and me. You have broken your sacred pledge, apparently without informing your betrothed, for she has left Nantucket to meet you. I did not raise a son to shirk responsibility. First you disdained the ministry for the military. I could overlook that, considering you chose a profession held in generally high regard. However, I cannot overlook this latest insult. You broke your word. I find little to commend in your behavior and even less reason to call you my son.
He could read no further. The rest would expound on the wrong he’d done. If Father knew the entire truth, his rebuke would be even stronger, but David had not revealed Aileen’s occupation in a grogshop and the shameful circumstances under which they’d wed. Once Father learned of the child’s birth, even that shame could not be avoided.
He closed the letter and shoved it into his desk drawer. In the process, the army manual shifted to reveal his Bible. His hand shook. Inside that Bible rested the daguerreotype of Prosperity. One look. Just one look would not hurt. Her calm gaze might settle the unrest in his soul.
He removed the manual and ran his fingers across the Bible’s cover. A finger hooked under the edge. He only needed to lift the cover and pages to where the plate created a break. Just one look.
His hand trembled, and he slammed the drawer shut.
Prosperity belonged in the past, and he could never return there.
Bleak as it was, this future with Aileen and her child was now his. He should return to his quarters. Three days away was enough. She had sent no message. No one had brought news. He must return to her.
How could he? His knuckles ached from gripping the desk. The anger exploded until he feared he would do something terrible. She had deceived him, had stolen his life in order to hide her sins. What man had fathered that baby? Did he know the man?
He slammed his fist against the desktop. The resulting pain felt good, real. It also revealed that he could not return yet. He must wait until the anger subsided.
Work would do that. He pulled the drawings of the first tier casemates from the shelf and spread them out on his desk. Verifying the calculations took all day. Food arrived. He ignored it. His sergeant reported. He responded by rote.
After dark, a brief knock ushered in Captain Dutton.
David plucked the spectacles from his nose and stood at attention. “Captain. I, uh, I’m sorry for my appearance.” He scrambled to pull his coat from the peg and began to tug it on.
“Forget it.” The engineer waved off David’s efforts. “It’s too hot for wool.”
“Yes, sir.” David dropped the coat onto the chair. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit? Is there a problem with the construction?”
“No. No. Other than an assistant engineer who is working too hard when he ought to be home with his wife and baby.”
David noted that he hadn’t referred to the boy as David’s son. No one had used that term yet. It was obvious the child was not his.
He returned to his calculations. “There’s a lot to be done.”
“Nothing that can’t wait. Come along, Lieutenant. I’m taking you home.”
Home. David almost laughed. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
“No. Your wife needs you.”
Aileen did not need a man who couldn’t bear to look at her. She would know in an instant that he despised her. No, that wasn’t correct. He despised himself for believing her. She was what she had always been. He had foolishly thought that he—and he alone—could turn a donkey into a racehorse.
“I suppose I must face the responsibilities at home.” How that word stuck in his mouth. Home was never supposed to include an unrepentant wife and a child who was not his.
“Come along, Lieutenant.” The captain clapped him on the shoulder, guiding him out the door at the same time. “We all must face unanticipated responsibilities. Life invariably deals each of us a bad set of cards sooner or later. It’s what we do with them that counts.”
David’s cards couldn’t get much worse.
The captain headed for a carriage that looked suspiciously like the post commander’s. That meant Dutton had been sent to fetch him.
“Is there a problem?” He tugged on his coat.
The captain hesitated. “Fever.”
David swallowed a surprising bolt of fear. “The baby?” Surely God would not punish an innocent for his parents’ mistakes.
“Your wife.”
Dr. Goodenow did not arrive to escort Prosperity to or from the hospital Saturday evening or Monday. Had Miss Stern spoken to him? It did delay the inevitable. Their friendship could not continue.
Monday evening, Prosperity finished copying notes from the doctor’s journal. Her fingers ached, but she was eager to find the plants he described. She brought the journal to the parlor, where Elizabeth was reading aloud to her son, though he was too young to understand.
Elizabeth closed the book and kissed her son’s forehead. “He always falls asleep when I read to him.”
The joy on her face sent a pang of regret to Prosperity’s heart. She would never know a mother’s love for her child.
Brushing aside the pain, she thrust out the journal. “Please return this to Dr. Goodenow at tomorrow’s tea. He loaned it to me.”
“You may give it to him yourself. I expect him at any moment. He wanted to see how Jamie is faring.”
Prosperity frowned. Jamie, named after Rourke’s late father, looked the picture of health with no sign of colic or croup. “I didn’t realize Jamie needed a physician.”
Elizabeth chuckled. “He doesn’t. If you ask me, Dr. Goodenow likes to visit Jamie because he and his wife never had children.”
“His wife?” Prosperity felt a sudden chill. She had assumed he wasn’t married. If he was, she should never have spent time alone with him. “He never mentioned that he’s married.”
“Was, I’m afraid. His wife died in childbirth many years ago. He never remarried.”
“How tragic.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I think that’s why he’s so dedicated to his work.”
The revelation swirled in Prosperity’s mind. How difficult it must have been to watch David’s wife struggle in childbirth. It must have reminded him of his loss, yet he had not said one word. He might have refused to go. He might have suggested the commander find another physician. He might even have asked Dr. MacNees to attend the birth, but he did not. Unlike her, he had faced the danger and helped the patient not only give birth but survive the travail.
“I didn’t know,” she murmured.
“He doesn’t speak of it. Mrs. Cunningham cautioned me not to ask about his family and then proceeded to tell me why.” Elizabeth shook her head. “I feared it was gossip, knowing how she enjoys the latter, but others confirmed that it is true.”
“How very sad.”
The doctor rose even more in Prosperity’s estimation. She had not yet told Elizabeth where she’d been Friday night. All she’d said was that it had been a medical emergency. Elizabeth probably assumed she’d been at the hospital. With the doctor arriving, something might be said. She should tell her friend what had happened at David’s house.
Prosperity took a shaky breath. How to begin?
A knock sounded on the front door.
“Ah, there’s the doctor.” Elizabeth lifted her son to her chest and kissed him again. His little arms reached for her, even in his sleep.
“Stay with your son,” Prosperity said. “I will answer the door. It will give me a chance to return the journal.”
She hurried from the room and the joy that drove daggers into her heart. Oh, she was happy for Elizabeth. She deserved this joy, but Prosperity could not help thinking of what she had lost
and what would never be. A love as deep as the one she had for David occurred but once in a lifetime. The children she’d dreamed of raising with him now belonged to another woman.
The knock came again, louder and more urgent.
“Mrs. O’Malley?”
Prosperity recognized Dr. Goodenow’s voice. She pulled open the door.
He drew back. “Miss Jones.”
“Elizabeth is with her son in the parlor. She is expecting you.”
“Please beg her forgiveness and tell her that I cannot stay.” He appeared disheveled, even frantic.
“What is it, Doctor?” Elizabeth asked from behind Prosperity. “Is there a problem?”
He looked from Elizabeth to Prosperity and back again. “I fear there is.”
“Then please don’t waste time on a social call,” Elizabeth pleaded.
The doctor licked his lips. “Actually, I hoped to convince Miss Jones to assist me.”
Dread prickled up Prosperity’s spine. “It’s forbidden. Miss Stern would dismiss me if she learned I assisted you outside the hospital.”
His countenance took on a grim expression that chilled her even further. “I realize I am asking for a great sacrifice, but you are already exposed.”
Elizabeth frowned. “Exposed to what, Doctor?”
“Fever. I can’t be certain of its origin, whether contagious or not, but in the event it is, I must take precautions.”
Prosperity drew in a sharp breath. Fever could decimate families.
Elizabeth did not flinch. “I will pray for the afflicted. If Prosperity cannot attend you, I shall.”
Elizabeth’s response shamed Prosperity. Instead of fear, Elizabeth had turned to the One who could heal any disease and then offered to humbly serve.
“I will go,” Prosperity said. “Allow me to fetch my bonnet.”
“Of course.”
It took but a moment to return to her room and don the bonnet. She then followed the doctor to a hired hack. He assisted her into the carriage before sitting beside her. The driver slapped the reins, and the hack jerked forward.
Only then could she ask the one question he had not answered. “Who has fallen ill? Someone at the hospital?” It was the only place where she might have come into contact with fever.
Honor Redeemed Page 11
