by Merry Farmer
“Mr. Armstrong,” Flossie began, making an appeal. “My sister is in no way qualified to run a hotel.”
“Oy,” Betsy barked.
“As your sister, I am certain she possesses the same mental agility and personal grace to make it work,” Armstrong said. “With a little training, I’m certain she would be up to the job in no time.”
“She has children waiting for her in Lincoln,” Flossie added.
Armstrong shrugged. “Once she is established in Ambleside, she could bring them over.”
“Perhaps,” Jason stepped in, scrambling for a way to nip the disaster in the bud. “But you should speak with Lawrence first.”
“Mr. Smith?” Armstrong blinked at him.
“Yes. When planning and constructing The Dragon’s Head, I made certain I had the physical structure, including the iron-work, well planned out before I hired staff. If you want to do it right—”
“I most certainly want to do it right.”
“—then you should hold off on staffing decisions until you speak to Lawrence about the progress he’s made on your iron-work.”
And Jason knew for a fact that since his son had been born, the majority of his effort had gone into completing construction of his house and not the order Armstrong had given him.
“Of course, of course,” Armstrong said with his trademark smile. “I shall head out to the forge poste haste to consult with him.”
“But I want to work for you,” Betsy called after him as he turned to leave.
“All in good time, my dear. All in good time,” Armstrong shouted over his shoulder as he burst out the door.
“See?” Betsy said to Flossie in the rudest possible voice. “Someone here thinks I’m a catch.” She turned up her nose and marched off with a huff.
As soon as both menaces were gone, Flossie sagged against the desk and Jason rubbed his face with both hands.
“Raising children will be a lark after those two,” Flossie said with a sigh.
“I believe you’re right,” Jason agreed.
Alexandra
“Now then, Mr. Jeffers. What seems to be the problem today?” Alex asked as she marched into Examination Room Three, a clipboard in her hands. She wore as pleasant a smile as she could manage with her and Marshall’s little bundle of joy sitting on her bladder and kicking her ribs.
Mr. Jeffers took one look at her stomach and his eyes went wide. He opened his mouth to say something—most likely a comment on the indecency of a heavily pregnant woman not only walking about in public, but treating patients at Brynthwaite Hospital—she’d heard the same comments dozens of times over in the past few months—but burst into a fit of coughing.
“Bronchial distress, I see.” Alex’s smile widened as she approached the exam table where Mr. Jeffers sat. The people of Brynthwaite could complain all the wanted about a female physician in her condition treating the sick, but they were sick and she was treating them.
She set her clipboard on the counter at the side of the room and picked up the stethoscope that waited there. As she approached Mr. Jeffers to listen to his lungs, however, he flinched away from her.
“Oy. What are you doing here when you should be at home?” he wheezed. “I want the real doctor.”
Without missing a beat or so much as frowning, Alex placed a hand on Mr. Jeffers’s shoulder and pressed the stethoscope to his back. “I am a real doctor, and your bronchial passages are clearly inflamed.”
“My what?” Mr. Jeffers balked.
“You have bronchitis,” Alex told him. She listened in a few more spots to gauge the seriousness of his affliction, then stepped back, removing the stethoscope. “The usual course of treatment—”
The door opened before she could continue and Marshall stepped in. “Mr. Jeffers,” he began. As soon as he spotted Alex, he stopped. A flash of a smile lit his face and heat filled his eyes, but it was short-lived. “What are you doing in here?” he asked Alex.
“Diagnosing Mr. Jeffers’s bronchitis,” Alex asked as though it were nothing.
Mr. Jeffers burst into a coughing fit as if to prove her diagnosis correct.
Marshall scowled and marched to Alex. He took her arm and escorted her toward the door. “I’ve told you that it isn’t safe for you to treat our sickest patients.”
“Marshall,” Alex began rolling her eyes. “I’ve told you that I’m in no more danger of contagion now than I’ve ever been.”
“It’s not you I’m worried about,” he said, glancing to her belly. Instantly, he winced in contrition. “All right, it is you I’m worried about. You’re in a delicate condition. Catching any illnesses at this point could complicate things in a way I couldn’t bear.”
Alex crossed her arms and stared flatly at him. “Would you treat any other physician working in the hospital in this manner?”
“There are no other physicians at this hospital,” he argued, “though that’s something we should discuss. And even if there were, they wouldn’t be my wife and the mother of my child.”
He swayed closer to her, angling his body to shield her from Mr. Jeffers, and resting a hand on her stomach. Joy and desire flared in his eyes. It was enough to weaken Alex’s resolve, even though she hated it. To make matters worse, the baby responded to Marshall’s touch with a kick, as if it, too, agreed with him.
“All right,” she sighed, smacking the stethoscope against his chest with enough force to show she wasn’t as weak as everyone thought she was. “I’ll busy myself elsewhere. But Mr. Jeffers does have bronchitis, and he’ll need breathing treatments and rest.”
“Thank you for your diagnosis, Dr. Dyson,” Marshall said, his mouth pulling into a lopsided grin. “I shall take your professional opinion into consideration.”
Alex gave him one last wry look, then headed out into the hall. As soon as Marshall shut the door behind her, she burst into a ridiculous smile and pressed a hand to her heart. She was an absolute ninny, but she’d never been happier. She supposed love did that to women.
Love. The concept still felt completely foreign to her. She loved Marshall. The discovery had come months ago, but every time she paused to contemplate it, her heart flipped in her chest all over again. Or perhaps that was Marshall’s baby kicking her ribs. Either way, she rubbed her stomach as though patting her baby and headed upstairs to check on patients in the ward. Even with the extra weight of pregnancy, she felt as though she were walking on air. Which wasn’t precisely fair, all things considered. Almost all of her friends had spent their winter in some sort of distress, particularly after the events leading to Hoag’s death. But while that night had brought anxiety and misery to others, it had opened a whole new world of joy to her.
“Alexandra.”
Alex’s attention was diverted from her happy thoughts at the top of the stairs by Arabella’s tight whisper. Alex turned to find the curious noblewoman poking her head out of the linen closet. When Alex raised her eyebrows, Arabella beckoned her toward the closet.
“Is something amiss?” Alex asked.
“No, not at all,” Arabella said with a light laugh. “I just wanted to see if you approved of the way I’ve rearranged the closet.”
Alex’s eyebrows climbed farther up her forehead as she stepped into the vast closet. Arabella had been hard at work. As far as Alex could tell, she’d taken every scrap of linen off the shelves, scrubbed the shelve, then rearranged the linens in categories of bandaged, bedclothes, and miscellaneous.
“It looks wonderful in here,” Alex commented, glancing around. In fact, the whole closet was so organized that it felt like an entirely new room. Not at all like the hiding spot where George had nearly taken her virtue up against the wall. She cleared her throat and pushed that thought aside.
“I’m so glad you like it,” Arabella said. Her smile was genuine, and she clasped her hands together like a schoolgirl who had pleased her teacher. “I was worried I might have overstepped my bounds.”
“Not at all,” Alex said.
/> She glanced around once more, then settled a smile on Arabella. The woman had undergone a miraculous change in the previous months. She’d come to the hospital a bruised and frightened shell of a woman, thin, timid, and miserable. Three months later, she’d put on a pleasing amount of weight, her complexion had returned to the rosy glow it’d had when Alex had first met her at the house party the summer before, and she seemed relaxed and confident. As long as she stayed firmly within the hospital’s walls.
“You know,” Alex said in a measured tone. “Now that you’ve become so competent at hospital management, perhaps you might take other duties on your shoulders.”
“Anything,” Arabella said, beaming with delight. “You and Dr. Pycroft and the rest of the staff here has treated me so wonderfully. I would do anything for you.”
“We need someone to retrieve the hospital’s mail from the post office,” Alex said.
Arabella’s face fell. “Oh. The post office.”
Alex stepped closer to her, resting a hand on Arabella’s arm. “George and his father are in London, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Arabella said breathlessly. She bit her lip for a moment, glancing warily at Alex. “But anyone could see me and report my whereabouts to him. I could be discovered at any time.”
A tender sort of frustration gripped Alex. It didn’t matter how happy Arabella was inside the hospital, if she couldn’t gather her courage to step outside, if she couldn’t learn to stand up for herself, she would forever be a prisoner, whether she was under George’s roof or not.
“You know you will have to leave this place eventually,” Alex said, meaning it literally and figuratively. “Particularly if you wish to seek a divorce.”
Arabella gulped at the word. “George will never allow that.”
“You have friends,” Alex reminded her. “Friends who will stand by your side and support you, even if things become difficult.”
Arabella nodded sadly and managed a weak smile. “I know that. And I’m grateful, truly, I am. It’s just….”
Alex waited for her to finish her sentence, but when she didn’t, she said, “Difficult?”
“Yes,” Arabella said with a sigh of relief. “And complicated.”
Alex did the only thing she could think of that would help. She inched closer to Arabella and circled her in as much of an embrace as she could with her stomach in the way. Arabella accepted the show of support and affection with a smile and hugged Alex back. If someone had told Alex just six months earlier that she and Arabella Richmond Fretwell would have become such close friends, she never would have believed them, but there they were.
“Perhaps if you journeyed to the post office in disguise,” Alex suggested.
She intended her comment to be in jest, but Arabella lit up. “Oh, that would be perfect. I could wear a concealing hat and scarf.”
Alex tried not to laugh at the image that came to mind. “I’m certain there are plenty of items for a disguise in the donations box.”
“I’ll check right away.”
Arabella flew out of the closet, Alex behind her. Not only would Alex not have believed anyone who told her she and Arabella would be friends, she wouldn’t have believed that Lady Arabella would flitter about the hospital for three months dressed in the borrowed clothes of the lower-middle class, or that she would be so excited to rifle through a donations box to find a disguise for a simple trip to the post office.
It took only a few minutes to check on patients in the ward. In spite of the rash of illness that had been sweeping through Brynthwaite in the wake of the spring thaw, there were few long-term patients lodged at the hospital. Those who were ensconced in the beds of the wards were well on their way to recovery.
“Well, Mrs. Grimes, it looks as though your impetigo is clearing up and the infected areas are healing nicely,” Alex said as she changed the bandages on Mrs. Grimes’s leg. “You’ll be well enough to return home in no time.”
“Bless you, Dr. Dyson,” the older woman said. Her expression changed, and she asked, “But where is that young woman who usually changes my dressings? You know, the one with the eye-patch?”
A jolt of wariness hit Alex’s gut. Mrs. Grimes had spent a few days in the hospital in December with a similar skin infection. Winnie had treated her then, after Nurse Stephens had taught the girl to change dressings. Mrs. Grimes must have been muddled.
“Winnie has moved on,” Alex told her with a tight smile. “She…she’s gone to work at a different hospital.”
Mrs. Grimes accepted the answer, which was a relief as far as Alex was concerned. Winnie had been a thorn in all of their sides, but Alex never would have expected the thorn to injure itself. She got up from Mrs. Grimes and moved on, heading back downstairs to see if Marshall needed help. The sad fact of the matter was that, after the night of her self-inflicted injury, Winnie had repeated her attempts to tear the stitches out of her wrists. It had quickly become clear to both Alex and Marshall that Brynthwaite Hospital wasn’t the right place for the girl. She’d been transferred to Carlisle Mental Hospital farther north. Alex wasn’t sure if she hoped they’d seen the last of the girl or if she would get the chance to see Winnie make a full recovery.
“You look knackered,” Marshall told her when she reached the bottom of the stairs. He had just come out of Examination Room Two, and instead of continuing on to whatever task was next for him, he approached Alex. “You know what I’m going to say about that, don’t you?” He arched a teasing eyebrow.
“You’re going to send me to bed without any supper,” Alex sighed.
Marshall grinned. He leaned closer to her and murmured, “The only way I’m sending you to bed is if I come with you.”
Alex couldn’t help but giggle like a ninny. She blamed her pregnancy for causing her moods to swing from melancholy to silly at the drop of a hat.
“Do you know, I think I might actually save you the trouble of scolding me and send myself home,” Alex said. She grasped her back and grimaced. “I could stand to sit down.”
“Sensible woman,” Marshall said.
“Besides, Arabella is—”
“Did somebody say my name?” Arabella came floating down the stairs in an oversized coat that completely concealed her figure, a wide-brimmed hat that was painfully out of fashion, and a scarf that didn’t match wound around her neck.
Marshall gaped at her, so Alex explained, “Arabella has volunteered to fetch the hospital’s mail from the post office. I thought I might accompany her part of the way there.”
“Oh?” Arabella turned to her with a nervous smile. “How splendid.”
“Only as far as our house,” Alex explained. “I’m calling it a day.”
“I would love the company.” Arabella’s smile grew.
“I’ll leave the two of you ladies to your errand,” Marshall said. He waved to them as he continued down the hall to the office.
Alex and Arabella proceeded through the waiting room—which was blessedly quiet—and out into the balmy spring afternoon.
“I do so love spring,” Arabella said in a hushed voice—as though someone might overhear her and leap out of the shadows to call her out. She drew in a breath. “It makes one feel alive again.”
“It does, rather,” Alex agreed, resting a hand on her stomach.
“It is almost as if….”
Arabella didn’t finish her sentence. She grew more serious and remained silent as they walked along. Alex didn’t mind the silence at all. Part of her was happy that she and Arabella could be silent together without awkwardness. That was as much a sign of friendship as anything else.
They parted ways at the top of Church Street, and Alex walked on. She smiled to herself as she approached home. Six months ago, she never would have believed that she’d come to think of the solid, uninteresting building on its middle-class street as the happiest home she’d ever know, but now she did.
The moment she stepped through the door, however, her moment of peaceful r
everie was broken. “What on earth is this?” she exclaimed, walking into the front parlor, her jaw dropping.
There, standing against the wall where two chairs and a small table had stood when she and Marshall had left for the hospital that morning, was an upright piano. Molly and Martha sat side-by-side on the bench, banging on the keys.
“Stop,” Molly ordered her sister. “I’m trying to play the song Aunt Mildred taught me.”
“But I want to play,” Martha protested.
The two of them continued to pound out competing notes, none of which formed a song.
“What is this?” Alex asked, stepping farther into the room. She blinked from the piano to Mary, who stood in the doorway to the kitchen wearing an apron and a conflicted look. Alex glanced to her for answers.
“It arrived this morning,” Mary explained. “I was in the middle of baking bread.”
“It…arrived?” Alex frowned at the piano and crossed the room to Mary’s side so that she wouldn’t have to shout over the din the girls were making.
Mary pursed her lips and shook her head. “Two men delivered it. They moved the chairs—” she nodded to the corner of the room, which was now cramped with furniture, “—and tuned it as well.”
Alex’s brow flew up. The piano was, in fact, perfectly tuned. She knew enough about music to hear that much. She’d played a bit herself when she was Mary’s age. Her mother had insisted she had lessons, telling her that all well-mannered girls of means could play the piano and sing. Alex was reasonably good at both, but not nearly enough to make a habit of it.
“And before you ask,” Mary went on with an edge of adolescent defiance, “I asked who sent it and the delivery men didn’t know.”
“They didn’t know?”
Mary shook her head. “They said they were only here to deliver it and set it up and they didn’t know anything about where it came from.”
“Is there a bill of lading?” Alex asked. “Any sort of receipt that shows the company who sold it?”
