The Thorn Keeper

by Pepper D. Basham

  Put away? Catherine’s pulse jumped a little, seizing the hope. “Put away? And you lose money on them?”

  “Oui.”

  “What if you could still make money on the gowns you had to put away? What if they could be reinvented into something of more popular fashion? New designs.”

  Both Madame’s manicured brows shot high. “You have someone in mind who could do this?”

  “Yes.” She sent a smile to Marianne. “I know some seamstresses who can create works of art. You wouldn’t lose money, and they would earn some.” Catherine readied herself for the next sentence. “We only need someone who’s willing to display the gowns in a proper shop.”

  Her eyes slid into slits. “And why do the seamstresses not have their own shop? Either they are people of questionable means…or questionable talent.”

  “They have the talent.” Catherine stood and began unbuttoning her coat. “They want to earn money and also…help hold a Bazaar to raise money.”

  “Raise money? Pourquoi?”

  “For the hospital,” Marianne added cheerfully.

  “And what does the hospital need?”

  “Everything. Funds, staff, space…”

  “Oh la la.” Madame gasped as Catherine pulled the coat from her sleeves to reveal the beautiful silk masterpiece. Madame stood and crossed the room, examining Catherine from head to foot. “It is like nothing I have ever seen.”

  “Just as I said. True talent.” The words came slow as Catherine searched for the right thing to say. “Don’t you see, you have the opportunity to make a difference and to get back some of the money that you’ve lost.”

  “Unusual and fascinating.” She ran a hand over Catherine’s skirt, fingering the embroidery. “Did they make the designs too?

  Catherine hesitated, working up the courage to force the truth from her lips. “No, I did.”

  She shot Catherine a wide-eyed look. “You? This is your design?”

  “Yes, and she has many more ideas.” Marianne offered another encouraging smile. “She designed this one too.”

  Marianne removed her coat and Madame went across to fawn over it as well. “It’s exquisite. They are both exquisite. Magnifique.” She brought her hands together with one clap. “Are there more like this?”

  “They can make more.” Catherine pinched her lips tight and then took a deep breath for strength. “They only have need of a place to sell them.”

  “With this type of design, I’m surprised they do not have their own shop.”

  Now came the test. Could she trust Madame with her secret—as a confidant and a comrade? “I’m sorry to say that the ladies have found themselves in a predicament which prevents them from selling their own items or owning their own shop.”

  Madame opened her mouth to respond and stopped, her gaze slipping to Marianne. “Experiences which would keep them from the public eye? Public acceptance?”

  “Most certainly, especially in this town where Lady Cavanaugh is draining the poor dry.” Catherine motioned toward Marianne’s dress. “You can see for yourself they have skills, they just need someone to believe in them.”

  Madame sent Catherine a poignant look. “It seems they already have someone.” She turned away and paced the room, stopping to touch some trinkets on the shelf and then the table.

  Marianne looked at Catherine, her expression filled with questions. The silence filled the room, except for the sounds of Nanette in the other room. Catherine held her breath.

  Madame turned, finger pressed to her lips and a twinkle in her eyes. “I find myself in need of some good dressmakers.”

  Catherine couldn’t contain her laugh. “Truly?”

  “Madame does not lie.” Her grin grew. “When my shop was large, the previous dressmakers worked from the back. It has two apartments which would fit three to five women quite comfortably. It is private and still has one unused sewing machine they can share until their work merits my purchase of more.”

  Marianne’s mouth dropped wide in wonder. Catherine’s smile stretched to aching. A dream coming true for Annie, Marianne, and Janie? And she got to be a part of it?

  “Madame, you are the most remarkable French woman I have ever met.”

  Madame’s lips curled wide in response. “Then you have not met many French women.”

  Catherine squelched the urge to grab Madame in a huge hug, but instead, gave a heartfelt squeeze to her hands. “I think you and I are going to be great friends.”

  “Thank you,” Marianne added, doing what Catherine refused, taking Madame into her arms.

  A look of pure delight crossed the older woman’s face, and she dashed away a tear, stepping back from Marianne’s arms. “We have much to do. Can you return in a few days to discuss the particulars of the women and finalize plans for the bazaar and ball?”

  Catherine paused with one arm into her coat sleeve. “Ball?”

  Madame’s grin took on an elfish twist. “Oh, if we are going to sell ballgowns, we must have a ball. In these dreary times of war, what a better way to lift the spirits than women dressed in their best elegance and men wearing their tuxedos?” She gave a ferocious wave. “Divine.”

  Catherine barely remembered the drive home. The world had suddenly shifted from dark to light in a few hours. A dream come true. Her smile refused to tame itself.

  Marianne sang all the way up the road, one French tune after another, dotting each melody with her light-hearted laughter. “Annie and Janie will be so pleased. It’s much bigger than we ever imagined.”

  “God blesses abundantly, Marianne.” Catherine nodded, a sweet warmth of pleasure rippling through her at the fresh knowledge of His love. “More than we can imagine.”

  They slid into the house, going their separate ways to change into something less conspicuous. As Catherine buttoned her blouse, she noticed a telegram on her desk. She reached for it and broke the seal.

  A knock came to her door. “Nurse Dougall, you’re needed downstairs for surgery at once. Dr. Ross has been trying to find you for the past half hour.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Catherine pulled the card from the envelope and the whole world crashed.

  Grandmama has left this earth. She sent her love at the end. I will follow in a few weeks. Ashleigh.

  Another knock came to the door. “Please, Miss Catherine. The new patients have arrived.”

  Catherine bit back the harsh sting of tears and swallowed the gathering emotions. She slid the telegram in her pocket and turned for the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  David kept watch on her, each passing moment confirming his suspicion that something was dreadfully wrong. Her usual acuteness in responding, her typical focus, waned toward a melancholy stare into the distance. She completed her tasks and anything asked of her, but without one sarcastic retort or lighthearted quip.

  An awareness of her mood, her presence, burned clearer—no doubt spurred on with a little more force by the argument he’d overheard earlier. It must have wounded her—and from her mother? His chest ached with the need to comfort her, but why would she come to him? After hearing how his sister and great aunt shared the same goal of marrying him off to Miss….Whatever-her-name, why would she seek out his company?

  The new nurses brought a great deal of knowledge and added relief to the burgeoning hospital, enough relief that David fully expected to sleep six or seven hours tonight. His entire staff needed a long rest, even as he tried to sort out how to keep the hospital running. Dr. Pike had brought a moderate sum with him to help cover the expenses his patients added, but it still wasn’t enough for long-term provision.

  David washed up after his last surgery for the day and bid his sister good-night, but as he started up the stairs to his room, he caught sight of a figure in pale blue walking in the back garden. As the moonlight shone down on her face, his breath caught.

  Catherine.

  Her dark hair, pinned back at the sides, fell in a mass of ebony down her back as she stared up into
the night sky, a lonely and sad angel. Angel? The emotions in his heart squeezed out a smile. Yes, an angel to the men she served here and…

  He ran back down the stairs and opened the large wooden door to the garden, attempting to hold her privacy in reverence. The faint sound of crying drew him closer to her place on the stone bench overlooking the countryside. His chest tightened, his steps faltering.

  She must have sensed his approach because she rushed to brush away the tears on her cheeks and turned to look at him. His throat wouldn’t work. All he could do was stare. The moonlight haloed her face and glistened in her exotic eyes still swimming with tears.

  “Did…did you need something, Doctor?”

  He swallowed through his dry throat and approached another few steps to give himself time to gather his thoughts. “I saw you…out here.”

  “It’s a good place to think.”

  “Or…weep?”

  She offered a weak smile and looked away. “The remaining flowers don’t seem to mind.”

  He slid next to her on the bench, leaving ample space between them for propriety’s sake. “Is it your mother?”

  She shook her head and dabbed at her eyes again. “No, I should be used to her by now.”

  “Hmm... I doubt anyone gets used to her.”

  Catherine stared over at him, her smile growing. The simple fact he’d inspired her smile encouraged the compulsion to bring another.

  “No, I doubt anyone does.”

  “Is it the work?” He studied her profile, the softness of her skin, the turn of her nose and pink swell of her lips. “It’s been a difficult week. I don’t believe we expected the severity of what we’ve seen lately.”

  “No.” Her voice came quietly back to him, almost like the evening breeze itself. “So many unsung heroes who will never make it back home.”

  David’s hand fisted at the injustice of it all. Young men fighting an impossible war, dying on barren wastelands that used to be verdant countryside. Young women forced to witness atrocities beyond the realm of medicine. What nightmares waited for them tonight?

  He closed his eyes to stave off the rising heat, but to no avail. “Heroes?” David shook his head and ran a hurried hand through his hair. “How on earth do we define that word now? War has changed. We’re fighting an invisible, debilitating gas that doesn’t just rob a man of his breath but, if he survives, it steals his future. And now….now the Hun have developed some metal machinery that lays waste wherever it goes. How can anyone be a hero when it’s a pointless march into death?”

  “Don’t you dare minimize what they’ve done.” Catherine’s reprimand snatched his attention. “I daresay, most of them knew they were going to die when they went over the top. This war has gone on a long time. Too long for naivety. The entire thing is horrendous and wrong, and half the soldiers are cheating or being cheated. Disheartening? Painful? Unjust? Yes, but not a lost cause.”

  He lowered his head, a flash of anger and shame knotting in his stomach.

  The gentle touch of her hand brought up his gaze. “They risked everything to do what was right. That’s a hero, Dr. Ross.” A wistful look crossed her face, sweet and filled with such longing, he felt the sudden urge to caress her cheek. She steadied her jeweled gaze on his. “It doesn’t get any nobler than that.”

  Oh, the emotions she bottled inside could saturate a man’s needs and desires for life. “No, it doesn’t.”

  He held her attention a moment and then she turned away, staring out over the garden again, the same sadness darkening her countenance. Silence whispered between them.

  She pushed a loose strand of ebony behind her ear.

  His fingers twitched.

  “I know my faith is small and weak, but if what the Bible says is true about God, that he’s not forgotten these men or us, or the time in which we live, then we must cling to the truth that there is hope…even now, even in this.”

  The evening quiet surrounded them, only interrupted by a momentary rustle of the leaves. “Catherine.” She looked up, those glossy eyes becoming even glossier with a fresh sheen of sudden tears. “I would not call your faith weak or small.” He smiled, reveling in the sudden love stealing his breath. “In fact, I don’t believe there is anything weak about you at all.”

  A tear slipped from its fragile hold and trailed down her cheek. She tossed it away, but not before he saw the tremble in her hand. His chest deflated as if punched.

  How many times had her heart been broken, bruised, and no one knew except the Almighty. He ached at the thought of his sister’s careless words and her mother’s angry criticism. And though Catherine appeared to ignore them, how often had she borne the brunt of such harshness alone in the privacy of her room or this garden?

  He took her hand, desperate to quell the tremble. “You are not alone. Whatever you bear, please know, I will not let you bear it alone.” He pulsed his promise with a squeeze to her cold hand. “What is it, Catherine?”

  Her fingers pinched around her handkerchief, and the quiver in her breath matched the one on her lips. She searched his eyes, waiting for some hidden nudge to give her courage, he supposed.

  “Grandmama.” A sob hitched her words. “Grandmama is…”

  The implication rang clear as Catherine buried her face into her handkerchief again, new sobs wracking her shoulders.

  “Oh, Catherine.” Her name on his lips, whispered hoarse with emotions he couldn’t define, breached some gap he’d placed between them. Whether by his ridiculous class assumptions, her fallen past, or his poorly constructed theology of brokenness, he’d erected a list of dos and donts which held up to argument like paper to flames. Here was living proof of something…someone who defied his assumptions and brought to light compassion, and something infinitely more dear.

  Somehow, she must have felt it too…the closeness, the fragility in the darkness. With the slightest tug forward, he held her in his arms, and she gave way to her tears. Entrusting him with her weakness. Her tears wet through his shirt, warm against his skin, and quenched a longing he’d held for her, a tenderness reverberating to his very core.

  She trusted him. The woman whose past choices mimicked all of his vain virtue. The woman who, by all social accounts, should be shunned from proper society. This strong, brave woman somehow made him feel brave and strong by offering him this olive branch of trust.

  He tightened his hold, wrapping her closer against him, imbuing strength to her, if he could. The scent of lavender swelled around him, and he lowered his cheek to her soft hair. Tenderness and protection braided with determination within him, and a new resolution regarding this aunt’s hateful notions of class and the grand ‘deserving’ emerged like an epiphany. Life was made of much more than ‘those people’ and ‘our people’. God came for ‘people’ – broken, outcast, and fallen, including him. Including Catherine. And her unborn child.

  In God’s eyes, they were all the same. In need of grace and love.

  Love?

  David had never paired the word with any other woman outside his family, but a small jolt of awareness brought the word to mind. Here. Now.

  Catherine’s sobs drew to silence, but still, he held her. All the world outside faded into nothing but darkening blurs and distant mutters, but in this garden-haven, David began to understand, for the first time, what his father had mentioned about his first meeting with his mother. A sweet contentment. A buried passion lit. Love.

  She pushed back from him, and he quickly offered his handkerchief. She smiled and took it, adding it to the one she already held. “Thank you.”

  “Why were you bearing this pain alone? There are people throughout the whole house who would comfort you.”

  “Haven’t they borne enough from me?” She looked up, eyes glistening with a mixture of tears and moonlight. “I’ve brought shame and hurt on so many people, the last thing I want them to give is more pity.”

  “Pity?” His palms took her shoulders in a loose hold. “Pity? Oh, Catherine,
stop this! Do not confuse care and compassion with pity. Your truest friends wish to help bear your burdens and comfort you in them.”

  “But when will the next burden be too much? They’ve already had to bear so much for—”

  “Stop.” His finger to her lips silenced her, and him. The touch brought a fire with it, moving down his arm, directly to his heart. “Stop listening to the lies. You are a beautiful woman in God’s eyes…and in mine.”

  Her sapphires grew wide and she pulled back from him. “Dr. Ross, I—”

  “No, please.” Her professional reference kept a barrier between them. A hedge he wanted to crush. “Call me David.”

  A remnant of unshed tears highlighted the vulnerability in her eyes, and he saw it. The questions, the pain, the undeniable battle against her own heart. “No. I can’t.”

  Her hesitant, painful admission whispered the truth he’d refused to see. She loved him. He could almost feel it binding him to her with a sense of belonging. Sweet, powerful, and overwhelming.

  He took her face in his hands, and she looked up, frozen in place in full astonishment. Those lips, full and rosy, seemed to invite him forward as her breath pulsed against his chin. He was wonderfully lost in those eyes, with the enchanting linger of lavender drawing him closer, nearer to a taste his entire body anticipated.

  “Catherine,” he whispered, their breath mingling in expectation of more to come.

  “No.” Catherine’s breathy response barely slipped between their lips. She pressed a palm against his chest, encouraging him to an infuriating distance. “Please.” Her whimper stilled his movements. “You don’t want this.”

  “You know what I want?”

  “A woman carrying another man’s child?” She winced at her own declaration, then challenged him with a raised brow. “No, I don’t think that’s what you want.”

  “Life has taught me to find the blessings in surprises.” He held her gaze, searching his own heart for any hesitation, any doubt her words unearthed, but found none. “You think I haven’t weighed my choice? For both you and your child?”