Crescent City Courtship (10 page)

John suppressed a sigh. “Perhaps we could arrange transportation for semiannual visits at least,” he said lightly.

“John, you know what I mean.” His mother pouted charmingly, although a firm edge lined her soft voice. “I don’t understand why you put off courting Dorothée, now that she’s had her debut season. Her parents are expecting you to call.”

He crossed one knee over the other. The gloves were off. “Mother, I’m far too busy with my studies to waste time sipping tea and dancing attendance on a spoiled little girl with the vocabulary of a six-year-old.”

Mother stiffened. “There is no need for insult.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve tried to hint that your hopes for a match between me and Miss Molyneux aren’t likely to come to fruition.”

“But John—”

He held up a hand. “And don’t try foisting some other equally boring debutante on me. If you could see the stack of textbooks waiting on my nightstand, the contents of which I must absorb before Christmas—”

“John.” His mother frowned, her fine hazel eyes dampening. “I do not understand why you must be so obstinate about the one thing I ask of you. If
you
could see the times I have intervened when your father wanted to refuse the funds that pay your matriculation fees…” She bit her soft lips together and looked away. “I only want to see you settled with a nice girl.”

He stared at her profile, his headache now raging. His mother had indeed provided a much-needed buffer between him and his sire.
Was
he being selfish? Would it be so terrible to find himself shackled to plump, dimpled Dorothée Molyneux? At least maybe then his parents would leave him alone. He could set up his own household, take on a titular role in the shipping business and pursue his studies unmolested by social obligations.

He rubbed his temple and sighed. “Perhaps I might call on her for a drive, after I finish my anatomy examination next week.”

Mother spread her fan, looking at him over its lace-edged top. “Really, John?”

He had to smile at the hopeful flutter of her lashes. “No promises of courtship, but I’ll make an effort to get to know her.”

She dropped the fan and exhaled a happy sigh. “I’ll give a party. A ball! We’ll invite the Molyneux family and the Lanieres and perhaps the Girards, if you insist. I’m sure there are others I’m not recalling at the moment, but it will be a grand occasion. You’ll have
such
a lovely time, John.”

He thought of the cool dark recesses of the morgue, where he’d been challenged, amused, and touched by a tall young woman in a patched dress. He sighed. “I’m sure I shall, Mother.”

Abigail had been struggling to stay awake all afternoon as she helped Camilla put up squash. The second time Abigail’s eyes closed while she was pouring a pot of boiling water through a sieve in the sink, Camilla took the handle of the pot from her.

“Sit down, my dear, before you drop that and scald us both.” Camilla finished straining the squash.

Abigail sat down, her knees buckling. “I’m fine. Really.”

Camilla glanced over her shoulder as she set the pot on the stove. “Certainly you are. Did you not sleep well last night?”

Abigail forced her eyes open again, then gave up and rubbed them with both fists. “Not particularly.” She yawned. Professor Laniere had told her not to tell anyone about the autopsy. Presumably that meant his wife as well.

But Camilla was not easily deflected. She frowned as she dumped the next batch of squash into a fresh pot of water. “You stayed up all night studying, didn’t you? I admire your persistence, but you can’t function without sleep.”

Abigail grinned at her. “Says the woman who stayed up three nights running with poxy children.”

Camilla laughed as she sat down across from Abigail. “Well, I’ve caught up on sleep the last two nights. Thank goodness the children aren’t itching so badly anymore.”

“I remember when I had those. The blisters felt like fire ants crawling all over, me and every child in the village had them. It was the way my mother found out I’d been sneaking out of the compound—” She stopped herself too late.

“Compound?” Camilla’s eyebrows were up. “You mean a missionary compound?”

Abigail stared at her, dismayed. If she hadn’t been so tired…Finally she looked away. “Please, I don’t like to talk about it.”

Camilla was silent for a moment, then reached out to touch Abigail’s hand. “I won’t interrogate you, if you insist. But—Abigail, I confess I’m curious about your spiritual upbringing. There’s nothing shameful about being the daughter of missionaries.”

“It depends,” Abigail said, endeavoring to keep her voice level. “There are missionaries and then there are missionaries.” She risked a look at Camilla, whose lips were pursed thoughtfully.

“Are there, my dear?” Camilla said gently. “Tell me about it. Where were you?”

“China,” Abigail blurted, unable to contain the burden any longer. “The Shandong Province. I was five when my parents moved there. For days on end it was just me and my mother in our little house, until I found a way to slip out.” She swallowed. Her mother’s depression had led to long bouts of sleeping, day and night. Abigail had found herself virtually alone while her father went into the village and taught the Chinese “heathen” about Jesus.

“And you caught chicken pox and your mother found out?” Camilla leaned her elbows on the table, her topaz eyes bright with interest. The pot of squash boiled merrily on the stove unheeded.

“Actually,” Abigail said reluctantly, “it was my father who found me, scratching away, when he came home one evening.” She touched her stomach. “I have scars to this day and it’s miraculous the blisters hadn’t yet infected my
face. Papa woke my mother up and told her the infection was going around the village. Demanded to know why she’d taken me out of the compound.”

“And of course she hadn’t,” Camilla guessed.

Abigail nodded. “Papa beat me with a strap, then Mama bathed me in some herbs the Chinese women had given her.”

“He
beat
you? A seven-year-old who was ill with chicken pox?”

Abigail looked up, startled out of her memories. Camilla looked as ferocious as a gentle-eyed woman with tawny hair curling all over her head and spectacles on her nose could look. “I disobeyed him and left the compound. I suppose he thought it was dangerous.” She shrugged. “After all, I did contract that infection.”

“Where was your mother while you were out on your own?”

Abigail’s instinctive response was to defend her mother. Mama had been fragile, physically and mentally—unlike Abigail, with her large hands and feet, her tough, boyish body, her insatiable curiosity. “She—she wasn’t well. I made her nervous. So I learned to read and play by myself. Eventually I found an opening in the compound wall and kept going farther and farther until I saw the Chinese children. They laughed at me, but eventually they taught me to speak and sing in their language. That is, until Papa caught me.”

“You speak Chinese?” Camilla gaped.

Abigail felt the old inner chant:
freak, freak, freak.
She had said too much. She shook her head. “Camilla, I confess, I’m exhausted. May I go to bed? Dr. Laniere promised I could join the class for early rounds in the morning, then I’ll come back to help you finish the squash.”

Camilla released Abigail’s hands and glanced at the pot. “Of course. This is the last batch anyway.” She rose, patting Abigail’s shoulder as she moved to the stove. “Sleep well, my dear, and don’t worry about what you’ve told me. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

Abigail nodded. “Thank you, Camilla. Good night.” She rose and staggered toward the stairs. If knowledge was power, please God she had not revealed too much to Camilla Laniere.

R
ounds. There was something in the word, John thought, that aptly described some parts of his chosen profession. Repetition. Procedure. Scientific experiment.

Early on Friday morning, he and Girard, Weichmann and a couple of other fellows, tagged behind Prof, with the ever-present Abigail Neal bringing up the rear. Unlike the rest of them, her eyes were bright and alert, taking in every detail of the professor’s movements—the way he gripped a patient’s wrist to check a pulse, the position of the stethoscope on the chest or back, the firm but careful flexing of a limb. When the men arrived, she’d been waiting inside the hospital, perched on the bottom entryway stair, hands clasped demurely atop her knees.

Prof stopped at the bedside of the woman with the gallbladder case, who was recovering nicely from her surgery. John glanced at Abigail over his shoulder; her cheeks reddened as she met his eyes. Maybe she was thinking of the way she’d grabbed his hand during the hemorrhage scare. At the time he’d been too startled to enjoy it, but the memory of the strength and delicacy in
those beautiful, long fingers returned every time he looked at her.

“How are you feeling this morning, ma’am?” asked the professor.

The woman let out a theatrical moan. “I never had so much pain.” She lifted the edge of her gown, revealing a neat white four-by-six-inch gauze bandage. A faint pink stain revealed the location of the wound, a minor indication after such serious surgery, in John’s opinion. “Those nurses don’t pay enough attention when a body needs to take care of certain…necessary functions.”

The professor smiled. “The fact that you feel the urge for those necessary functions is a good sign indeed. I’ll ask one of them to tend you.” He looked around at his students. “Come, gentlemen.”

Abigail cleared her throat. “I’ll stay and help her, Professor.”

Prof looked over his shoulder. “Very well, Miss Neal. You may catch up with us as soon as Mrs. Catchot is comfortable.” He walked on.

“It’s a wonder he trusts her not to break open the wound,” muttered Marcus, catching up to John. “She’s not a trained nurse.”

As late as yesterday, John might have agreed, but last night’s adventure in the morgue had forever altered his view of women in general and one in particular. He scowled at Marcus. “I’ve observed Miss Neal to comport herself with great common sense as well as compassion.”

Girard’s mouth fell open. “Hey, whose side are you on?”

Prof looked around with an amused glint in his eye. “Braddock, I want to speak with you.” He lengthened his stride, leaving Marcus to fall back with the other students,
and addressed John without slowing down. “How did your project proceed yesterday?”

John looked back to make sure the others were still occupied in arguing over the relative benefits of carbolic acid and iodine as a disinfectant. “Cause of death was liver failure, as far as I could tell.” He lowered his voice. “And she performed very well, considering…. Well, she’s a dashed odd woman,” he burst out. “The first time I ever autopsied, I was sick all night.”

Prof chuckled. “As we wend our way into the next decade, if the Lord tarries, I suspect we fellows are going to have to abandon all preconceived notions of womanhood.”

“That’s exactly what I mean, sir. It’s not natural for a woman to show such interest in disease and death. Isn’t there some biblical injunction about women maintaining modesty in public?”

The professor stopped, raising a hand to capture his students’ attention. “Gentlemen, please proceed to the next ward. I’ll want reports of pulse, temperature and other indications on each patient when I join you in a moment. Mr. Braddock, a word with you.”

Mutiny built on Marcus’s square face. “But Prof, wouldn’t we all benefit from your instruction?”

Dr. Laniere frowned. “This is a matter of a personal nature, Girard. You may serve as clerk while the others do the examinations.”

Giving John a puzzled look, Marcus regrouped and hustled to the head of the line of students traversing the hallway.

With a jerk of his head the professor indicated that John should follow him, then wheeled into an open room which served as supply closet and office for the nurses. It was empty at the moment.

Prof shut the door. “What do you know about biblical instruction to women, Braddock?” The professor’s tone was dry, but not unkind. “I was under the impression that you regard the spiritual implications of medical treatment rather by the way.”

John scrambled for dignity. “I…confess the subject has piqued my interest of late, sir. I did a quick survey of the copy of Scripture my mother gave me when I reached my majority.”

“A quick survey? May I ask what caused this sudden religious fervor?”

“Well, sir, there have been some rather peculiar events occurring lately.” John tugged his cravat. “Your willingness to include a woman in our lessons here at the hospital being one. And—and I’m dreaming about things that never used to bother me.”

Prof’s rather flinty black eyes softened marginally. “What sorts of things are bothering you, Braddock?”

“The baby we buried on Sunday.” John looked away. “I wake up, shaking it to make it cry. And the woman we autopsied, Abigail and I—she was pregnant. Did you know that, sir?”

The professor sighed. “She was a prostitute, Braddock. Are you truly surprised?”

“No. But I find myself wild to understand what it means. How to help these girls, so they won’t slowly kill themselves and their babies with opium.” To his horror, John’s voice cracked. “Until Sunday, I never thought much about it. Medicine was a little like a—a large puzzle, but all of a sudden it’s like some veil has come off my eyes, and—Professor, I really don’t know if I can stand it.” In his agitation he cracked his knuckles and stared at his mentor.

For a long moment the professor stood with his hands clasped behind his back, head bowed. The little room hummed on a dense silence. The odors of lye and disinfectant, the distant rattle of carts in one of the wards, reminded John that they were in a hospital.

Dr. Laniere looked up and gripped John’s shoulder. “I remember the moment when something similar happened to me.” The professor’s deep voice was quiet, intent, his eyes searching. “I had partially finished my training as a doctor, but had given it up because—” he sighed “—a set of complicated circumstance demanded it. But I met a young woman whose faith challenged my cynicism and selfishness. It seemed everywhere I went I saw the hand of God moving in miraculous and loving ways in spite of dire and dangerous circumstances.” He smiled, a slight curve of the lips. “Eventually it began to seem ridiculous to run.”

“What does this have to do with allowing Abigail Neal to study medicine?” John squirmed internally at the personal twist the conversation had taken. He wasn’t sure it was proper to know so much about one’s teachers.

The professor lifted his brows. “Come, Braddock. Miss Neal’s presence is a minor irritant. A symptom of the disease, if you will. Your real problem is spiritual.”

John glowered at him. “You know the respect I have for you, sir, but I have great difficulty reconciling science and faith. Part of me
wants
to believe. But then I slam up against the fact that one simply cannot prove God.”

“And that is exactly the point. God is so big that one can never prove Him—at least with human measurements. But once I took off in a leap of faith He began to prove
Himself
to me. Over and over. Surrender came surprisingly easy, once I realized what I was missing.”

John lifted his hands. “And what was it you were missing?” He felt unmanned, asking these kinds of questions. But one thing he’d learned in the laboratory, one never learned anything without questions.

“Love, my dear boy,” said the professor simply. “The best kind of love—not the finite love of a woman, although that came later for me—but the kind of love that looks past every conceivable fault and receives a man on the basis of unearned favor. The kind that Christ exhibited by giving His life.”

If those words had come from anyone other than his esteemed professor, John would have laughed and walked away. He stared at Prof, heart thundering as if he’d run all the way from the docks. “You know my father,” he said in a strangled voice. “If he thinks I’ve become religious, he’ll assume I’ve caved in about joining the family business. I cannot let him roll over me.”

Prof was silent for a moment. “This is not entirely about your father, John, just as it only peripherally has to do with Miss Neal. And it’s not about being ‘religious,’ as you put it. But if you’re worried about how Phillip will react, you can leave him to me. I’ll be the buffer.” He squeezed John’s shoulder. “Make your decision on your own.”

“I’ll—think about it,” John said with difficulty.

“Professor? Mrs. Catchot is asleep now.”

John looked at the doorway and found Abigail Neal standing there, hands clasped at her waist, expression perfectly bland. He wondered how much of the conversation she had overheard.

Flushing, he stepped out from under the professor’s hand and turned toward Abigail. “I’m off to make sure the other fellows haven’t set the ward on fire.” He stepped past her, careful not to touch her.

She murmured something to the professor, then caught up to him while the professor followed at a more measured pace. “Is everything all right, John?”

He glanced at her. “Certainly. Did you read the paper this morning?”

She blinked at the sudden shift in topic. “No, I—you know I was here early, first thing. Was there something of particular interest?”

“There was a fire in the District this morning.”

He shouldn’t have been so blunt. Her eyes widened in horror. “A fire? Where?”

“Not on Tchapitoulas,” he said quickly. “It relates to the hospital. The board of directors had set up an infectious diseases clinic and apparently some of the neighbors resented it. They decided to take matters into their own hands.”

“People set a
clinic
on fire? To burn out sick people?” Abigail looked horrified. “Was anyone hurt?”

“Two dead, three burned terribly. And there were a couple of caretakers injured as well.” John cracked his knuckles, wishing he could wrap his hands around the neck of the cretin who had set the fire. “Some of us are going over there later to see what we can do to help. Thought you might like to come.”

“Of course I would! If Mrs. Camilla can do without me, that is.” She turned. “Professor, did you know about this—the fire? Why are we not over there right now?”

“We’ll go directly after we finish rounds,” said the professor. “The rest of the available hospital staff and faculty are already there.”

With the conversation safely deflected from the topic of his soul, John relaxed his shoulders and joined Prof and
Abigail in planning strategy for treating second-and third-degree burns and outlining the supplies they would need.

He could think about God later, when there was not such pressing need for action.

The scene was chaos. Abigail scrambled out of the ambulance wagon behind John, then involuntarily halted to look up at the smoldering black remains of a tenement house not so different from her old home with Tess. The roof had caved in on one side; shards of glass blown out of the upper-story windows crunched underfoot as the students worked to transfer supplies from the wagons to the brick street, which had been blocked off from foot traffic. Horse-drawn fire wagons were rattling away from the scene. The air reeked of smoke and charred wood and other pungent but unidentifiable smells.

“Abigail! Come on!”

Startled, she looked around and found John standing on the sidewalk, medical bag in hand. When she caught his eye, he turned and hurried toward a huddle of fire victims in the middle of the street.

Drawing a clean handkerchief from her pocket, she folded it into a triangle and tied it over the lower half of her face, covering her nostrils. With her breathing now unhampered by contaminated air, she followed John. She had no medical instruments of her own but had managed to stuff bandages, antiseptic and rolls of cotton lint into a canvas knapsack one of the nurses had given her. She carried it by its drawstring, and it bumped against her legs as she ran.

By the time she caught up to John, he had knelt beside a man with a bleeding head wound and started rooting
around in his leather case. Coughing, he looked up at Abigail. “I forgot iodine.”

She flung herself onto her knees on the other side of the patient. “I brought it.” She yanked open the drawstring of her bag and extracted the heavy brown bottle that had bruised her leg.

“Good. Swab this clamp, then hold the wound together while I stitch.”

She wet a lint pad with the yellow-brown iodine, glad of her handkerchief which blocked its pungent odor. Capping the bottle, she took the clamp from John and used it to hold the patient’s torn flesh in place. It looked like he’d been sliced by a jagged piece of wood; splinters still clung to the man’s matted, bloody hair. Thank God he’d already fainted from the pain or he would undoubtedly have been writhing and therefore impossible to treat.

John plucked a pre-threaded needle from a small case inside the larger bag, swabbed it with the iodine-soaked pad, then took a breath and proceeded to sew. Because she had watched him tend to Tess, Abigail was not surprised at the neatness and thoroughness of his work. But the expression on his face made her stare at him in wonder. The cold detachment with which he generally operated had been replaced by a grim, almost feverish determination.