Dancing in the Rain (3 page)

Carolyn started to smile. Somehow she had survived the day without Dwight’s realizing that she was an imposter, that she had never before done anything like this. Somehow she had managed to help the doctor, and in doing that, she had helped the men. Carolyn’s smile broadened. The people at home were wrong. She was not useless! She had proven that. And maybe, just maybe, coming to France was not a mistake, after all.

Chapter Two

D
wight rolled the portable screen next to the bed. Though the other men in the ward would be able to hear him, the screen provided this patient a semblance of privacy. It also reduced distractions, and that, Dwight knew, was essential. If a doctor was going to do his best work, he needed to concentrate on his patients.

“How do you feel, Mr. Osborne?” he asked. Though it still felt a little odd, addressing someone younger than himself as “Mister,” Dwight knew it was important. The formal title gave the patients dignity, and that was one of the few things he could offer to men who had suffered the indignities of war.

Though the other doctors disagreed and preferred to address their patients by their first names, Dwight wanted the young men to know that he respected them and their service. He wasn’t like the blonde nurse who wouldn’t stop flirting with them. Didn’t she realize that she was treating them like schoolboys? They might be only eighteen or nineteen, but if they were old enough to fight, they were old enough to be afforded respect. Though thoughts of the blonde nurse irritated him, Dwight kept his face impassive. That was what a good doctor did.

“It hurts, Doc,” the man said. “I feel like my leg’s on fire.”

With a heavy heart, Dwight uncovered what remained of the man’s right leg, looking for signs of infection. How he had hated to amputate the leg, knowing that—even with a prosthesis—the young man would never live a totally normal life. He would walk, but he would never be able to run or play ball with his children. And, if the leg became infected, he might never walk. He might not even live long enough to return home. That was a prospect Dwight did not want to consider. Far too many men had died in this awful war that the politicians claimed would end all wars.

Dwight pulled aside the sterile gauze and studied the stump. Thank goodness, there were none of the angry red lines that he had feared! “It’s healing well, Mr. Osborne,” he said, keeping his voice even. There was no point in showing his elation, for that would reveal the fact that he had been concerned. A good doctor did not alarm his patients. A good doctor did not let his feelings show.

Dwight glanced out the window next to Private Osborne’s bed. Today the wind no longer lashed the rain; instead, drops slid down the windows, partially obscuring the view of the moat. When he had first arrived in Goudot, Dwight had been surprised by the magnificence of the castle that had been converted to a base hospital. A three-story stone edifice with towers, turrets, and a moat was a far cry from a farmhouse in the Midwest and even further from the hospital of his dreams. Still, a man did what he had to.

“I can give you something more for the pain,” he told Private Osborne. Wanting to alleviate pain was the reason Dwight had become a physician.

The young man shook his head. “I don’t like that medicine. It makes me sleep.” He looked down at his leg and frowned. “I’m afraid that I won’t wake up.”

“I understand.” And Dwight did. Everyone feared something different. His youngest sister feared spiders; the oldest had a phobia about roaches; the nurses here feared him. All except the blonde one. She was different. It was distracting, the way she flirted with the patients, and that smile was enough to make a man forget what he was doing. Despite that, Dwight couldn’t fault her competence. She was the best assistant he’d ever had.

He reached for the chart that hung at the foot of the hospital bed. “I’ll have the nurse put extra salve on your leg when she dresses it. That should help.”

The man nodded. As Dwight scribbled his orders on the chart, he heard a woman’s footsteps, followed by a feminine voice. “Good afternoon, gentlemen.” Though the voice sounded familiar, there was something odd about it, almost as if the speaker’s nasal passages were congested. “How are things in Raindrop City today?”

Dwight started to smiled, then stopped himself. The staff seemed to have given everyone a nickname, and now it appeared that the town itself had one. It was an appropriate sobriquet. Not only did it rain here almost every day, but the word Goudot sounded like the French phrase
gouttes d’eau
or drops of water.

One of the men whistled. “Look at this, will you, boys? The sunshine just arrived.”

The woman laughed. “Did I miss the sun? All I saw was mud—inches and inches of mud.” The voice was definitely familiar, although the woman sounded as if she had a respiratory infection.

As Dwight started to pull the screen aside to see who would venture into a ward of seriously injured men with a potentially communicable disease, Private Osborne touched his arm. “Cover my leg, won’t you, Doc? That way I can pretend …” There was no need for him to finish the sentence. If he couldn’t see the missing limb, for a little while at least, he could pretend that the surgery had not taken place.

Dwight nodded. He shouldn’t have let himself be distracted. The rustling on the other side of the screen told him the men were moving in their beds, probably getting ready for the nurse.

“You ready to write a letter for me?” one man asked.

The woman’s voice was closer now, and Dwight could almost picture her walking from one bed to the next, checking on the patients. “Of course, Mr. Perkins. I’ll be with you as soon as I finish the pans.”

It was annoying that he couldn’t place the voice. It was even more annoying that he cared. Resolutely, Dwight focused his attention on Private Osborne’s chart.

“You know we don’t like ’em any better than you do.”

The men chuckled, and Dwight heard the clanking of metal as the woman emptied a bedpan. “Well, gentlemen, my granny says …”

Dwight almost dropped the chart. There was only one woman at this hospital who quoted her grandmother. He knew that. What he did not know was why she was here exposing wounded men to her respiratory infection. Dwight yanked the screen aside, intending to reprimand the blonde nurse. Instead he blinked, not quite believing what he saw. The pretty blonde nurse wasn’t ill. She was wearing … No, it couldn’t be.

“What is that contraption on your nose?” he demanded.

Those deep blue eyes that had smiled across an operating table widened ever so slightly. “It’s called a clothespin.”

“I can see that.” Did the woman think he was stupid? Seven sisters generated a lot of laundry. As a result, Dwight had seen more clothespins than he cared to admit. Yet he had never seen a woman wearing one.

The nurse tipped her nose with the offending clothespin into the air. “If you knew that, why did you ask what it was?”

Impudent. She was worse than his sister Eve had been as a child. “Because,” he said, sternly refusing to remember how he had laughed at Eve’s antics, “for a moment I thought my eyes were deceiving me.” This was, after all, a hospital, not a child’s playroom. It was bad enough that this woman joked at inappropriate times. This was worse. “Would you kindly explain why you are wearing a clothespin?”

Dwight’s eyes moved slowly from the top of her head to her feet, assessing the rest of her costume. The crisp white cap and apron were standard issue, as was the gray dress with its white collar and cuffs. It was only the clothespin that was out of place.

The nurse shrugged. “It makes my job easier.” When she pointed toward the bedpan, a mischievous grin lighting her face, it was all Dwight could do not to laugh. Though he had more than a passing acquaintance with clothespins, having been pressed into laundry service on several occasions, he had never had to empty a bedpan. That was a situation he had no intention of changing. The nurse’s solution to a known problem was ingenious and, yes, amusing. But a good doctor kept levity out of the hospital. A hospital was a serious place.

“A clothespin is not an authorized part of the uniform,” Dwight informed the nurse. Didn’t she understand the need for discipline? This wasn’t simply a hospital; it was a hospital in a war zone. Regulations were not only needed, they were essential.

Apparently she did not understand, for she said simply, “I beg to disagree.” Though her voice bore the soft twang Dwight associated with Texas, there was nothing soft about her attitude. Her head was held high, and despite the ridiculous item perched on her nose, she somehow appeared regal.

Dwight glared at the woman who was making a mockery of the hospital. “Kindly show me where the guidelines specify the use of a clothespin to block unpleasant odors.”

The eyes that were bluer than a summer sky flashed with annoyance. “Absence does not necessarily mean something is prohibited.”

Dwight heard one of the patients muffle a sound. He chose not to listen too closely, for fear that he would identify the sound as a chuckle. This was not amusing! The woman’s behavior was bordering on insubordination.

“What basis do you have for that statement?” he demanded.

“The handbook does not specifically authorize the wearing of spectacles, yet no one would stop a nurse from wearing them if she needed them.”

This time there was no doubt about it. The men were laughing. “She’s got you there, Doc,” one announced.

“Nurse, I’d like to see you outside.” He had to put a stop to this. If the nurses did not respect him, how could the patients trust him to help them? Dwight knew that more than medicine was required to heal a man, particularly a man who had been severely wounded. Sometimes faith was needed. Dwight’s medical books had recounted numerous incidents where patients recovered when given a placebo, simply because they had confidence in the physician’s abilities. He couldn’t let anyone, especially not this flirtatious, distracting woman, endanger the patients by lessening their faith in him.

“C’mon, Doc,” another patient said. “She wasn’t hurting anyone. Truth is, we like Clothespin Carolyn.” Carolyn. So that was her name. It suited her. Hadn’t one of his sisters told him that the name meant “womanly”? Whatever else she was, there was no denying that this Carolyn was all woman.

“She makes us laugh,” a third man chimed in.

Dwight knew when he was defeated. He would lose more than he could possibly gain if he continued this conversation with Clothespin Carolyn. “I’ll bet she does.” Picking up his bag, he walked toward the door. He would return to this ward when he was certain Carolyn and her clothespin were gone.

Thank goodness Louise wasn’t like Carolyn. Louise wasn’t flighty. She wasn’t impudent. And Dwight couldn’t imagine her even thinking about wearing a clothespin, much less actually doing it. Sensible, stable Louise was going to be the perfect doctor’s wife. That was why he had asked her to marry him.

As he closed the door, Dwight heard one of the men say, “Don’t take no notice of him, Carolyn. We like you.”

It wasn’t that he disliked Carolyn. Dwight couldn’t argue with the fact that she had been efficient in the operating theater. He appreciated that. It was … Dwight stopped and shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. Why couldn’t he define what he felt about Carolyn? He was a highly analytical man, known for the accuracy of his diagnoses. Why couldn’t he identify the reason for his reaction to this woman? That wasn’t like him. Not at all. It must be the weather. That was the only reason Dwight could imagine that his thoughts were scrambled.

“You should have seen him, Helen.” Carolyn wielded the brush with a ferocity that had little relation to the amount of mud on her skirts. She had been dealing with mud-caked skirts and boots for days. Though she had groused about the rain and the inevitable mud, they had not irritated her the way a five-minute encounter with Dr. Hollow Heart had.

“At one point, I thought he was going to yank that clothespin off my nose,” she continued. “Then I realized that Dwight … er, Dr. Hollins … would never display that much emotion.”

Helen laughed as she measured tea and set the kettle to boil. The two women had returned to their room under the eaves. When Helen had seen Carolyn’s agitation, she had prescribed a cup of tea, telling Carolyn it was the English panacea. “Now you know why we call him Hollow Heart,” Helen said.

Indeed Carolyn did. She couldn’t understand how Dwight …
Stop it,
she admonished herself.
He’s Dr. Hollins or Dr. Hollow Heart, but not Dwight. There’s no reason—absolutely no reason at all—to be thinking of him in such familiar terms.

Carolyn laid down the brush and washed her hands. “Do you suppose anyone has ever seen him smile?” she asked Helen.

Helen unwrapped a piece of fruitcake that her mother had sent from home. Carolyn had been surprised when she learned that while it took weeks or even months for mail to arrive from the States, packages from London arrived within a day.

“I imagine Hollow Heart must have smiled at his fiancée once or twice,” Helen said as she placed two slices of fruitcake on a plate. Though Carolyn’s roommate had looked ill again this morning, now she glowed with health.

“Fiancée?” Carolyn could not camouflage her surprise. “Dw … er, Dr. Hollins is engaged?”

Helen shrugged. “So I’ve heard. The story is that her name is Louise and he gets a letter from her every Monday, regular as clockwork.”

Rain continued to beat on the roof. When Helen had invited Carolyn to share the small room with her, she had explained that although they had more privacy here than in the nurses’ quarters on the first and second floors, there was no escaping the sound of rain.

“It’s hard to believe the man’s human enough to love someone.” Carolyn wondered if he looked at Louise with the same disdain that he’d shown her. Of course not. Louise was probably the type of woman who did exactly what he expected. She wouldn’t wear a clothespin, and Carolyn doubted she’d ever defied him.

As she poured two cups of tea and handed one to Carolyn, Helen said, “You never know. People were surprised when I fell in love with Glen. They always thought I’d marry the boy next door. I might have, too,” she said, breaking a piece of fruitcake and chewing it carefully. “But when I met Glen, I knew he was the one man for me. And look at me now, an old married woman.” Helen gave Carolyn an appraising glance. “Was it that way for you, too?”