Fire by Night (60 page)

“You’re right,” Julia said. “Phoebe is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever met.”

“Were you looking for me, Dr. McGrath?” Phoebe found him in the supply room, rummaging through boxes and bottles and piles of bandages, searching for something.

“I can’t find the calomel,” he said. “Are we all out of it?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

He had his battered medical bag with him, the one he took whenever he went to the shantytown to work.

“Loretta and Belle told me that all the folks in shantytown are real sick,” Phoebe said. “If you’re going there tonight, I’d like to go with you.”

“No. You can’t come this time, Phoebe. From the way they’ve described the symptoms, I suspect it might be typhoid fever.”

“I ain’t afraid—”

“I said
no
!” he yelled. “I won’t kill you, too! Stay away from there!”

Phoebe stepped back, stunned by the force of his anger. He had never yelled at her before. A moment later he caught himself. He closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you that way. Please forgive me.”

“Of course. It’s okay.” She touched his arm briefly, then bent to fetch the calomel from a lower cabinet.

His angry words seemed odd to Phoebe:
“I won’t kill you, too
.” She remembered his confession at Cold Harbor, how he’d admitted that he had murdered someone. And also his emotional reaction when her brother Willard lay dying:
“I know how difficult it is when it’s your own family and there’s nothing you can do.”
It seemed to Phoebe that Dr. McGrath was all bent over beneath a very heavy load, as if carrying a knapsack stuffed full of guilt. He was suffering, and Phoebe wanted to help him, the way she’d helped Ted when his pack was too heavy. She stood again and handed him the lump of calomel.

“Did someone you love die of typhoid?” she asked softly.

At first she didn’t think he was going to answer. When he finally looked up at her, his eyes were filled with pain.

“My wife, Ellen.”

An enormous silence filled the room. The longer it lasted, the more heavily it seemed to weigh on both of them. “How long ago?” Phoebe finally asked.

“Four years.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

He closed his eyes again. “It was my fault,” he said hoarsely. “I killed her.”

“But you just said she died of typhoid.”

“I made her go with me to help with an epidemic, like this one. She didn’t want to, but I made her. It was right after Eldon Tyler killed himself, and I was still trying to prove to the world that I wasn’t a murderer. My medical practice was ruined, and none of my former patients consulted me anymore, so I started working with poor people from the shipyards and the factory tenements. Ellen was afraid to go to such disease-ridden places, but I was driven to prove myself, to win my reputation back. It was all about me …and I ignored her fears. When she got sick, I couldn’t save her. And she died.”

Phoebe swallowed. “It’s an awful, helpless feeling when you can’t save the person you love.”

“Yes. It is.” He paused, drawing a breath. “I took a job with the army as a contract surgeon and came here to get away. I was still grieving, and I know I took it out on everyone who worked with me. I still do at times, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you that way.”

“What about all the letters from New Haven?” she asked, suddenly remembering them.

“The what? Oh. My mother is taking care of Kate …my daughter.” He looked down at the calomel in his hands as if he had no idea where it had come from. Then he looked up at Phoebe again and nodded. “Thanks for finding this. I don’t want to keep you from your patients.”

She didn’t move. “After Ted died, I wanted to push everybody away, too. It seemed safer than getting close to people and getting hurt all over again. But it isn’t. We were meant to love people, and we need to accept their love in return. Otherwise, we ain’t really living.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said quietly. “I know I was hard on all the nurses, but I had to know what motivated them—if they were doing this work because they wanted to or if it was only to please their husbands, as Ellen had done. I know I was especially hard on Julia Hoffman because I was certain that she was working here to please someone, not because she wanted to be here. Why else would someone as wealthy and as privileged as she is come here to—”

“Julia’s here in Washington,” Phoebe said, interrupting. “She came to see me today.”

“What? Julia’s …here?”

He was in love with her. Phoebe read it in his eyes and saw it written all over his face. Dr. McGrath had always been good at hiding his feelings, but for once he hadn’t been able to. Opening his heart to Phoebe and confessing his grief had made him vulnerable. It was as if she could look straight inside him. “You’re in love with Julia, aren’t you?” she said.

He quickly closed down again, turning away. “It doesn’t really matter how I feel about her. She’s going to marry that preacher …what’s-his-name.”

“She doesn’t love him. And he ain’t right for her. You are.”

“Well …it’s too late now.” He shoved the blue lump of calomel into his bag and snapped it shut. He started walking back toward his office. Phoebe followed.

“You know what a wonderful nurse Julia is, but Reverend Greene won’t let her be one. He wants to make her into what he wants her to be. She shouldn’t marry him.”

When the doctor reached his office, Phoebe followed him inside. He looked cornered, as if he wanted to run but had no place to go. “Don’t you have work to do?” he asked.

“Julia cares for you, Dr. McGrath. She told me she did.”

He stared at her. “When did she tell you that?”

“When she came to see me today. But she’s been hiding the way she feels all this time because she thinks you’re married.” Phoebe gestured to the photograph on his desk. “Everybody thought you were. And we thought all those letters were from your wife.”

For a long moment she saw hope flicker in his eyes, as if he could almost believe he might be happy again. Then it passed, replaced by pain. “I killed my wife, Phoebe. I won’t marry again.”

“You didn’t kill your wife. You were trying to help people, to save lives. The same as when I had to kill that man to save Julia’s life. You didn’t want your wife to die any more than I wanted Otis Whitney to die. Neither one of us set out to do it on purpose. It just happened. I had to ask God to forgive me, and then I had to forgive myself. So do you.”

“Asking forgiveness won’t change the past.”

“No, but you’re letting the past ruin today and tomorrow. None of us are the same people we were before the war. God can make us into new people if we ask Him to. Remember?”

“I’m sure God never intended salvation for the likes of me,” he said, dropping into his chair. “I certainly don’t deserve it.”

“You’re wrong. If everybody in that shantytown was healthy, you’d have no reason to go there, would you? Jesus said it wasn’t the good, healthy people who needed a physician but the sick ones.”

He didn’t look up. Phoebe was about to go out the door and leave him alone when she suddenly turned back. “If you love Julia, fight for her, Dr. McGrath.”

“How?” he asked hoarsely.

“She’s staying at that congressman’s house. You should go talk to her. Don’t let her make a mistake and marry the preacher.”

“It’s her life. I have no right to interfere.”

“You don’t have to interfere, just tell her the truth. Tell her that your wife died four years ago. Tell her that you love her. Then let her make up her own mind.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Washington City
May 1865

On Julia’s last night in Washington, Congressman Rhodes hosted a dinner party for her and her family. It was a beautiful, elegant affair, with music and fine food and plenty of laughter—as if joy had finally returned to everyone’s life now that the war had ended. It reminded Julia of the party she’d attended here three years ago, the night she’d met Hiram Stone—except that tonight her escort was Nathaniel. She saw the love and admiration in his eyes when she descended the stairs in her beautiful new ball gown. And when he seemed reluctant to leave her side for a single moment, her doubts about their upcoming marriage slowly began to evaporate like melting snow.

Late in the evening, as she sat at the dinner table finishing a seven-course meal, the congressman’s servant tiptoed into the dining room and tapped Julia on the shoulder. “Excuse me, Miss Hoffman. There is a gentleman at the door asking to speak with you.”

“Did he give his name?” Nathaniel asked before Julia could reply.

“Yes, sir. James McGrath.”

Julia rose to her feet in alarm. “I hope nothing has happened to Phoebe!” Nathaniel followed her as she hurried to the front hallway.

James stood alone in the foyer where the servant had left him. His auburn hair was neatly combed, his clothes pressed and tidy for once, as if he’d come to attend the dinner, too. Something inside Julia stirred at the sight of him, and she felt an ache that she didn’t understand. She moved closer to Nathaniel, fighting the urge to run to James. She didn’t trust herself to speak.

“What can we do for you, Doctor?” Nathaniel asked.

James hesitated. “I’d like a word with Julia, if I may.”

“Miss Hoffman and I are engaged to be married,” he said pleasantly. “Anything you have to say to her can be said in front of me.”

“I’d prefer to speak to her in private.” James gestured to the congressman’s study.

“Your manners are sorely lacking, Doctor. In polite society, young ladies don’t speak to gentlemen behind closed doors. And gentlemen don’t barge into private homes unannounced and uninvited at dinnertime. Is this an emergency?”

“No, but—”

“Has something happened to Miss Bigelow?”

“No.”

“Then kindly be brief. You’re interrupting Julia’s dinner.”

“All right,” he sighed. “But I’m not entirely sure whom I should address.” He looked from Nathaniel to Julia and back again. “I once took my daughter to see a puppet show, and while it appeared that the characters were having their say, in reality the puppet master was doing all the talking for them.”

“I beg your pardon,” Nathaniel said.

“You do Julia a huge disservice by speaking for her, Reverend. Believe me, she does very well speaking for herself. She has told me exactly what she thinks on several occasions.”

“I find your attitude and your conversation extremely insulting. Please leave.” Nathaniel gestured to the door, but James didn’t move.

“The war is over, Greene. Times have changed. Women have conquered new territory and have found new roles for themselves— besides as our ‘helpmeet.’ They’ve led the abolition movement, raised thousands of dollars for relief agencies, worked as nurses, run their families’ farms and businesses. Several women even became successful spies because men were too dense to believe a woman could pull the wool over their eyes. And I know at least one brave woman who put on a uniform and fought as a soldier. The war changed these women. They proved that they are more than pretty faces. How can they be content to let us order them around again?”

“Are you finished?”

“No. Let me ask you this—have you given any thought to what Julia’s role will be after she becomes your wife?”

“Of course I have, and so has Julia. We’ve discussed the duties that a minister’s wife is expected to perform, and—”

“What if she doesn’t want to perform those duties? What if there are other things she’d rather do?”

“Don’t be absurd. What more could she possibly want? The war is over; there is no longer any need for nurses.”

Julia heard Nathaniel speaking for her, putting words in her mouth as James had accused him of doing, but she was too confused and shaken to think clearly.

“I had expectations for my wife, too,” James said. “She was to fill the role of a doctor’s wife. But Ellen was very unhappy playing that part. She wasn’t cut out for helping me treat patients. She did it, of course, because I expected her to. Our marriage vows demanded that she obey me …and my expectations caused her death.”

His words rocked through Julia like a bomb blast. “Your wife is dead?” she breathed.

“Yes. She helped me treat typhoid patients during an outbreak. She became ill herself and died.” James had been speaking calmly, matter-of-factly, until now. For the first time, his voice faltered. “Ellen didn’t want to help me. She was always afraid that she would become ill, especially after Kate was born. But I made her do it. After all, the husband is the head of the household, isn’t he, Reverend? The wife must submit to his authority, isn’t that right?”

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Nathaniel said stiffly. “But I hardly think a minister’s wife will be exposed to the same risks—”

“You’re not nearly as sorry as I am,” James said quietly. “You know what the worst part is? I never bothered to ask Ellen what she wanted to do. I saw her the same way you and every other man sees his wife—as an extension of himself. We believe that women couldn’t possibly want anything more than to be married to us, to live in our homes, to take care of us and support our careers. Sound familiar, Reverend? Before you ask Julia to give up all of her own desires to fit into your life, why don’t you ask her what she really wants to do?”