Fire by Night (61 page)

Nathaniel didn’t reply. He seemed too angry to speak—or perhaps too afraid of losing control. As Julia had listened to James, she felt as if she were running several yards behind him, trying to catch up. She still hadn’t absorbed the truth that he had been a widower all this time. The feelings she’d had toward him hadn’t been shameful at all.

“I thought I loved my wife,” James said, “but it was a very selfish kind of love, based solely on what she could give me. That’s what you have for Julia. You want to make her into what you want her to be, then keep her all to yourself, possessing her as your very own, using her to complete yourself. But believe it or not, I know Scripture, too—it says that husbands should love their wives in the same way that Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. You’re not giving up anything for her. Julia is making all the sacrifices— and you’ll end up killing her.”

Nathaniel seemed to vibrate with the anger he was struggling to control. “I would never harm a hair on her head—”

“Maybe not physically, like I did, but you’ll destroy that wonderful stubborn spirit that’s uniquely hers. She’s strong-willed, outspoken, obstinate at times—hardly ideal qualities for a minister’s wife, wouldn’t you say? So rather than seeing these as good qualities, you’ll try to control them and snuff them out, the way you’re silencing her right now.”

James took a step closer to Nathaniel, challenging him. “I wish you could have seen Julia scrubbing laundry with her head held high. Or helping me perform surgery, seeing bone and muscle and blood, but never flinching because she knew that lives depended on her. That’s the strength of character she has. And that’s exactly what you want to destroy in her. I’d hate for that to happen.”

Nathaniel finally seemed to have reached his limit. He planted his hand in the middle of James’ chest and shoved him backward. “What gives you the right to barge in here and interfere in our private affairs? What makes you think Julia’s marriage is any of your business?” He shoved him again.

“Because I’m in love with her.”

“How dare you!” Nathaniel shouted. Julia was too stunned to speak.

“That’s what I came here to tell her—in private. But you insisted on hearing it, too. It’s because I love her that I want what’s best for her. If she decides you’re the best husband for her—fine, so be it. But you’d better make sure you treat her right, Greene. She deserves it. She is one of the strongest, most unselfish women I’ve ever met.”

Tears came to Julia’s eyes as she remembered standing in this very hallway and hearing Nathaniel describe her as shallow, spoiled, and unbearably self-absorbed. She wanted desperately to say something to James, but Nathaniel was so furious with him that she was afraid they would come to blows if this went on much longer.

Nathaniel shoved James backward once again. “Leave!” he shouted. “And don’t you dare come near Julia again!”

James’ eyes met hers. “Is that what you want, Julia?”

She didn’t have time to answer him. Nathaniel grabbed James by the arm, yanked open the door, and shoved him through it. “Julia is in love with me. She wants what I want, and I want you to get out!” He slammed the door closed behind him.

The commotion drew the congressman, Julia’s father, and two of the other men into the foyer. “Is everything all right?” Rhodes asked. “What in heaven’s name is going on out here?”

“Nothing,” Nathaniel said. “Everything’s fine, the caller is gone. He was an obnoxious fellow, and I’m afraid I had to be a bit forceful in order to get rid of him. Please assure the women that everything is all right. We’ll join you in a moment.”

Julia had never seen Nathaniel so angry. She stared at him as if he were a stranger. “I’m glad you’re going home tomorrow,” he finally said. “That man is dangerous. The safest thing to do is to stay far away from him.”

Julia couldn’t erase the image of Nathaniel shoving James backward, throwing him out the door, and she wondered which man was more dangerous. “You didn’t have to treat him so badly. He wasn’t trying to hurt me.”

“I treated
him
badly? Did you hear the accusations he was making?”

“James would never hurt me.”

Something in Nathaniel’s attitude seemed to shift. He looked at Julia as if he’d suddenly decided that she was the enemy. “Did you know he felt this way about you?”

“He …he has never declared his feelings before tonight,” she said. But that wasn’t the whole truth. She’d known exactly how James felt about her since the night he’d kissed her. She couldn’t meet Nathaniel’s gaze. He noticed.

“Look at me, Julia,” he said, lifting her chin. “How does it happen that he has these feelings for you? A man doesn’t fall in love without a reason.”

“Are you accusing me—?”

“You must have done something to make him think he’s in love with you.”

“What are you saying?”

“This isn’t the first time, remember? There was that coarse fellow in City Point who wanted you, too. Whether you realize it or not, you are doing something to attract a very unsavory type of man.”

“James is not unsavory. He—”

“Perhaps you aren’t aware of his past, but that man is a suspect in a murder case.”

Julia opened her mouth to defend James but knew that if she did, her feelings for him would spill out into the open. Nathaniel was glaring at her, accusing her. If she stayed with him a moment longer she would end up saying things she was sorry for, things she hadn’t finished thinking through yet.

“I don’t care at all for the way you’re speaking to me,” she said, her voice trembling. “Please give my apologies to Mrs. Rhodes. I don’t feel well. I’m going to bed.”

“Julia! We are not finished!”

“Yes, we are. Good night, Nathaniel.”

It took Julia a long time to stop shaking. When her mother came upstairs to check on her, Julia told her she had a headache. She allowed the servants to help her take off her party gown and unpin her hair. Mrs. Rhodes offered her some laudanum to help her sleep. Julia accepted the pills just to get rid of her, but she didn’t swallow them.

She lay on her bed in the dark for a long time, listening to the sounds of the party below and thinking about everything that James had said. She understood now why he no longer wore his wedding ring. He was free to tell her that he loved her. She remembered the tender expression on his face when he’d spoken the words tonight, and she knew that he’d been about to tell her the same thing in City Point last summer before she’d stopped him.

He had called her strong-willed, outspoken, obstinate. She was all of those things. And in the end, those words touched Julia’s heart more than James’ declaration of love. He didn’t want to change her, the way Nathaniel did. James saw her for what she was, and he loved her regardless.

Julia climbed out of bed and put on one of her plainer dresses, without hoops. She heaped pillows beneath her covers to make it appear that she was asleep, then took the servants’ stairs down to the back entrance. She hurried outside to the stable in the dark to find the Rhodes’ coachman.

“I need to go to Fairfield Hospital right away,” she told him. “Kindly get a carriage ready for me.” Her voice and her demeanor carried authority. The man never questioned the unusual request or the lateness of the hour.

The hospital looked dark and deserted when she arrived. “Wait here,” she told the driver. “I’ll be right back.” Julia didn’t expect to find James at the hospital. She had no idea where he lived, but she assumed that someone had to know where to find him in case of an emergency. The front door had been locked for the night. Julia pounded on it as hard as she could and was very surprised when Phoebe opened the door.

“What are you doing here?” Julia asked.

“I live here. Dr. McGrath fixed me a room because there wasn’t no place to rent in the whole city. What are
you
doing here?”

“I need to talk to Dr. McGrath.”

“He ain’t here. He’s probably at the shantytown, where Belle and Loretta used to live.”

“Thanks.” Julia turned to hurry away, but Phoebe grabbed her arm to stop her.

“Whoa! Hold on! He’s fighting a typhoid fever epidemic. He don’t want me helping him for fear I’ll catch it—and he sure as shooting won’t want you there. You’d better come back tomorrow.”

Julia knew she could never wait until morning. She had let Nathaniel throw James out of the house without saying a word to stop him. James had no idea how she felt about him. “Okay, Phoebe. I’ll come back tomorrow,” she said. But she hurried down the steps to the carriage and gave the coachman directions to the shantytown.

The driver hesitated. “That’s a pretty rough part of town, miss.”

“I’ll be perfectly safe. I’ve visited there before. Kindly stop arguing and drive.”

The jumbled cluster of shacks and lean-tos had tripled in size since Julia had last seen them. In the dim light of a few flickering campfires, the piles of wreckage that served as houses looked like a vision from a nightmare. The stench of death hit her as soon as she stepped from the carriage.

“You may return home,” she told the driver. James would have no choice but to let her stay and work.

“Miss, I never should have brought you here in the first place,” the coachman said. “Please, get back in and let me take you home. I’ll lose my job for sure.”

“Go home, put the carriage in the stable, and go to bed. No one will know I’m missing until morning—and I won’t tell a soul that you drove me here.” She turned and strode toward the camp.

The first people she stumbled upon were three young Negro men hunched around a smoky fire, sharing a bottle of whiskey. They eyed her from head to toe, then one of them stood. “Lady, you must be lost for sure!” She knew by the way they laughed that they were all drunk.

For a terrible moment, Julia felt the same paralyzing fear that had seized her when Otis Whitney had grabbed her from behind and clamped his hand over her mouth. She had been helpless, un-able to fight him off as he’d dragged her down into the bushes and tried to rape her. This time there were three men, all much stronger than she was. She had been a fool to come here.

“I’m not lost,” she somehow managed to say. “I’m a nurse. I’m looking for Dr. McGrath. I’ve come to help him.”

The stranger stared at her as if she had spoken a foreign language and he was struggling to translate it. Then he pointed to a nearby shack built from packing crates. It was lit from inside by a lantern. “He’s in there, taking care of Ida and her little ones.”

“Thank you.” She walked toward the shack on rubbery legs.

Inside, a half dozen feverish children lay sprawled on the floor beside their mother. James knelt in the dirt with a limp toddler in his arms, pounding the child’s back to break up the phlegm in her lungs. He looked up and saw Julia.

“Don’t come in here!” he yelled. “Get out! Get out!”

Still shaken from her memories of Otis, Julia lashed back. “What gives you the right to order me around? This isn’t your hospital. I have as much right to work here as you do.”

“Please, Julia, it’s too dangerous. This is a typhoid epidemic.”

“It’s my life,” she said quietly. “I have as much right to risk it as you do to risk yours.” They stared at each other without speaking. But Julia knew that they’d reached an understanding, just the same. “Tell me what to do,” she said.

They worked side by side all night. James showed her how he diagnosed typhoid by the characteristic red skin lesions on the patient’s chest and abdomen. She helped him dispense calomel to help stop the diarrhea, and potassium nitrate and Dover’s powders to induce sweating and bring down their fevers. In some cases, the typhoid had developed into bronchitis and pneumonia. Julia helped him hold feverish children over pans of steaming water to ease their breathing. Neither of them mentioned Nathaniel Greene or spoke of what had happened earlier that evening. It seemed like a lifetime ago.

At dawn, James lifted a sleeping infant from Julia’s arms and helped her to her feet. “Come on,” he said gently. “We’ve done all we can. It’s time to go home.”

Neither of them spoke as they picked their way through the debris of shantytown. As she walked down the alley toward the main street beside James, Julia felt as if she was returning to another world. The smell and the despair still clung to her, and she longed for a hot bath and several hours’ sleep. James looked just as weary. He had opened his heart to her at the congressman’s house, but now his carefully constructed walls were back in place again. She knew it was up to her to help him dismantle them.

“What are your plans now that the war is over, James?”

He took a moment to reply. “I’ve accepted a staff position at another army hospital here inWashington. There are a lot of soldiers who still face a long rehabilitation. And the prisoners of war are in terrible condition, too. Then there are the former slaves. … I’ll still be needed here for a while.”

“Will your hospital need nurses, by any chance?”

He stopped walking. “Why?”

She smiled slightly. “It seems I’ve just broken my engagement— again. And my father will probably disown me, too, when he learns that I stayed out all night. I could use a job.”

“Why would you stay here in Washington? Your home is in Philadelphia.”

“The doctor I’m in love with is here in Washington.”

He closed his eyes for a long moment, then started walking again. “You came to my hospital inWashington with your chin held high, so stubborn, so determined to be a nurse. I did a cruel thing to you, using that patient with gangrene. Yet you stayed, even though I did my best to get rid of you. I think I knew I would fall in love with you if you stayed. And that’s exactly what happened. The night your first patient died and you gave up your elegant evening to come and sit with him …I watched you from the hallway. You looked so beautiful, spoke so tenderly to the boy. … Then you flew into my arms, and I held you close, and I was sure my heart would break from loving you.”

“You did a very good job of pushing me away.”

“Sparks and gunpowder,
Mrs
. Hoffman. I believed you were a married woman.”

“Would you have hired me if I’d told you the truth?”