Her Hesitant Heart (7 page)

The bugler blew fatigue call as they crossed the parade ground and walked by the construction.

“It’s the new guardhouse,” he commented, taking her arm and walking her around a pile of lumber.

He pointed to a footbridge over the frozen Laramie River. “Can you swim? I’m joking. Over there is Suds Row, called so because of the laundresses. Noncommissioned officers and their families live here, too. This is where Private Benedict’s pupils come from, and this is Sergeant Rattigan’s quarters.” He opened a neat little gate.

“I don’t know if I can help,” she said, hanging back.

He pushed against the small of her back and moved her forward. “You can. She needs female company.”

“Do you bully everyone like this?” Susanna demanded.

“Yes. I always get my way,” he replied, a smile lurking around his lips.

He knocked and walked in. “I’m glad you’re sitting up, Maeve,” he said to a blanketed figure in an armchair, her feet propped on an ottoman. “Meet Mrs. Hopkins. She’ll be teaching the officers’ children starting Monday, and I’ve asked her to keep you company until your man returns. Mrs. Hopkins, this is Maeve Rattigan, just about my favorite person, because she makes me soda bread and peppermint tea.”

Susanna held out her hand. Maeve’s hand was cold, so Susanna did not release it, but put her other hand around it and sat on the edge of the sofa.

“I had … we had … a bad night,” Maeve said, not withdrawing her hand. She glanced at the post surgeon. “Did he tell you?”

“He did, and I’m so sorry,” Susanna replied simply. “May we ask the major to bring us peppermint tea?”

“Aye,” she said. “He doesn’t mind a little step and fetch.”

Her brogue was so charming that Susanna had to smile. “Do you know, I have only been here a few days, and I am rather smitten with the Irish accents I have heard. Thank you, Major. How prompt you are! Just set the cups on that little table. I need to take off my coat.”

She released Maeve’s hand and let Major Randolph help her with her coat. He hung it on a peg and returned to the lean-to kitchen. The house appeared to have two more rooms, and that was all. She looked around appreciatively. Everything was spotless.

She took Maeve’s hand again, pleased to feel more warmth. Major Randolph returned with something wrapped in a blanket. He lifted the blanket covering Maeve’s legs and pulled out a similar package. “Iron pigs,” he told Susanna. “I’ll leave the cool one in the oven and you can exchange it for this hot one, when it cools. Keep your feet warm, Maeve.”

He patted the blanket back in place and smiled at his patient. “Lean forward, my dear Maeve,” he told her, pulling out a thinner pad. “I’ll put this one back in the oven, too.” He returned to the kitchen, coming back with another blanket, which he put in place when Maeve winced and leaned forward
again. “I’m not sure of the science behind a warm blanket on the back, but it feels good,” he told them. “You can trade it off, Mrs. Hopkins.”

He straightened up, took a professional look at Maeve Rattigan, then kissed her cheek. “Don’t tell the sergeant,” he said with a wink. Nodding to them both, he let himself out quietly.

Maeve shook her head. “I honestly think he feels worse about this….
”
She stopped and dissolved in tears, as though she had been holding them back until there were only women in the house.

Susanna gulped, then hesitated no longer than the major had. Quickly, she plucked a chair from the dining table and sat as close to Maeve Rattigan as she could. She leaned forward to hold her in her arms as the sergeant’s wife sobbed every tear in the universe. Tears came to Susanna’s eyes and she cried, too, both of them denied motherhood, one by cruelty and the other by biology.

They cried until there were no more tears. Her arms were still tight around Maeve Rattigan, and Susanna knew the warmth was gone from the blanket at the woman’s back. “Lean forward,” she said. “I’ll make it warm again.”

She did, returning with the oven-warmed blanket. She slipped it in place, and Maeve leaned back gratefully. Her eyes were raw and swollen with weeping, but her face was calm now.

“May I read to you?” Susanna asked. “Major Randolph has a brand-new book here.” She opened it. “I do like Mark Twain. Do you?”

No answer. Maeve just looked at her with the same expression in her eyes as when she had looked at Major Randolph, as though there was something she could actually do that would end the pain. Susanna touched her hand. “It’s called
Sketches New and Old
. Let’s see now. Ah. ‘My Watch.’ Maeve, dear, would you mind if I take off my shoes and put my feet by that pig, too?”

Maeve smiled and shifted slightly so there was room. “It’s still warm. ‘My Watch,’ you say?”

Susanna made herself comfortable. She cleared her throat and began. “‘My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments ….’”

She looked at Maeve, already asleep, and closed the book. “You dear lady,” she whispered.

W
hen Maeve woke up an hour later, Susanna made her comfortable, with no embarrassment. When she finished, Susanna sat beside her and took her hands.

“Johnny helps me, but it pains him,” Maeve said simply. “Major Randolph, too, I think.”

Susanna nodded. She opened the book to “My Watch,” and continued reading through the afternoon. Maeve dozed, then woke for the story, which was starting to make her smile, then dozed again. She laughed out loud with “… I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense,” and gave a satisfied sigh when Susanna closed the book.

“I can leave it here so you can finish it on your own,” she said, looking at the clock.

There was no overlooking the color that bloomed
suddenly in Maeve’s pale cheeks. “I can’t read,” she said softly.

I think I have my work cut out for me at Fort Laramie
, Susanna thought, gratified. “Would you like to learn?”

“Aye,” came Maeve’s equally quiet reply. “Will you have time?”

“I can teach you at night.”
And keep myself out of Emmy’s unwelcome parlor
, she added to herself. “Private Benedict told me about night classes for the enlisted men.”

“Johnny doesn’t want me there.”

Susanna sat back, her finger still in the book. “Might there be other ladies who would like to learn in a separate class?”

“There might be.” Maeve turned her head toward the door, her face alert. “Here comes my Johnny.”

Susanna didn’t hear anything, but she wasn’t married to Johnny Rattigan, and from the soft look on Maeve’s face, in love with him. “I should leave,” she said.

“Not yet, please. Meet him.”

The door opened to reveal a handsome man with worry on his face. His eyes brightened to see Maeve, but the worry was still there. Major Randolph was right behind him. The two tall men seemed to fill the sitting room, the modest allotment of a sergeant in the U.S. Army. They brought with them a rush of cold air, and the winter Susanna had forgotten about for a few hours with
Maeve Rattigan, struggling with sorrow, and Mark Twain, who had made them both laugh.

The sergeant knelt by his wife’s chair. Susanna felt the tears start in her eyes when Maeve pulled him tenderly toward her and kissed his head. Susanna glanced at the major, who was looking at her. She had already decided the post surgeon wasn’t a man well versed in hiding his emotions. He seemed to be telling her,
Look, some marriages are lovely
.

Major Randolph introduced her to the sergeant, who was feeling the warming pad behind his wife’s back now. He took out the pad and went to the kitchen. He had obviously done this small thing for his wife many times, which made Susanna swallow and wonder why she had ever thought for the smallest moment that hers were the worst troubles in the universe.

At his wife’s whispered words, the sergeant put the newly warmed pad on her abdomen this time. Susanna knew he must be a man used to command, but his voice was calm and quiet. “I greatly appreciate your kindness,” he told her, his accent as charming as Maeve’s.

“Glad to help,” she said. Were all sergeants so handsome? “If you’re busy tomorrow, I will happily return.” She touched Maeve’s blanketed foot with her hand. “We have more stories to read.”

“I
am
busy tomorrow,” he said. “The army doesn’t stop for family difficulties.”

“Then are we agreed?” Susanna asked. She looked at the sergeant, feeling decisive for the first
time in months. “What time do you have breakfast here?”

“Around six, I suppose, eh, Maeve?”

“If the post surgeon can locate us some eggs, I’ll make an omelet. I know he has cheese and it’s not very good, but …”

“That’s army issue,” the major interrupted. “Likely found in the dark corner of a warehouse sometime after Appomattox, reboxed and christened Aged Cheddar. I have eggs.”

“Major, they’re so dear,” Maeve said in protest.

“Not as dear as you, Mrs. Rattigan,” he told her cheerfully. “Come, Mrs. Hopkins. I want you to meet some of your Monday-morning pupils. Good day to you both.” The post surgeon put the back of his hand against Maeve’s cheek. “If you feel so much as a twinge, send the sergeant on the double. He knows where I live.”

The Rattigans looked at each other and smiled, but only an idiot could not have seen the sorrow, too. They knew only too well where Major Randolph lived.

Outside, Susanna took a welcome lungful of winter, then shivered against the January cold. She stopped in surprise on the Rattigans’ postage-stamp porch when the post surgeon pulled her muffler tighter around her neck.

“Mrs. Hopkins, if you won’t button that top button on your coat, you’ll have to do better with your muffler.”

She was silent as he arranged her muffler to suit himself, not fooled at all.

“How do they bear it?” she asked, when he offered his arm and she took it with no hesitation. The walk was icy.

“I don’t know. There aren’t two people in this whole garrison who love each other as much as Maeve and John Rattigan, and she cannot give him what they both want so much. When they make love, it only leads to sorrow. I’m sorry for my plain speaking.”

“It only leads to blood in a bucket. I can speak as plain as you,” she finished. “How tragic.” She stopped before the footbridge. Children returning from Private Benedict’s school were running across the icy planks. “Did you take me here today to remind me that it’s time I quit feeling sorry for myself?”

“No, but if that’s a byproduct …” He took her arm again when the children were across the bridge. “I took you because the last thing Maeve needed to see was another sergeant’s wife towing her own children over, to sit and commiserate, which I swear the Irish do better than anyone. You watch—she’ll be fine in a few days. But right now, a reminder of children isn’t good. What did you learn today?”

“That I like to prop my feet up on a warm pig, too, and maybe I could teach some ladies to read. Can you really find eggs?”

“Bam, can you change a subject,” he joked. “I
have a small pig in the hospital which I will gladly loan you for cold nights, and yes, I have an egg source, officially listed in my supplies as medicinal. As for teaching ladies to read, bravo.”

He was quiet then as they strolled along. She could tell how tired he was. “When did you last sleep, Major?” she asked.

“Two days ago, I think.”

“I can meet my students tomorrow afternoon,” she offered.

“Tomorrow there will be some other crisis,” he told her, pointing to the adobe house on the end of Officers Row. “Let’s begin here.”

“There really isn’t any point in arguing with you, is there?”

“None whatever.”

It was dark by the time they finished the visits. It amused her to see eagerness on some faces and discontent on others, who probably saw her as a spoilsport ruining their idyllic existence.

“
I
would be upset if Mrs. Hopkins showed up, ready to confine me to a classroom, when there is a fort full of swearing men, tales of scalps being lifted, and the promise of riding with Papa on campaign,” she told him as they neared the last house.

“There will be Nick Martin in the back row with his gallows smile,” the major said. “A daunting prospect.” He stopped then. “Speaking of daunting prospects, here we are at Chez Dunklin. I saved the worst for last.”

Susanna felt her heart thump harder. “I hope Mrs. Dunklin takes no interest in Shippensburg gossip.”

“We’ll know soon.”

The Dunklin quarters were overheated like all the others, but with heavy, dark furniture. Obviously not for the Dunklins were packing crate settees, which Susanna found charming, or light folding chairs, easy to move to the next garrison. The Dunklins seemed to be doing their best to bring Pennsylvania to the West.

To her relief, Captain Dunklin dominated the conversation in his own parlor, as he had attempted in the ambulance from Cheyenne. He complained of headache, which Major Randolph assured him was the principal symptom of erobitis.

“It will run its course by tomorrow afternoon,” the post surgeon said with a straight face. “Here is your scholar. Bobby Dunklin, Mrs. Hopkins has so much to teach you.”

Bobby scowled. Susanna decided to seat Nick Martin directly behind him, starting Monday. She glanced at Mrs. Dunklin, aware that Bobby must have inherited his scowl from her. Goose bumps marched in ranks down Susanna’s back as she chattered to an unwilling Bobby about school. “I’d rather ride my horse,” he said.

“Just think, Bobby,” Susanna said “While you’re waiting for spring, you can learn a few things.”

She felt Mrs. Dunklin’s eyes boring into her back.
Can we leave?
she pleaded silently to the
post surgeon, wishing Major Randolph was susceptible to thought waves.

As the post surgeon started eyeing the door himself, Mrs. Dunklin stood up suddenly. “We’re so pleased you are here to lead our children into knowledge,” the woman said, sounding every bit as pompous as her husband. Then she frowned. “It’s going to drive me distracted until I remember why your name sticks in my mind, Mrs. Hopkins. I’ll figure it out.”

“Is it too much to hope that Captain Dunklin be transferred before Monday morning?” Susanna asked as they walked toward the Reeses’ quarters.

He said good-night on the porch. “If you’re serious about an omelet at the Rattigans’ tomorrow morning, I’ll stop by at five-thirty to escort you. With eggs, of course.”

She laughed softly. “Major, I never joke about omelets, or the weightier matters of our society. I’ll be ready.” She relished the sound of his own quiet laughter as he tipped his hat to her and continued on down the row.

Susanna was ready at five-thirty, waiting for the post surgeon’s knock on the door.

When it came, she opened the door to Nick Martin, who held out a note to her. “‘Nick’s your escort this morning,’” she read, after ushering him inside out of the snow. “‘I am doing my best to keep Lieutenant Bevins calm while his wife, a real trouper, labors on. Enjoy the eggs. Joe.’”

They crossed the parade ground quickly because the soldiers were assembling there, some of them still rubbing sleep from their eyes and yawning.

“What now?” she asked her escort.

“The corporal calls the roll, and then they go to breakfast,” Nick said. “There’s Sergeant Rattigan.”

She followed Nick’s pointing finger, the egg basket rocking on his arm, to see Maeve’s husband, standing ramrod-straight for his corporal to finish the roll. Too bad the army didn’t take into account that maybe Maeve needed Johnny more than some forty sleepy soldiers did.

Since Maeve’s husband was on the parade ground, Susanna hesitated before knocking on the Rattigans’ front door. It seemed a shame to make Maeve get up from her bed. She tapped lightly, and the sergeant’s wife opened the door.

She could tell Maeve was better. With a smile, the woman opened the door wider. Nick tried to hand the eggs over the threshold and back away, but Maeve stopped him.

“Nick, since the major is busy, who will eat his portion of the omelet?” she asked. “Omelets don’t keep well.”

Nick handed the egg basket to Maeve, but came no closer than the porch. “I can wait out here,” he mumbled.

“No, you won’t,” Maeve told him, her voice firm. Susanna decided she wasn’t a sergeant’s wife for nothing. “It’s too cold.” When he still didn’t
budge, her eyes grew thoughtful. “Saint Paul, how will you even keep up your strength for another missionary journey, without an omelet?”

“I do believe you are right,” he replied, and came indoors.

By now, Maeve was leaning on the chair Susanna had left yesterday beside the armchair. Susanna took her arm. “Saint Paul, if you could bring that smaller chair into the kitchen, Maeve can sit down while I cook.”

He did as she said. “I will bring in wood.”

Maeve sat down thankfully. “I thought I could do this.”

“I can help,” Susanna said, taking off her overcoat and putting on the apron hanging on a nail by the dry sink. “Major Randolph is delivering …” She stopped, unwilling to remind Maeve Rattigan that other women had babies at Fort Laramie.

Maeve put her hand on Susanna’s arm. “Mrs. Hopkins, life doesn’t stop because of my misfortune,” she said quietly. “I know he’s delivering the Bevinses’ baby.”

“You’re right,” Susanna said, struck by her words. It was true that life hadn’t stopped for her, either. Maybe she could learn something, if she chose to.

“I doubt it’s any harder than your own situation, widowed at a young age.”

I don’t want to continue that lie, but what can I do?
Susanna asked herself.

By the time the omelet was ready for the skillet,
Nick had brought in more wood, and Sergeant Rattigan was stamping snow off his boots on the front porch. Susanna glanced at Maeve, charmed at her sudden animation.
I want to love like that someday
, she thought.

“Saint Paul, you’re mighty handy,” she said, as Nick put the wood by the stove.

The sergeant helped Maeve back to the big chair. He covered her with a blanket, kissed her forehead and then opened the oven door for another warm blanket.

“I’m staying here today, Sergeant,” Susanna said.

“Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“I don’t mind at all,” she replied, turning the omelet carefully and holding her breath until it was cooking, whole, on its other side.

“Very well.” He put the warm blanket against Maeve’s back, then returned to the kitchen. The sergeant glanced toward the parlor. “Maeve tells me you are interested in teaching some of the wives to read.”

“I am.” Susanna gestured to Nick, standing in the corner, to hold out the platter. “I’ll see how that works in with my other duties, and then we’ll begin.”

Nick may have objected to sitting at the table when Susanna asked, but Sergeant Rattigan was made of sterner stuff, apparently. One leveling glance and Nick sat down, hands folded in his lap like a well-behaved child.

Toast and tea completed the meal. Susanna ate as little as she could, hoping that would leave more for Maeve. She noticed Sergeant Rattigan was doing the same thing; they smiled at each other like conspirators as Maeve ate a large helping, then closed her eyes in satisfaction.