Patricia Rice (15 page)

Dora was over twenty now. She'd survived in this household for three years. She hadn't done it by running her legs off every time someone barked. The Nicholls family might incline toward thinking of her as an unpaid, invisible servant, but she had carved out her own ideas of her position in the family. She halted one of the maids and passed on the order.

"Has something happened?" Dora asked, watching the activity with a degree of anxiety.

"That man has ordered me out of the house! He claims it is all my fault that the Yankees are refusing to pay him for those slaves they're taking. You'd think those horrible old negroes were more important than his son's wife and his granddaughter. I've never been so insulted in my life! I'm leaving, and I'm never coming back. These are the most ungrateful, pigheaded ..."

The tirade could go on for the rest of the day. Once Josie started on the subject of her father-in-law, she would follow with another on her ungrateful husband and her useless mother-in-law. In actuality, Josie had been delighted when Charlie joined the rebels. She'd played lady of the manor ever since. Carlson's edict meant she was reduced to returning home and playing dutiful daughter to her mother again.

Dora continued up the stairs to see how Harriet Nicholls was taking this latest excitement. With both of her sons out of the house and her husband too busy to be seen or heard, she had begun to improve. The knowledge that Josie had produced a girl instead of a boy had also tickled the old lady, mostly because it so irritated the men.

Little Amy had escaped Delia's scolding and hid in the bedroom behind her grandmother's chair. Harriet winked when Dora entered.

"There's a little mouse in here. Better be careful where you step."

Dora's lips quirked as the toddler scrunched down smaller behind the chair skirt. She had done her very best to stay away from the little girl, but she couldn't help the tug on her heart every time Amy crossed her path.

The child had her father's dark gold hair and her mother's pointed chin, but mostly she looked like a grubby elf. Delia wasn't a particularly efficient nanny, and Josie had no clue as to how to make a child mind. Amy fairly well succeeded in doing anything she wanted, with her grandmother's cooperation.

"Well, I shall bring the cat up from the kitchen to catch the mouse," Dora responded. "Or dost thou think perhaps the mouse might be persuaded to go down to the kitchen with me to look for something to nibble on?"

Mrs. Nicholls solemnly nodded her capped head. The years had not been kind to her. Her flesh had grown to flab and then wasted into heavy wrinkles. Her hair was thinning and had turned an unflattering iron gray. But the fact that she actually sat up in a chair marked an enormous improvement. She wasn't big-boned like her husband. Pace had inherited his slighter stature from her. But she still wasn't a small woman. She made a commanding presence when she put her mind to it.

"Take the mouse away. I suspect she hasn't been fed in all this commotion. Everything has certainly gone to hell in a handbasket around here lately."

Dora could agree with that, but not out loud. She crooked her finger at the interested child, and made a play of tiptoeing out of the room. Amy scampered to follow.

By the time Dora got mashed potatoes and new spring peas into the imp, Amy had succeeded in smearing not only herself, but Dora with the vegetables, pulled off Dora's cap and buried her sticky fingers in her hair, and wet herself and Dora's skirts completely through. She was sleepy and ready for a nap by the time Delia carried her off to the waiting wagon.

Dora ran her hands through her short curls and watched the wagon bearing Amy and Josie roll down the lane. She should be used to people leaving her life. This aching pain and nagging loneliness should be second nature to her by now. But each leave-taking ripped still another hole in the fabric of her existence. Despite all her efforts to remain aloof, she would miss the golden-haired little imp and even Josie's scolding tongue.

When the wagon disappeared beyond the trees, Dora returned upstairs feeling as if she had no more substance than a dandelion seed.

She stopped in her room to clean the peas and potatoes from her face and change her damp gown. Catching a glimpse of her reflection in the small mirror over the washstand, she studied herself. Her face was small, her eyes too large, her lashes too dark for her pale hair.

Her hair was her only act of rebellion. Too fine and unmanageable to torture into ringlets, her hair wouldn't even lie down in a chignon. The huge bonnet she wore when she went out made long hair miserably hot. So she kept the mop cut and let it curl and wisp where it would. No one ever noticed.

Briefly, she wondered what she would look like if she wore pretty blues and laces and maybe ribbons in her hair, but what would it matter? No one would notice if she walked down the stairs stark naked.

Unlike Pace, David wrote faithfully, but Dora had succeeded in walling herself off any emotion generated by his letters. He tried to write cheerfully, but she could read between the lines. He hated the war and the violence and the senseless destruction. She wanted to ache for him, to wish him home, to weep, but she couldn't. He was out of her life now.

Once people left her, they never came back. She knew that as a matter of fact. Perhaps the best thing she could do now was leave this place. If she wasn't here, maybe Pace and Charlie and David would return. If she stayed, she would never see them again.

She supposed that kind of foolish thinking started silly superstitions, but she couldn't help feeling as if she were a curse. Perhaps she ought to volunteer as a nurse like Clara Barton.

In a clean gown and cap, with her face freshly scrubbed, she stepped into the invalid's room to see how Harriet Nicholls fared.

Her patient was in bed and sound asleep. Finding a folded newspaper lying on the covers, Dora picked it up before it could fall to the floor. She hadn't seen today's paper. She dreaded reading the newssheets. Grant's march on Richmond, Sherman's advance on Atlanta, and the list of Kentucky casualties filled the pages. Reading them was the scourge she lashed herself with to keep herself from growing too comfortable.

She didn't read the blood-curdling paragraphs on the latest battle. Her gaze went directly to the list of casualties as if guided there. She didn't even have to look to find a familiar name under "Killed in Action."

David.

Chapter 10

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

Hebrews 13:2

June 1864

The streak of a single tear dried in the dust on her face as Dora rode beside the elderly frock-coated gentleman on the wagon seat. Her wide-brimmed bonnet hid the streak in shadow, and she sat stiff and straight, disguising the heavy burden weighing on her shoulders. She should have married David and made him stay home. He would be alive today if she had followed the Elders' teachings and not her own interpretations of the Light.

"Thou must know thee will be welcome with us, Friend Dora," the man beside her said.

"I know, and I am grateful. If it were not for thee and the others, I would feel lost and without anchor. I must think what is best. Perhaps if I had been there, I could have saved David. Perhaps if I go there now, I can save the lives of others. Is that vanity?" Despite the strength with which she held herself straight, her voice was weak. Uncertainty was the bane of her life.

"Not vanity, perhaps, but self-sacrifice, which is also a sin. There is naught romantic about war and violence. It is ugly and mean, and it makes men ugly and mean. I have heard tales of the field hospitals. They are no place for a pretty young woman. I admire thy need to help, but surely it can be done somewhere a little closer to home."

She could tell the Elder that she was invisible and not pretty, but he wouldn't understand. He lived in a community of Friends where their garb didn't stand out so that their personalities could. His quiet self-confidence and that of the others around him didn't allow for belief in invisibility. They were firm in their convictions that they led righteous lives and served the Lord.

She was not certain of anything. She had worn velvets and lace and pretty colors until the age of eight. She had seen them all around her ever since, but she lived in shadows, part of the world but not in it.

She was too tired for thinking clearly. She hadn't slept in a week. At times, she wondered if it wouldn't be best to sell the farm and go back to England and confront the life she'd escaped. Perhaps she had left something back there that she should have done, some part of her life that she had missed and needed to complete. The notion terrified her, but it nagged at her as much as the idea of following the army as a nurse.

It was nearing dusk when she climbed from the wagon and waved good-bye to the Elder who had taken her home from Meeting. She trailed into the Nichollses' empty, echoing house and wondered how she could have complained when the house had rocked with the noise of Amy's cries and Charlie's complaints and Josie's shrill tongue. At least there had been life here then. Now there was nothing.

Carlson had gone hunting for two young slaves who had disappeared last night. She didn't expect him back soon. Since the repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law, he couldn't call on the authorities if the boys escaped across the river. Kentucky law would still hold them as runaways, but she doubted if the boys were foolish enough to stay in Kentucky.

She went back to the kitchen to check on supper, but she only found a pot of stew simmering. She didn't blame the servants for escaping the iron hand of authority every chance they got. But she had a feeling they thought the day would come when they could be this free all the time. She had news for them. No one was ever that free. Only the rich had options.

She filled two bowls and took them upstairs. Perhaps she could persuade Harriet Nicholls to take interest in household affairs by telling her about the dismal collapse of authority. A little moral indignation went a long way sometimes.

Harriet had already fallen asleep by the time Dora reached the bedroom. Despite her improvement, she tired easily. Frowning at the bowl of stew, Dora set it on the bedside table and ate hers while looking out the window. She had hoped for a little companionship while she ate, at least.

When Harriet still slept an hour later, Dora took the bowls back downstairs. She couldn't remember the house ever being so empty. Admittedly, the Nichollses didn't have a host of relations always visiting like most of their friends and neighbors did, but there had always been noise and activity in the house.

She could hear music in the quarters. The balmy June evening hadn't reached the sweltering temperatures it would in a few weeks. Perhaps she could wander out there for a while. She didn't know if her invisibility extended to the slaves as well as their masters, but they seemed to accept her, perhaps because she nursed their ills and injuries.

Dora had just about decided to put her bonnet on when she heard the pounding of feet running up the drive. She probably shouldn't have heard a noise so subtle, but her nerves were on edge. Heart racing, she looked out the front porch windows.

Dusk made it difficult to discern little more than the long, loping figure running barefoot through the dirt, but she had no difficulty recognizing him. Solly. Solly never ran if he could shuffle, lag, or wander. Something was wrong.

Her first instinct made her glance at the night sky to see if the tobacco bed burned. She knew perfectly well that Charlie and his devious friends were capable of burning her out if they decided they needed her land for something. She felt certain they had been behind the earlier depredations. But Charlie was gone and the others had left her alone lately. They could find more fun out there now than burning out one tiny farmhouse and a few acres.

No fire illuminated the night sky. What then?

She stepped out on the porch, diverting Solly from running to the rear entrance. Catching sight of her, he ran across the front lawn and called, "Bring your medicine bag, Miss Dora, and come quick!"

She wanted to ask who and what and why, but she already knew. The pain she had suffered these last days told her. She should have known sooner, only with everything happening at once, she hadn't paid attention.

She ran upstairs and grabbed the bag and hurried back down again without bonnet or cloak. She couldn't forgive herself for David's death. She'd never forgive herself if Pace died because she didn't get there soon enough.

* * *

Pace grimaced as the ground shifted beneath him. His head felt light and dislocated, but once he had it anchored, he thought he might be lying on a bed for a change. The agonizing pain in his arm and shoulder had become so much a part of him that he noticed minor things like the mattress he lay on rather than surrender to the agony. Only while escaping the hospital had he been in charge of his fate. Since then, invisible beings moved him from wagon to train to cart and now to wherever he was at the moment.