Tabitha (10 page)

“My
kind
offer, Miss Hale,” he returned. “You would
not inconvenience Billy when I have so
kindly
offered, would you?”

“Oh, bother.” Tabitha picked up her fork and stabbed a slice
of potato.

“Why, I’ll take that as the gracious acceptance I know it to
be.”

Tabitha heard the smirk in his voice, but when she rounded
on him he was savoring a bite of roast beef.

“Wonderful. Positively wonderful,” he muttered, all
innocence.

Tabitha pursed her lips and glanced across the table. Rose,
Joy, and Marit were slipping smug, discreet smiles in her direction.

“Blast them all!” she muttered.

“I beg your pardon, Miss Hale?” Carpenter smirked again.

Tabitha growled and shoved the slice of potato into her
mouth.

It was while Olive and Gracie were serving apple pie for
dessert that Tabitha noticed the stillness on Marit’s face. Tabitha observed
Marit for a moment then turned to agree with Carpenter’s comment on the pie.

“My own cook could take lessons on this pie,” he raved—and
shoved another generous forkful into his mouth.

“It is my favorite,” Tabitha agreed. “Marit uses such tart
apples but they never spoil the pie. Rather, they—” She was struck again by
Marit’s open-eyed stillness.

Carpenter leaned toward her. “What is it?”

Tabitha grinned and whispered back, “I believe the next
little Evans will arrive tonight!”

A moment later, Tabitha observed Marit bite her lip and grimace.

“Excuse me, please,” she murmured to Carpenter. Tabitha rose
from her seat, as did Carpenter and the other gentlemen in deference to her.
She walked around the table and bent toward Marit.

“Shall I help you to your cottage, dear?” Tabitha whispered
to her. Marit and Billy’s cottage—once the caretaker’s quarters—was not far
from Joy’s little bungalow at the back of Palmer House’s property.

“Oh,
ja
, please,” was Marit’s relieved response. She
gritted her teeth again, and Tabitha waited until she relaxed to help her out
of her chair.

“What’s going on?” Billy demanded. Conversation ceased, and
all eyes turned toward Marit and Tabitha.

“Oh, just a baby coming,” Tabitha announced merrily.

Dinner was over.

Many hands reached to help Marit to the little cottage
behind Palmer House, and it was Tabitha who gave orders now. “Breona, please
have someone make up Marit’s bed with clean linens? Yes; you should oversee
them—you know what is needed.”

She turned. “Will you girls heat water in the large kettle
and begin clearing up the dinner things? Thank you. Oh, and would someone be so
kind as to telephone Doctor Murphy?”

The guests—mostly ignored in the flurry of activity—excused
themselves and prepared to depart. Carpenter’s attention, however, was focused
on Tabitha. His expression attracted Rose to his side.

“She is quite a capable woman, our Tabitha,” Rose murmured.

“I could not agree more,” Mason Carpenter replied. Pride
shone in his eyes.

Tabitha, weary but joyous, delivered the news to Billy in
the early hours before dawn. “You have another son,” she announced.

“Another son!” Billy was bursting at the news.

“Yes, and he’s just as plump and pink as a ripe peach!”

“And Marit?”

“She did well. Doctor Murphy says you may go out to see her and
the baby in another five minutes.”

Tabitha dropped into her own bed that morning, fatigued but
content. “This, Lord, is the joy I would give my life to,” she murmured before
sleep took her.

~~~

Tabitha finished packing her small trunk and strapped it
closed. “Not ‘trunks,’ Mr. Carpenter,” she muttered. “Only the one.” The lone
trunk contained all she owned in the world, but it was enough.

Breona entered. “Mr. Carpenter ist here for ye, Tabitha.
Should I be havin’ Banks coome fetch yer trunk?” Her black eyes danced.

“Aye, mooch obliged if ye would be doin’ so,” Tabitha
replied, mimicking Breona, laying on the accent.

They laughed together and Breona squeezed Tabitha’s hand,
two friends who were once adversaries. Tabitha’s bitterness and animosity had
antagonized Breona—had alienated everyone at Palmer House—when they first met.
But the hardships through which they had fought, side by side, had changed all
of that. Had changed
them
.

Banks, with a tip of his hat, hauled Tabitha’s trunk
downstairs to the waiting motorcar. When Tabitha descended after it, Carpenter
met her at the bottom of the stairs.

“Only the one trunk, Tabs?”

“Mr. Carpenter, it is not appropriate for you to call me by
my Christian name, let alone a diminutive of it,” Tabitha admonished him.

Although I rather like it
, she added to herself.

She was surprised when Carpenter’s expression turned
serious. Her eyes widened when he leaned toward her and whispered, “I would
that it
were
appropriate for me to speak to you so, Miss Hale. And I
would that it were my place to shower you with so many things that you required
five trunks to travel and not the one.”

Tabitha’s mouth dropped open and she fumbled to speak.
“You-you do not know what you’re saying.”

“Oh, I do. I assure you, I do.” He sighed and stepped back
into his more formal role. “I realize, however, that nursing is your
calling—your God-given calling—and I would never knowingly interfere with what
God has called you to do. I am willing to wait for you to complete your
training and find your way to your nursing vocation. Indeed,” he added as he
took her arm and tucked it into his, “I am willing to wait as long as is
needed.”

Tabitha licked her lips nervously and could think of nothing
to say. Rose stepped from the great room at that moment and saved her from
needing to say anything. She held out her arms and Tabitha welcomed the excuse
to detangle herself from Mason Carpenter’s gentle hold.

“My dear girl, we will pray for you often,” Rose murmured
into Tabitha’s hair. “And you must come home for every holiday and break
between terms. Palmer House will always be your home.”

Tabitha gripped Rose. “Thank you. Thank you
for . . . so many things.”

“No,” Rose answered. “You have enriched us in every way. We
thank God for
you
.”

Tabitha thought the drive to Union Station with Carpenter
might be awkward given their exchange at the bottom of the staircase. However,
from the time Banks closed the motorcar door until they arrived at the station,
Carpenter did nothing but enthuse over his newest hobby.

“I have been taking rides in an aeroplane, Miss Hale,” he
announced. “Flying! I am absolutely smitten with flying. Have you ever flown?”

“No!” Tabitha’s response was emphatic. “If God wanted us to
fly, he would have given us wings.”

Carpenter merely grinned and swiped at the curl of hair that
slipped down upon his forehead.

A bit miffed—and a little troubled at hearing about
Carpenter’s reckless activity—Tabitha rejoined, “Mr. Carpenter, do you not have
a business to attend to? Or are you merely one of Denver’s idle rich, never
engaging in a productive use of your time?”

He stared at her, suddenly serious. “I can assure you, Miss
Hale, that I am never idle.” He held her look. “Idleness is a sinful waste. I
never take up an activity that will not yield a benefit or fill a need.”

“Even a transient fad, such as flying?” she pressed.

He shrugged. “Perhaps flying is a fad at present. However, I
see it figuring heavily upon the future.”

Then he grinned, all seriousness gone. “And you cannot imagine
the thrill!”

“I really cannot see the attraction.”

“Ah, but you have not experienced it. My pilot is a great
fellow. Canadian. He has a two-seater biplane, a trainer. And the sensation?
The sensation is freeing; the views are breathtaking.”

He sighed in anticipation. “When you come home next, I will
ask you to come flying with me. By then I should have my own pilot’s license,
perhaps my own aeroplane! I am learning a fair bit of mechanics, too, which is
most necessary when learning to fly.”

Tabitha stared across the seat at the enigma that was Mason
Carpenter. “Well, you do beat all,” she muttered.

~~**~~

These
trials will show
that your faith is genuine.
It is being tested
as fire tests and purifies gold
—though your faith is far more
precious than mere gold.
(1 Peter 1:7, NLT)

The work and pressure of nursing school were difficult and
Tabitha had a lot to readjust to. Her fellow students were far ahead of her,
and she had a great deal of catching up to do—and do well—if she expected to
complete the three-year program and graduate with her class in the spring of
1913.

Tabitha had been away from the school since the spring
holiday of the past April. She had been home between terms when Rose had been
shot and wounded. When baby Edmund had been abducted.

In the chaos that ensued, Tabitha had chosen not to return
to school as scheduled. She had, instead, remained at Palmer House to nurse
Rose back to health and to help provide stability to Palmer House as the police
and the Pinkerton Agency sought to find and restore Edmund to his parents,
Grant and Joy Michaels.

A
t the time,
Dr. Wellan, dean of the medical
school, had agreed with her choice; Emily Van der Pol, Grace Minton, and the
other Christian women who supported Palmer House and provided Tabitha’s nursing
scholarship concurred.

Then Joy’s beloved husband Grant, already suffering from
congestive heart failure, had worsened. Tabitha gave herself to nursing Grant,
too, and had to inform Dean Wellan that her short furlough would be longer than
she had expected.

After Grant passed away weeks later, Joy became Tabitha’s
primary concern. Bereft of husband and child, Joy needed a different kind of
care.

In light of Tabitha’s extended absence, the dean had
questioned whether Tabitha’s commitment to the difficult nursing program was as
strong as was necessary to complete it. When Tabitha wrote to explain all the
extenuating circumstances that kept her from her studies, Dean Wellan had ruled
that she could not return to school until the fall term, “When Miss Hale may be
able to give herself wholly to her studies,” his letter had read.

Hanging over Tabitha’s head as she struggled to regain her
footing at school, was the knowledge that if she failed to come up to
completion standards, Dr. Wellan would keep her back an entire year.

Tabitha had not once regretted her decision or its
consequences. She had told Rose, “My family needs me. This is where I should be
as long as they need me.”

However, during the months back at Palmer House, Tabitha had
forgotten how inflexible the discipline of the school was and how difficult she
had found it the previous fall term.

The rules for nursing students and staff were strict, with
heavy emphasis placed upon personal virtue and an impeccable reputation: Every
aspect of a nursing student’s life was considered a reflection upon the
integrity of the school and hospital.

Tabitha found comfort in knowing that Dr. Murphy, Rose
Thoresen, and Pastor Isaac Carmichael had provided glowing letters of
recommendation for her enrollment and acceptance into the school—and she was
grateful that no one at school had an inkling about her past life.

Still, Tabitha found it difficult to submit to the school’s
discipline after months away from it. Being older at age thirty than most of
the students in her class, she was considered by some of the staff to be too
set in her ways to adapt to the rigors of nursing. The fact that she was behind
in her studies and practicums placed even more pressure upon her.

The staff, for their part, extended her no slack, and the
younger students, sensing that Tabitha was different from them in many ways,
seemed to shy away from her.

Consequently, Tabitha’s fall term got off to a difficult and
painful start: During the first two weeks, she received two tongue lashings
from instructors in front of her class and a mark on her record for poor
performance.

You must buckle down, Tabs
, she scolded herself, even
as she blinked back angry and mortified tears.
You have given yourself to
The Lord and his work; he will not allow you to fail. Every chastisement
crucifies your old, ugly temper and purifies your character. So set your mind
to the tasks at hand—and do not forget: The Lord is your Helper!

She returned to class the next morning with a dogged resolve
in her eyes. It was far later in the day—a day that had gone much better than
the previous one had—when she realized she had called herself “Tabs.”

“Oh, bother,” she groused. Try as she might to block it, she
often heard Carpenter’s voice in her head.

The students’ mornings were filled with lectures. Their
afternoons were taken up with nursing practicums—small student groups
performing specific nursing duties under the severe guidance of an instructor
or an experienced nurse. When not in class or practicums, the students were
studying.

For Tabitha, the walk across campus from her dormitory to
classes or the hospital was generally a blur. She used the time to memorize
study notes—and rarely paid attention to her surroundings.

One afternoon as she raced toward the hospital’s imposing
structure, Tabitha experienced the eerie sense of being watched. She slowed her
pace and stopped, turning in a complete circle, not understanding what had
distracted her, had caught her attention.

The grassy and tree-lined campus was still. Only a few other
students and a pair of caretakers were in view, and they were preoccupied with
their own activities.

Tabitha took a deep breath—and was surprised to see that the
trees were beginning to turn color.

Fall is nearly upon us
, she realized with a start,
and
I had not even noticed!
She wasted precious minutes breathing in the brisk
autumn air. Then she shook herself, glanced around again, and hurried on her
way.

Silly me
, she laughed to herself.
Imagining things
.

On Sundays, nursing students received the morning off to
attend church and were allowed to collect any mail that had accumulated for
them during the week. Soon Tabitha was receiving weekly letters from Palmer
House.

Rose sent all of the latest news and included little notes
from Breona, Joy, and others in the house. Rose’s letters were filled with
updates on Billy and Marit’s new baby, Charley.

“Charles, named for Billy’s father,” Rose wrote.

Then she received a letter from Mason Carpenter.

My dear Miss Hale,

In the bustle leading up to your departure, I neglected
to ask permission to write to you. I had intended to ask you after the dinner
the week before you left, but little Charley so artfully timed his entrance
that I did not see you again that evening before I took my leave. Even on our
drive to Union Station a week later, we were so engrossed in our conversation
around flying, that the request slipped my mind.

“
Our
conversation?” Tabitha
had a different recollection of the ride to the train station. She clearly
recalled Carpenter, eyes shining with enthusiasm, spending the majority of the
short drive to the station describing the sensation of—and his complete
infatuation with—flying.

“If memory serves,” she chuckled, “
you
did most of
the talking!”

She laughed again and finished the letter, quite enjoying
the monologue of his life in Denver. She was impressed with the level of detail
included in his observations of people and places. Rather than merely focus on
what he did and saw, Carpenter wrote as though he saw into the hearts of those
he encountered—and prayed for them accordingly.

Tabitha read his letter twice. Both times she was struck
with the compassionate heart his written observations revealed.

The letter closed with,

I beg you not to hold my lapse
against me! I do hope you will write soon and permit me to write to you on a
regular basis. Denver is quite dull without you.

Truly yours,

Mason Carpenter

Should I write back?
Tabitha
was torn. On the one hand, she longed to receive his attentions; on the other
hand . . .

She shrugged.
What would be the purpose? We are not meant
for each other—he could not possibly wish to go beyond a friendship given what
he knows of my background.

“And what he does not know,” she added. “Besides, even when
I graduate, my work will keep me busy twelve hours a day, whereas he is
independently wealthy and would wish
his wife
to go into society with
him.”

It was the first time she had spoken the word “wife” aloud in
connection with Carpenter, and it stung.
I can never be a wife
, she
admitted to herself.
Not to him or anyone. Not with my past.
She looked
down at the letter in her hands and shook her head.
Particularly since I can
never have children.

She placed the letter in its envelope with a shaking hand
and buried it in the bottom of her trunk.

She did not write back.

Tabitha had been at school three weeks when she picked up a
letter with a Texas postmark. She stared at her name and address printed in
crude letters on the front of the envelope, and her fingers trembled.

She recognized the hand:
It is Mama’s writing!
She
returned to the dormitory and found a quiet corner to open the letter. The
missive was short, scrawled on a piece of brown butcher paper, but Tabitha
devoured the words painstakingly printed on it:

Deer Tabitha,

We culd hardly beleve it when we got yor letter. Yor pa
and I give up a long time back thinking weed ever no what becum of you. Pa is
poorly. His chest is bad and he coffs a lot, but I ain’t seen him so happy in
years as when he red your letter. Was like a tonic to him, and he lays it by
his chair to reed agin and agin.

I keep up the place best I can. Your pa does wat he can,
too. We get by.

We forgive you, dotter, and we are so prowd you are
aworkin to be a nurse. Tis a comfert to us to no you are well.

Pleese rite agin. Wish we culd see yor face.

Muther

After reading the letter so many times that she had
memorized it, Tabitha went for a long walk, almost missing the dinner curfew.
I
had forgotten how plain they were,
she thought,
how uneducated
.

Color crept into her face and neck as she realized how much
Opal’s strict standards of deportment had changed her, had reshaped her manner
of speaking and behavior.

If I had stayed home, if I had stayed with my folks, I
would still be as rough and simple as they are.

That night she wept into her pillow.
Oh, Lord! Who will
take care of my father and mother in their ill health and old age?

She copied her mother’s letter word for word into a note to
Rose.
What should I do, Miss Rose? Should I leave school to go take care of
them?

Even as she wrote her concerns, Tabitha felt no release to
leave Boulder. Rather, the pull toward nursing grew stronger with each passing
day.

Rose’s response confirmed what she already knew:

Dearest Tabitha,

I am so grateful that your parents have replied to your
letter and that they have forgiven you. This is the first step, I pray, in
restoring your relationship with them.

As regards your question, I counsel you to pray and do as
the Holy Spirit directs you. Let his peace be your guide. I know you will
continue to write to your parents, sharing bit by bit what Jesus has done for
and in you.

However, unless the Lord directs you to leave school, you
must trust him to care for your parents, too.

All my love,

Rose Thoresen

Six weeks into the term, after many late nights of study and
many long hours on her feet, Tabitha at last hit her stride with the rest of her
class. A full night’s sleep was something she had not enjoyed in quite a while.
It would still take her more weeks of late nights to cover the ground she had
missed, but she pressed into the work and received no further chastisements or
marks on her record.

Lord, you are my strength,
she often prayed.
I am
learning to lean upon you.

The last thing she prayed as she slipped into sleep was,
Lord,
why do I feel like someone is always watching me?

September and October passed, and November came upon Boulder
with frosty mornings and chilly winds. At the midpoint of the term, the nursing
students were assigned to cohorts under the supervision of school instructors
and began to work regular shifts in the hospital.

Cohort instructors were to assign their students to
eight-hour shifts, six days a week, for the remainder of their schooling. The
nursing shifts were in addition to classes and ran in conjunction with the
practicums. The grueling program of practicums and work would ensure that the
students, when graduated, had adequate hands-on experience in general nursing
and three nursing specialties: obstetrics, pediatrics, and surgery.

The demanding pace served to weed out those women whose
commitment to nursing was anything less than absolute—and students who made
mistakes or who rebelled at the strict discipline were assigned punishment
duties in addition to their assigned shifts.

Tabitha and five of her classmates were assigned to a cohort
under the supervision of a staff nurse named Caroline Rasmussen. Nurse
Rasmussen was practically an institution at the school, known widely for her
inflexible disposition.

Tabitha and her fellow nurses heard the rumor that Nurse
Rasmussen’s uncle had left a sizable fortune to the medical school—cutting out
his niece and nephew in lieu of leaving a lasting legacy to his name. The
uncle, however, had not forgotten his duty toward Nurse Rasmussen and her
brother.

According to the rumors, the uncle’s will had stipulated
that the school install Nurse Rasmussen (who was, at the time of his death and
the reading of the will, already a nurse in good standing at the hospital) as a
tenured instructor in the school. The will had also stipulated that the
institution employ her younger brother in a laborer position suited to his
abilities. The school trustees were all too willing to accommodate the
stipulations in return for the promised perpetual endowment—an ongoing source
of funding for the school.