The Doctor's Lady (3 page)

Dr. Baldwin shook his head. “They’ve finally made the resolution that they will not—absolutely cannot—accept unmarried candidates.”

“But why?” Priscilla’s confusion added a tinge of desperation to her tone. “I thought they were beginning to see the value in single female missionaries—”

“Miss White,” Dr. Ernest cut in. “It won’t do you any good to argue with Dr. Baldwin or the Board. Over the past few days I’ve talked with them until I was hoarse, and they haven’t budged on their requirement.”

“Oh pishposh,” Mother said. “They’ll make an exception for my Priscilla.”

Priscilla shivered and pulled her cloak tighter.

Dr. Baldwin’s eyes held hers, and the sorrow in their depths did nothing but make her shiver more.

“Now, Dr. Baldwin,” Mother said, turning to leave, “you must visit us this afternoon and clear up the misunderstanding.”

“Of course.” Priscilla nodded, pushing aside her fears. “It’s just a misunderstanding.”

“You’ll be wasting your breath,” Dr. Ernest muttered.

Mother didn’t acknowledge the young doctor’s words and instead slipped her hand into the crook of Father’s arm and tugged him forward.

Priscilla knew she should follow her parents, that it would do her no good to spar words with Dr. Ernest. And yet, there was something about his face—a roughened, rugged appeal that drew her attention again.

“I’m afraid you don’t understand the first thing about my situation or my qualifications.”

“Then go ahead and argue with the Board.” His lips cocked into a half grin. “But sooner or later you’ll have to accept their decision. And maybe even accept it as God’s will for you to stay home.”

His words dug into her, and she couldn’t keep back her retort. “I find it strange that you’re the only one who has questioned my qualifications. And since your opinion doesn’t matter in the least, I’ll continue to look to the One whose opinion matters the most. He’s called me to mission work. I’ll continue to trust that He’ll provide a way for me to go.”

She spun away from the doctor and forced herself to walk away, evenly and calmly, just as a lady should, even though her heart quavered and stumbled with each step.

Would God indeed provide a way? And if so, how?

Y
ou’ve turned into a good doctor, Eli,” Dr. Baldwin remarked between puffs on his pipe. “Too bad you’re not as good when it comes to women.”

Eli pulled the silk thread up through the boy’s forehead and made the last suture. His fingers flew over one another to make a tight knot. With his small scissors in hand, he squinted in the dim lighting of Dr. Baldwin’s home office and snipped the loose thread.

“Oh, I’m not all that bad, Dr. Baldwin.” He pressed a clean cloth against the stitches and wiped away the last traces of blood. “I’ve had to chase away plenty of women in my days.”

The boy stared at him with wide pain-filled eyes. Traces of tears lingered on the pale face. The older brother squeezed the boy’s hand.

“I’ve had more women hang on me than I can count.” Eli winked at them.

His young patient braved a small smile.

“Harrumph,”
Dr. Baldwin half snorted, half laughed. “Too bad you don’t have any of those
countless
women hanging on you lately.”

Eli forced a grin—for the sake of the boy—but it didn’t reach his heart. If Dr. Baldwin’s comment hadn’t been so pathetically true, he could have laughed.

Truth be told, he’d never had much time for the fairer sex. He’d always counted himself too busy, too devoted to his work to pay attention to the girls who’d shown him interest.

That was before he’d begun making plans to open a clinic in the far West. When he’d approached the Mission Board with his idea, he’d had to work hard to convince them of the validity of such a post. When they’d finally agreed to support him, they’d given him one stipulation: He had to take a wife.

He’d argued long and hard about the fact that a white woman had never made a crossing overland to Oregon Country, that taking a wife along would only slow him down, perhaps even threaten the entire trip.

But the Board had insisted he go with a wife or not go at all.

“You don’t need countless women.” Dr. Baldwin leaned back in his chair and blew a cloud of smoke into the dusky air. “You just need one.”

Eli helped the boy sit up. “I
had
one.”

“Yes,
had
,” Dr. Baldwin said.

Eli steadied the boy on the edge of the examining table. “And it’s not my fault she married someone else while I was on my exploration trip.”

His gut twisted, as it did whenever he thought about his first glance at Sarah Taylor during the Sabbath meeting the day after he’d arrived home. When she’d stood to greet him, first her eyes, then her very rounded abdomen had told him all he needed to know.

It had only confirmed the foolishness of the Board’s stipulation. Sarah hadn’t really wanted to go. She had deserted him at the first opportunity. And there weren’t too many other women excited about the idea of traveling where no other white woman had gone.

He couldn’t blame them.

“The Board knows I tried to find a willing partner. And now they need to just let me go.”

Dr. Baldwin shook his head.

Eli had tried to overlook his wounded pride, tried to make excuses for Sarah. The truth was that her rejection had stung—it had hurt a lot more than he cared to admit. And he wasn’t ready to face the possibility of another rejection anytime soon.

“How are you feeling?” Eli asked his young patient.

Tears pooled in the boy’s eyes.

“Still hurts more than the worst whoppin’, huh?”

The lad nodded.

Careful not to touch the wound, Eli wrapped a strip around the boy’s head and covered the stitches. Then he nodded at the patient’s brother. “You take him straight home and tell your ma to give him another dose of laudanum. It’ll take the edge off the pain for a little while.”

He helped the boy from the table. “And tell her to keep the wound clean.”

“Thank you.” The older boy slipped an arm around his brother. He hobbled with him to the door, stopped, and looked back. “Oh, Doctor, if you need a real good woman, you won’t find a better lady than our teacher.”

“That so?”

“Yep. Teacher . . . well, she really cares for us. And I just know she’d make a great ma someday.”

“Thank you, son.”

The boy nodded solemnly, as if he’d just done Eli the greatest of favors.

Dr. Baldwin coughed. And once the boys were gone, Eli turned to look at his old friend. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

Eli dipped his hands into the basin on the bureau near the examining table. The ice cold water rushed over the calluses he’d gained during the past year and reminded him of the mountain springs he’d washed in not many months past.

He scrubbed at the blood on his fingers and glanced around at the dark paneled walls of Dr. Baldwin’s office. Was this to be his fate? A tiny office? And the never-ending bumps and bruises of the neighborhood children?

Keen longing flashed through him. What he wouldn’t give for a ceiling of blue skies and four walls of endless mountains. And the beautiful brown eyes of the natives who were still open to the gospel and untouched by the hate of the whites.

“You might want to take the boy up on his advice,” Dr. Baldwin said.

Eli took a deep breath of the stuffy, tobacco-spiced air. What he wouldn’t give for just a whiff of the fresh, wind-tossed air of the prairies.

“She’s one of the best young women I know,” Dr. Baldwin continued.

“Who?”

“The teacher.”

Eli’s stomach pinched. “I just don’t want a wife.”

“Eli, now, we’ve been over this before, and you know as well as I do that most of the single missionaries we’ve sent out have ended up fornicating with the native women or marrying among them.”

He nodded. He couldn’t fault the Board’s logic. After many long months traveling with the fur trappers, he’d seen enough abuse of the native women to realize the depths to which a man could sink when he was lonely.

He shook the water off his hands and reached for the towel. But still, the Board could have given him the benefit of the doubt, especially after all the work he’d already put into planning for the mission.

Frustration contracted the muscles in his chest.

He wiped his hands and tossed the towel onto the table. He knew it would do him no good to argue about the matter any further. The American Board of Missions had made their decision. He must find a wife or he couldn’t go.

The trouble was, he only had four weeks left before he needed to be in Pittsburgh, where he’d arranged to meet the missionary couple that would be joining him.

“You want some help finding a wife?” Dr. Baldwin peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Or are you going to let a little pride stand in the way of your plans?”

Eli read the kindness in the depths of the man’s gaze. “Apparently you’ve got the perfect woman picked out for me.”

He shrugged. “Of course no one is perfect. Not even you.”

Eli stared at the doctor, then finally sighed. “All right. Take me to meet this teacher.”

“I’m headed to her house right now.” Dr. Baldwin sat forward in his chair. “Why don’t you come with me?”

“It had better not be Miss White.”

“And what exactly is wrong with Priscilla White?”

With a growl, Eli reached for his leather roll-up surgical case. “Come on, Doctor. If I have to take a wife, I want a strong one. Not a woman who’ll blow away like tumbleweed at the first hard gust.” He wiped the blood from the scissors and stuffed them into the case. “I won’t take a woman like her—not after what happened to Dr. Newell.”

“Priscilla White is a hard worker.” Dr. Baldwin tapped his pipe in the ashtray on the side table. “There’s no other young woman who works the way Miss White does. Every time the church opens its door for a prayer meeting or a revival, she’s the first there, helping however she can.”

“Then let her stay here and do her part for missions on the home front.” Eli stuffed the silk thread into his surgical case and folded it together.

Dr. Baldwin pushed himself out of his chair. “Eli Ernest, you’re exasperating me.”

He grinned. “I’ve been told that’s one of my best qualities.”

“You mean worst.”

“That too.”

Dr. Baldwin finally smiled. “Let’s go, then. We’ll speak to Priscilla together. The two of you can get married. And you’ll both be able to fulfill your callings.”

Eli stared at his friend and wished it were that easy. Even if she’d been the right type of woman to handle the rigors of missionary life, it was obvious they were worlds apart. “Her mother already turned up her nose at me. And now you expect that woman to agree to let her precious daughter marry me once she finds out I’ve got nothing but the hard-earned shirt on my back?”

“She’ll come around.”

Eli could only imagine the humiliation he’d have to suffer first. “No thanks.”

“I guarantee it.”

Something in the doctor’s tone stopped Eli.

Dr. Baldwin lowered his voice. “Priscilla White had a severe case of mumps a few years ago.”

Suddenly Eli knew what the older doctor was telling him, even before the words were out.

“She lost her monthly courses, and she’s been infertile ever since.” Dr. Baldwin’s brows drooped. “I’ve done everything I can for the poor girl. But the fact of the matter is, she very likely can’t—won’t—ever be able to have children.”

Eli stared at his friend, surprised at the weight that pressed on his chest.

“I’m telling you with the understanding you’ll keep this confidential, one doctor to another.”

“’Course I will.”

“No one in this community knows except me. And they want to keep it that way. They don’t want the disgrace of their oldest daughter becoming known as the barren wife of the community or the town’s old spinster.”

Eli shook his head. “There’s no disgrace in not being able to have children—”

“You know as well as I do the stigma that follows women who can’t conceive.” Dr. Baldwin pinned him with a sharp glance.

“So she’s using mission work as an escape from embarrassment?”

“See? There you go.” The older doctor pursed his lips. “Exasperating me again.”

“Doesn’t seem like the right motivation for getting involved in missions.”

“Priscilla has always had an interest in missions. Her family has encouraged her. And when she learned of her infertility, it served to strengthen her resolve toward the high calling already placed upon her heart.”

“Priscilla White might have good intentions,” Eli said, “but she’d never last a day on the trip west.”

Dr. Baldwin heaved a rattling sigh. “I take it that means no, you won’t marry her?”

Eli hesitated. He didn’t want to ruin his chances of going west, but he wasn’t so desperate that he’d willingly marry the wrong woman.

“Dr. Baldwin, I’m sorry to let you down. . . . I’m not partial to sending wives back in coffins. So I’ll just keep praying the Almighty finds me a better option . . . and soon.”

“You must go back to the Board and convince them of their mistake.”

Priscilla cringed at her mother’s demand.

“They won’t be swayed.” Dr. Baldwin squirmed in his high-backed chair by the parlor door.

“I’ll go with you.” Mother paced in front of the wide fireplace. The high flames crackled but couldn’t bring warmth to Priscilla’s fingers. “And Priscilla will come too.”

“Now, Mrs. White, that’s enough.” Her father rubbed his mustache, circling his fingers around his chin.

“We’ll leave on the morrow.” Mother didn’t bother to look at Father. “Once they see Priscilla and hear from her, they won’t be able to say no.”

“Mrs. White, I said that’s enough.” Father’s voice boomed. Even though the room had bright green molding and vibrant gold wallpaper with pink florets, the shadows were dismal in the late winter afternoon. “Sit down and listen to what the man is saying. For once.”

Priscilla plucked at the braided trim of the settee and wished she were still small enough to crawl underneath and hide.

Mother glared at Father. “Mr. White, am I to understand that you don’t care what becomes of our daughter?”

“Listen to the doctor. He’s told you a hundred times now that the Board won’t change their decision.”

“Judge White is right.” Dr. Baldwin pulled at the top button of his double-breasted waistcoat. “Everyone has agreed she’s an ideal candidate. And they’ll willingly send her anywhere. But . . . she must get married first.”

Priscilla clutched her hands in her lap. “Doctor, that’s precisely the problem—”

“I have in mind a missionary who is in desperate need of a wife. If you marry him, you’ll both get what you want. It’s the perfect situation.”

Mother stopped pacing. “Who?”

“He’s an adventurous, hardworking, resourceful fellow. If I were going to the mission field, I’d want a man just like him by my side.”

“And just who is this
fellow
?” Mother asked, her brow disappearing into her hairline.

Dr. Baldwin cleared his throat. “Dr. Eli Ernest.”

“Absolutely not!” Priscilla’s rejection came just as quickly as Mother’s. “We’re headed to opposite ends of the earth.”

“My daughter will never marry a man like that,” Mother said. “It’s obvious he is of the lowest rank and would be unsuitable for her.”