The Moon by Night (6 page)

“May I make a suggestion, sir?” Jauncy asked hopefully.

“Go ahead. Everyone else who lives here tells me what to do.”

“If I might just have a bed, anywhere in this house, until I get my strength back, sir, I would be happy to work out what I owe you for food and lodging and your kind medical attentions.”

“Yeah? So what can you do, PJ? Polish the silver, answer the door, hold out the little silver plate for the cards, look snooty to visitors?” Shiloh asked, his eyes alight.

“Well, sir, certainly I could easily perform a butler's duties,” Jauncy said confidently. “But what I really had in mind was perhaps a month's—or even longer, if I should prove to be satisfactory—service to
you
.”

“To me?”

“Yes, sir,” he answered, puzzled. “As you've said, the only other people in the house are ladies. And of course you are a gentleman.”

“Uh, yeah, I guess I am but, PJ, what exactly do you do?”

“Why, sir,” he said with unfeigned surprise, “I am a gentleman's gentleman.”

****

Cheney arrived at the office at one o'clock and consulted with Dr. Cleve Batson, the junior partner, for an hour concerning their patients and the calls for the day. Dr. Batson had several appointments that afternoon, and Cheney asked him to take one of her calls, a very elderly lady named Mrs. Owyns who suffered from rheumatism. “She'll love you, Dr. Batson. She's from one of the stuffy old Knickerbocker families, and all those matriarchs always adore you. You do pet them so.”

Cleve Batson was a boyish young man with a friendly smile, heavy-lidded blue eyes shining with good nature, reddish hair, and freckles that made him seem even younger than his twenty-three years. “I like old people,” he said ingenuously. “I was lucky. I had both sets of grandparents until my teen years. All four of them were just great. Guess that's why I'm so partial to the little old ladies.”

“You were blessed,” Cheney agreed, rising and gathering up her overcoat and belongings. “I remember my paternal grandfather, but he died when I was six; and I never knew my paternal grandmother or my mother's parents, who died before I was born. I do love
mes tantes,
though. They're wonderful.” Cheney's two great-aunts, Tante Elyse and Tante Marye, were very dear to her.

Cleve nodded as he walked her to the door. “I liked them very much too, Dr. Duvall. I'll be certain to give Mrs. Owyns the royal treatment and make your most heartfelt excuses.”

Cheney could not call on the lady that afternoon, for Dev was coming to the hospital to consult with Cheney on Miss Darlene's dissection, and aside from that, Cheney was extremely concerned about Cornelius Melbourne. The first forty-eight hours after a traumatic incident were critical, and though she trusted everyone who worked at the hospital, Mr. Melbourne was her patient, and she felt responsible for him.

Also, Cheney always tried to make her schedule fit in with Dev's, for he had more duties and responsibilities than she did. He had consented to be named chief physician and chief of surgery for the hospital, but he was consulting surgeon to a half-dozen other hospitals in the five boroughs, and of course, he did have quite a number of patients in their private partnership practice. Dev was like a brother to Cheney, but he was an extremely popular physician and a very busy surgeon, so she tried to make their professional time together as profitable as possible.

Now leaving the office to walk to the hospital, she laughed as she replied to Dr. Batson, “By the time you finish charming her, and listening to her symptoms with that grave, sympathetic expression that works such magic on your patients, Mrs. Owyns will have forgotten all about me. Bye! I'll see you this evening!”

Cheney walked north on Sixth Avenue, enjoying the keen bite of winter's breath, the pale lemon-drop sun high in an airy blue cloudless sky. It had snowed most of the night, a heavy sticky snow that made each view a pretty winter scene, Cheney thought. The walks from the brownstone cottages lining the street, and the street itself, had been neatly shoveled by two boys who were employed by the partnership of Buchanan, Duvall, and Batson. Across the street was a tiny gated park with a single enormous oak tree. Cheney loved that oak tree. She and Shiloh had sat under it and talked and laughed together many times.

While she and Shiloh had been wrapped up in plans for their wedding and then been on their honeymoon, Dev and Victoria Buchanan had finally decided to buy the old van Dam place and establish a private hospital similar to St. Francis de Yerba Buena Hospital in San Francisco. The Steen family had been on the board of St. Francis for years, and Cheney had worked there for a year and a half. It had been one of Cheney's dreams to open such a hospital in Manhattan, and because of the success of St. Francis, Victoria had decided that it was a worthwhile charitable undertaking and had committed herself to the administration of the hospital. Cheney's parents and Dr. Cleve Batson had all contributed to the capitalization, and Vic and Dev and Dr. Batson had completed much of the work by the time Cheney and Shiloh had returned from the West Indies at the beginning of August. Immediately they joined the partnership, and St. Luke's opened on October 29, 1869.

The old van Dam place, though undoubtedly of gracious line and proportion, had been a hulk, used for many years for storage for Edward Purdue's real property and construction company, Purdue Properties.

The windows, and all of the doors except the kitchen entrance at the back, had been crudely boarded up and locked with heavy chains and padlocks to discourage looters and squatters. It had been a grim and desolate place, a great hulk in the middle of the charming stand-alone brownstone houses that had been built by Purdue Properties. Mr. Purdue had been considering plans to demolish the old van Dam place and build houses on the property when Victoria and Dev had decided to found the hospital. They also bought the third cottage on the Sixth Avenue side of the block and converted it into the hospital kitchen and laundry. Cleve Batson, having been fairly successful as Cheney's and Dev's partner, was able to buy the second cottage, so almost the entire block was owned by the hospital and the physicians.

Now, after the massive repairs and renovations, the original house, with the long low graceful wings on each side built of the same creamy yellow Holland brick and the manicured gardens and grounds, looked dignified and gracious, far removed from tragedy or taint.

Though Cheney was enjoying the walk, she thought with a twinge of regret how nice it would have been to ride with Shiloh today. He had told her of all of his duties and errands for the day. First he was meeting Richard Duvall, Cheney's father, at the Duvall Iron Foundry. Shiloh's clipper,
Locke's Day Dream,
was in New York, and Richard had decided to expand Duvall's Tools and Implements—the finished goods part of his iron and steel business—to include some marine equipment.
Locke's Day Dream
was going to be Duvall's first customer. The company would be installing brand-new iron braces and something like…banging…barging…no, no. It was something about knees, wasn't it?

Cheney faltered as she tried to recall what Shiloh had told her the previous night. She had been so tired, and they had, after all, had the extreme distraction of dealing with Mr. Phinehas Jauncy. Her mouth twitched as she thought of the poor lost little puppy Shiloh had dragged in out of the snowstorm. Cheney had a feeling that Mr. Jauncy would be around for a while.

Banging knees? Could that be right?

A young gentleman, clad in a fine velvet riding coat, polished boots, and a beaver top hat, rode down the quiet street on a gorgeous Arabian that pranced and preened and skittered sideways. The gentleman's eyes shone with admiration as he passed Cheney, and he doffed his hat, elegantly sweeping out an elaborate bow. Cheney gave him the slightest nod of acknowledgment, her face expressionless. But no woman was immune from such open admiration, and she smiled a little to herself as she walked, her head held high. Cheney's features were much like her mother's, but she had her father's slender build and proud carriage. She didn't have the soft loveliness of her mother, but the strong line of her jaw, the firmness of her mouth, and the determination of her gaze made her interesting-looking rather than conventionally pretty. She was tall and unfashionably healthy, strong, and athletic. But when Cheney saw the passing gentleman's look of admiration, she was only conscious of how blessed she was to feel so good about her looks. She was twenty-eight now and felt that she had only come into full bloom in the last year or so. Most of the shrinking violets, at this advanced age, were fighting a losing battle to preserve the fragile beauty that was quickly fading.

She was even more striking today with her new winter cloak. It was a deep plum-colored velvet, trimmed with sable. Of walking length, it fit over Cheney's severe shirtwaists and skirts she wore while working. Victoria Buchanan, her best friend, had designed the cloak for her. It was a queenly garment, fitted tightly at Cheney's small waist, with wide royal sleeves, and the rich black sable that was the rarest, costliest fur of all. Victoria had insisted that Cheney also have a muff and a daring small skullcap of velvet with a wide sable trim. Cheney wore it rakishly far forward on her head, with the crown of her auburn curls heightened at the back.

Turning the corner, she saw with satisfaction that St. Luke the Physician Private Hospital and Dispensary, with its mellow golden bricks and its long low graceful sweep of the patient wings, looked dignified and gracious in its snow mantle. The old trees—elm, sycamore, oak, maple—made spare sculptures against the placid sky. As always, Cheney looked up at the inscription over the door—Siste Viator in stark Roman lettering—and wondered about it.
I must remember to ask Dev about it. He may have learned the history of the house when he and Victoria were considering buying it. Then again, that is exactly the kind of thing that Dev would never wonder about. He would automatically translate it in his mind—Stop, traveler—and would never give it a second thought. Shiloh, on the other hand, is the kind of man who would find it intriguing and mysterious, as do I. How lucky I am; how blessed I am…. How I miss him!

Cheney and Shiloh saw very little of each other these busy days, as they worked hard to establish themselves in their chosen careers. Thinking of how near she had come to nagging Shiloh into a life that he had no desire for—becoming a doctor—just to please her, Cheney gave a little shudder and promised herself that she would never, never drag Shiloh into the complex, teeming, demanding, difficult, consuming world of medicine again.

The main entrance of the hospital was the original grand portico of the house, with walnut wainscoting and a discreetly green-striped velvet wallpaper, an immense Bohemian crystal chandelier, and long walnut refectory tables on each side. Victoria had contracted with a hothouse upstate to supply fresh flowers every week. The vibrant splashes of orange, yellow, and white mums, great blooms nodding in Stilton vases, lit up the great foyer. Just ahead was the chapel, newly built by the partners. On each side were offices and sitting rooms, one for the physicians and one for the nurses and other staff. Quickly Cheney stored her outerwear in the doctors' sitting room and went back across to the administration offices.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Buchanan, Dr. Pettijohn,” she said breezily as she entered the office. “Good heavens, Victoria, you're practically buried under that pile of papers. I've never seen you work so hard. As a matter of fact, I've never seen you work at all. Being married to Dev has made you practically industrious.”

“Hardly,” Victoria Elizabeth Steen de Lancie Buchanan answered languidly. “Dr. Pettijohn does all the work. I just watch and look as if I understand it all and nod approvingly.”

Victoria was a tiny blond woman with a crystalline beauty, fabulously wealthy, married to a man she adored, and she was Cheney's best friend. She was also an extremely shrewd, intelligent, and exacting businesswoman.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Duvall,” Dr. Pettijohn said smoothly. “I assure you I would never allow Mrs. Buchanan to disappear under a mountain of paperwork.”

Dr. Marcus Pettijohn was the other staff physician besides Cheney and Cleve Batson. He was a young man, with thick, curly sandy blond hair and mustache, blue eyes, and a complexion as fine as a woman's. He was of average height and slight of build. He was undoubtedly intelligent and had had the advantage of attending
L'Hôpital de la Charité
in Paris and of receiving his medical degree from that illustrious institution. But when his father had passed away, Dr. Pettijohn had been required to return to New York. Elmore Pettijohn, his father, had owned Pettijohn's Apothecary on the south side of the block on Twenty-Fourth Street, as had his father before him, when he had established the business in 1790.

Cheney and Dev had used Pettijohn's Apothecary since they had opened their practice in 1865, and they missed the elder Mr. Pettijohn very much. He had been a kind, personable gentleman who was the most conscientious and careful apothecary Cheney had ever known. He had been so proud of his son Marcus. After old Mr. Pettijohn had died and Marcus had returned to New York, Marcus had taken over the business. But when Dev and Victoria had considered all the applications they had received for staff physician, they had decided on Marcus Pettijohn. So Dr. Pettijohn had closed the apothecary shop and sold the little cottage to Mr. Roe, who owned Roe's Livery and Stables on the same block.

Marcus Pettijohn had proved to be such a valuable assistant in helping Victoria with the administration of the hospital that he had been named administrative assistant, and Cheney and Cleve had agreed that he should have the coveted day shift—from eight to six—in the hospital. Actually, neither Cheney nor Cleve had cared. Cheney liked working from two until midnight. She had found, in San Francisco, that this shift was the one she liked best. And Dr. Batson hadn't minded having the midnight shift, since he lived virtually on the hospital grounds. He made at least one round on his 10
P.M.
to 8
A.M.
shift—usually around eleven o'clock to consult with Cheney—but unless something was pressing, he then retired to his house, leaving instructions to call him if needed.