Woman of Grace (6 page)

“I love you, Ella,” Devlin finally replied, lowering his head in despair, “but this time you ask too much. I’m sorry. You know how I feel about God, and I can’t ask Hannah’s forgiveness. I just … can’t.”

She gave a low, anguished cry. Startled, Devlin jerked his gaze to hers. Ella stared up at him for a long, poignant moment, then turned away in dismissal. “It’s in the Lord’s hands, then,” she whispered, “if only you ever open your ears to hear, and your heart to His love.”

Two days later, Ella came down with the influenza. It started with a fever, sore throat, and chills. It soon progressed, however, to a severe cough and lung congestion. Doc Childress was called in on the eve of the fourth day of her illness, when Ella began to have breathing difficulties and sporadic bouts of delirium.

“I’ll tell you like it is,” he informed the small group seated around the kitchen table when his examination was complete. “Ella’s bad. She’s got pneumonia in both sets of lungs.”

Devlin groaned and buried his face in his hands. “What else can go wrong? Isn’t she
ever
to have a fighting chance?”

Abby, sitting beside him, reached over and took his hand. “What can we do, Doc?” she asked, meeting the older man’s concerned gaze.

“Keep Ella warm, but if her fever gets high, begin sponging her down with tepid water.” Doc opened his black bag and removed two dark amber, glass bottles. “Here’s a bottle of cough medicine and another of willow bark decoction to help lower her fever. Give Ella a teaspoonful of each every four or five hours as needed.”

Devlin looked up. As hard as he fought to contain it, terror filled him. “You’re not going to stay? You said she was bad.”

Doc Childress sighed and shook his head. “I’ll get back here just as soon as I can, but there are other folk who need me, too. This influenza outbreak hasn’t run its course yet. Besides, much as I hate to admit it, there’s nothing more I can do for Ella than what I just said.”

Abby nodded. “We understand. We’ll do what you tell us.”

“I know you will, Abby.” The old man closed his bag. “How many at Culdee Creek are still sick?”

“Three hands and now Beth. But I think the worst is over for them.”

Doc Childress rose. “Well, since I’m already here, no harm in paying them all a quick visit.”

“I’ll come along.” Abby released Devlin’s hand and stood. “Hannah can stay with Ella in the meanwhile.” She shot the girl, who stood looking out the kitchen window, a quick glance. “Can’t you, Hannah?”

Hannah swung around. “Yes. Yes, I’d be glad to.” She walked to the stove, grabbed a towel, and picked up a steaming kettle of water. “Would you like a cup of tea before you go, Doc?”

He shook his head. “No. I’d best be on my way if I’m to see to my other Culdee Creek patients, and still get back to Grand View before dark. Perhaps another time.”

Hannah smiled bleakly. “Yes. Perhaps.”

With a sinking heart, Devlin watched as Abby and Doc left the house. A heavy silence fell in the kitchen. Gradually, from down the hall, he could hear the voices of children.
His
children …

His heartsick, burdened mind lurched back into action. He needed to keep them away from Ella, or risk them, too, becoming ill.

“You need to move Bonnie out of our bedroom.” Once more his glance fell, this time to the table’s worn, pitted wood surface. “And I don’t want Mary or Devlin Jr. visiting with Ella or playing in our room either.”

“I understand.”

He looked up at her then. Once again that expression of compassion and empathy seemed to burn in Hannah’s striking eyes. It was a compassion and empathy he desperately needed right now, but he didn’t dare turn to her for comfort.

“I think I’ll give Ella a dose of Doc’s medicines,” he muttered, rising. Suddenly Devlin felt uncomfortable, restless in Hannah’s presence. Ella’s words that day in their bedroom had weighed heavily on him ever since, and he couldn’t help but wonder how deeply his inability to forgive really went.

“Could you prepare a basin of tepid water?” He met her wary gaze with a steady one of his own. “When last I touched her, Ella felt very hot. I think I’ll sponge her down.”

“Devlin.” Hannah’s softly spoken word halted him as he turned to go.

“Yeah, what is it?” He paused, glancing over his shoulder.

“Whatever you need for Ella, please let me know. I mean, if you want me to stay here to be close in case you—”

“Abby’ll bunk in until Ella’s out of the woods.” Devlin knew his words must sound curt, even harsh, but he didn’t know how to behave anymore with Hannah. Indeed, he hadn’t known for a long while how to deal with the woman who slowly but surely seemed to be emerging. “You’re doing more than enough in caring for my children.”

“Still, I mean it. Ella’s my friend.”

“Yes. I know.” And the funny thing was, Devlin finally did.

In the middle of the night, Ella took a turn for the worse. She woke up burning with fever, struggling desperately for breath. Devlin and Abby sat her up in bed, propping her with pillows, and still she didn’t improve. As the minutes passed and Devlin watched his wife panting and gasping, his sense of helpless panic grew.

“I’m going for Doc,” he finally said. “I can’t stand here and watch Ella like this, and not try to do something.”

“Fetch Hannah on the way out, will you, and send her over here?” Abby glanced up from her task of bathing Ella’s brow. “I may need her help.”

He nodded. Bending, Devlin tenderly brushed aside the damp, red ringlets clinging to his wife’s ashen face. “I’ll return soon, dearest. I’ll bring back Doc. He’ll know what to do.”

Ella leaned toward him, reaching to touch his chest. “I-I love y-you. A-always … f-forever. I know … you think … you’ve failed me … but you h-haven’t. You’re a good m-man, Devlin…. You’ll s-see that … someday.”

Her words sounded so much like a farewell that tears sprang to Devlin’s eyes. Quickly, furiously, he blinked them away. “I’ll hold you to that,” he rasped, his throat gone tight with emotion, “just as soon as you’re better.”

She managed a tremulous smile before falling back against the pillows in exhaustion. Devlin hesitated at her side a moment longer, then turned and strode from the room.

With a heavy-lidded Jackson in tow, Hannah arrived ten minutes later. She took one look at Ella, and promptly carried her son down the hall to where the MacKay children slept. A pallet on the floor was prepared, and Jackson was soon once more sound asleep.

Hannah hurried back to Ella’s room. “What do you need me to do?” she asked Abby.

“Make some tea, would you please?” The chestnut-haired woman briskly carried some towels to a small bench that served as a table of sorts. “Perhaps if Ella takes in some fl-fluids.” Her voice cracked, then broke. Her knees buckled, and only Hannah’s quick response kept Abby from sinking to the floor.

“Come here.” Hannah grasped Abby firmly about the waist and guided her to the rocking chair. “I’ll make us all some tea. You sit here by Ella. What she needs most now is someone close by.”

Abby nodded. With the back of her hand, she swiped away her tears. “Yes, you’re right, of course.”

Hannah forced a bright little smile. “Of course I’m right,” she said before walking from the room.

Ella looked bad, very bad, Hannah thought as she filled the teakettle and placed it on the cookstove. Next she stoked the firebox full of narrow, split dry pine, then opened all the appropriate dampers and regulators. She soon had a hot, fast fire going.

As the water in the teakettle warmed, Hannah busied herself setting mugs, spoons, a bowl of sugar, porcelain teapot, and silver tealeaf strainer on a small wooden tray. Her quick work, however, soon left her with extra time—time she would rather not have had. Time to consider the full implications of Ella’s condition—and her own, awful helplessness in the matter.

Hannah had seen her share of prostitutes die of one thing or another. She had been present when several actually succumbed to pneumonia. They all, in their final hours, had fought for breath and looked like Ella did.

Fleetingly, an angry frustration warred with her fear for her friend. Devlin should have been made to stay, rather than allowed to ride off on some futile quest for a doctor who could do nothing more. He should have remained with his wife when she needed him the most. He should’ve been here, for he would surely never see her alive again.

Then shame filled Hannah, and she buried her face in her hands. She wasn’t being fair to Devlin. He was as scared as the rest of them. He was only trying to do what he could. Besides, what really mattered now wasn’t Devlin, but Ella.

Ah, Lord, Hannah prayed. Abby claims You are a merciful, loving God. If that’s really so, and You must take Ella this night, don’t let her suffer long. Take her gently up to You, and gather her into Your loving arms.

She blinked back hot tears. Her hands fisted, and she ground them into her eyes. If anyone deserved to die peacefully and painlessly, it was Ella MacKay. Yet the cruelest irony was that Ella didn’t deserve to die at all. Not now at least, in the prime of her life, with young children to care for and a husband who loved her.

It was so unfair. How could a truly good and merciful God do this to one of His most faithful servants? And, even more horrible to contemplate, if He would permit this to happen to a woman as kind and virtuous as Ella, what would He someday do to one such as she?

From somewhere outside, a chill wind found a chink in the window frame and swirled into the room. Hannah shivered. The night, dark and cold and lonely, closed in on her. Fear and confusion swallowed her. She floundered in a storm-tossed sea of despairing memories, feeling so alone and afraid she almost cried out from the pain.

The worst pain, the most bitter memory of all, though, was of that sweltering summer night three years ago when she had found Hu Yung, dying from her morphine overdose.

“Alone,” the young woman had whispered. “So alone … and afraid …” Then, with one final, shuddering sigh, she had died in Hannah’s arms.

Alone and afraid … Even now, the memory of those piteous words struck a chord of terror and remorse in Hannah’s heart. Poor Hu Yung had finally lost hope in life and in herself, and she had given up. No one had been able to help her, not even Hannah, who had thought they were friends.

But then, what kind of friend had she really been? Obviously not enough of a friend to recognize the depths of Hu Yung’s despair. And not a wise enough friend to know how to help her.

She didn’t know how to help Ella either. All she could do was be with her, but that seemed so paltry and insufficient. Ella deserved much more from her than that, as had Hu Yung.

A high, thin whistle shrilled in the distance. Hannah jumped, momentarily disoriented. Then reality returned.

The teakettle … The water was ready.

She pushed to her feet, walked to the stove, and mechanically took up the now steaming kettle. She set the tealeaf strainer over the painted porcelain teapot, then poured the boiling water through it. It felt good to do something that grounded her in the here and now, Hannah thought, suddenly thankful for anything that drew her back to the real world.

That real world, she noted as she finally, tray in hand, reentered Ella’s bedroom, didn’t seem all that frightening anymore. A sense of peace, even joy, now pervaded the room. Curious, Hannah set the tray on the bureau then turned to study Ella more closely. Eyes closed, the red-haired woman clutched her Bible to her breast, her expression startlingly beautiful.

Perplexed, Hannah joined Abby. “What … what’s happened? She looks … different.”

“I read her the twenty-third psalm, and then her favorite verses from the first book of John, chapter four. It filled Ella with such joy and comfort.” Abby sighed, then smiled. “Oh, Hannah, I wish you’d been here to see the effect those words had on her!”

“I can see enough. That joy and comfort is with her still,” Hannah observed, strangely unsettled. “I only wish I might someday find even half that for myself.”

Abby took her hand and squeezed it. “You will. Trust in the Lord, and you will.”

“H-Hannah?” Ella’s lids lifted. She looked straight at her, then extended a shaky hand.