Coming Home for Christmas (11 page)

T
he requisition went on its way that afternoon. It was returned, rejected, in the mail pouch early the next week. Major Wharton brought it to her after she had finished feeding those men too weak to care for themselves and was tidying her small diet kitchen off the main hall.

Still impeccable, still dignified, he sat at the table and absently folded a pile of laundered dishcloths.

“Really, Major, I can do that,” she protested, but not too vehemently, in case he should think she actually meant it. With only French-speaking nuns around, she was coming to relish her encounters with the American, even if his English had a distinctly foreign sound to her ears. He was the first American she had ever met.

“Mrs Nicholls, I can no more sit idle than you,” he said, working his way quickly through the pile of dishcloths as she scrubbed the sink. “Is there anything else to fold? Tablecloths? Deck of cards? A tent, and silently steal away?”

She laughed, always appreciative of his droll wit, especially when compared with Captain Pompous, who wouldn't know a joke if it barked in his face. Indeed, the physician had wasted a quarter-hour of her time only that morning complaining about Major Wharton's levity in a place of contagion and disease.

You are a nitwit,
she had thought, while fixing Captain Pompous with her blandest face.
I appreciate a man who can make an entire ward roar with laughter and forget, for even fifteen minutes, that some of them are dying.

“Nothing else?” Major Wharton asked. He rested his hands on the table. “How about this? If I am not a dreadful nuisance or an opportunist of the grossest sort, would you object to a glass of champagne?”

She stared at him, wondering where his shyness had gone. Before she could say anything, he continued, his familiar blush back. This reassured her in an odd way, because it meant all was right in the major's world again.

“I know it should be served in a flute, but I have only two drinking glasses, army issue.”

“Where did you…?”

“Acquire champagne?” He caught the tablecloth she tossed his way to fold. “It came in the same delivery that brought that prissy note from the commissary officer regarding our Christmas tree.”

“A consolation prize?” she teased in turn, catching the end of the tablecloth and folding her share.

He finished folding the cloth and handed it back to her. “I probably shouldn't tell you this, considering that Captain Pompous already thinks I am a vulgarian.”

“That has never stopped you before,” she said,
amused. Her casual treatment of Major Wharton reminded Lily of her relationship with her own easygoing brothers.

He peered at the label. “A bottle of Perrier-Jouët came from General Albert Pasquier. He seemed to think I had something to do with getting most of his wounded troops transferred home to Paris ahead of schedule.”

“You know you did—what a nice effort that was, considering that his son was among the wounded,” she said gently.

He sighed. “I only wish we could have moved him sooner, so his
papa
could have had more time with him. It's nice of the general to remember me.” He looked at her again, his gaze direct, with no blush this time. Lily had noticed that he never seemed shy when talking hospital policy. “If I ran this war, there would be a change in the transport of wounded. As it is, thank goodness for your Miss Nightingale. She does all she can.”

“The champagne is payment for your impressive sleight of hand with a bunch of wounded Frenchmen?” she asked, smiling in spite of herself.

“Absolutely. Care for some bubbly?”

She did, actually, and told him so. While she waited in the kitchen, Major Wharton returned to his office and came back with a dusty bottle and two glass receptacles used for blood cupping.

“Can't find my glasses,” he muttered. “I think one of the nuns has decided to organize my desk. Stand back, madam. No telling how far this Perrier-Jouët will fire. I'd hate to lose you after the war is over.”

He popped the cork expertly and the bubbles fizzed out demurely. “Ah, it is a dignified wine,” the major said. He poured a respectable amount into the cup and
handed it to her. “What shall we toast? The war is over and we're still languishing in this most trying backwater.”

“To Christmas and the tree I still want,” Lily said.

He nodded and clinked her cupping glass. “Fine. To next Christmas at home?”

“I would have preferred this one, but, aye, I'll drink to that,” she said.

The major propped his slippered feet on the table as he leaned back in his chair. She watched him over the rim of the cupping glass, remembering their first encounter a year ago, when he had arrived unannounced, with the astounding directive from Miss Nightingale herself to install him, a US Army observer and an engineer, as administrator of the overstretched satellite hospital.

Such an assignment was unheard of, but both surgeons on staff had been forced to swallow their objection to the directive, because it was also signed by FitzRoy Somerset, Lord Raglan. Within a fortnight, Major Wharton had organized the hospital until it ran like a top. Modestly, he gave all credit to a month of observing Miss Nightingale's genius for organization, which mollified the British Army physicians.

It had been Lily's turn to provide the libation late one night, when only the two of them had been still awake and ward walking. The drink had been rum instead of the cupping glass of champagne she held now.

“Major, I believe we used cupping glasses with that rum I stole from the densest surgeon in the British army.”

“I believe we did,” he said. He tipped his chair down and poured more champagne. He amazed her by leaning
forward and touching her hand lightly. “I have never thanked you for being my champion with those twits with cotton wadding for brains.” He raised his cupping glass. “Let's toast the late Lord Raglan, may he rest in peace— Thank you, sir, for recalling both twits home and sending better surgeons in their stead!”

She drank to that, enjoying the way the bubbles worked on her brain. The major tipped his chair back again and he sipped slowly. She watched him, remembering that earlier evening of rum. Maybe the alcohol had loosened his tongue. He had told her about himself, unabashedly describing his wealthy Philadelphia family—part of the Main Line, he called them—and the general uses of wealth and influence. His parents had had no objection to West Point—America's premier, and only, engineering school—but they had expected him to resign his commission after a dignified time and join the Wharton's banking firm. He had told her this over rum last year, after a long and exhausting day of disease and death.

Since then, there had been little time for such leisurely chat. She sipped her champagne and remembered that earlier conversation, when they had become better acquainted.

“My parents rejoiced when I was selected to accompany Captain McClellen, and Majors Cooke, Delafield and Mordecai to the Crimea as observers,” he had said. She remembered that his voice had turned a little bleak then. “Observation of others' fighting methods is a time-honored military tradition.” He had shrugged. “I have always been more interested in how things
run.
Hospitals interested me more. I intend to write a whack
ing fine report to vindicate my choice. In fact, I promised Miss Nightingale I would.”

“What does your family think of you now?” she asked, recalled to the present, even as the champagne infiltrated her brain. “I remember our rum-filled conversation quite well.”

He glanced at her and laughed. “They want me home for Christmas, probably the same as your family does.” He put his hand to his chest in a gesture worthy of Edmund Kean. “‘All is forgiven, Trey! Return, resign your commission and join the banking firm.'”

“Oh, dear, you are the black sheep,” she teased, then sighed. “I went with my parents' blessing, but I miss my son. He will be ten right after Christmas.”

She held out her class for more champagne, and Major Wharton obliged. “With a young child, why did you do it?” he asked, then held up his hand. “Stop me if I am being intrusively rude, but I have been wondering.”

“Not at all, Major. My husband, God rest his soul, died of consumption and I decided not to be buried with him.” She took a deep breath.

It sounded so blatant that she stopped, her hand to her mouth. Again the major put down his chair and touched her hand, as though giving her permission to continue.

“Two years of the blackest mourning, for Will and me both.” She looked at him, uncertain if she should say more, but he nodded. “My late husband's family is as rich as you Whartons, I suppose. Major, I couldn't be an expensive ornament for one more minute, so Will and I escaped to Dumfries, where people eat oats for breakfast and make their own beds. I wanted to prove something to myself.”

“Did you?” he asked. “No, I can answer that for you— Yes, you did. Mrs Nicholls, you are a useful woman.”

She smiled at his courage in delivering so much sensible praise with only a slight blush. “What I am is naive and foolish to actually think the war would end in six weeks.” She had to smile at her own stupidity, to keep the tears from welling up. “I miss my son.”

Lily had to give Major Wharton credit then, despite his shyness. With his little finger, he brushed gently at the tears in her eyes and changed the subject to spare her. “Dumfries, eh? I wondered where that delightful brogue came from,” he said. “And your marvelous red hair?”

It was her turn to blush. No one had ever described her hair as marvelous. “You should see my father!”

“There's more to you than red hair, a brogue and
naïveté,
” he said. “Now remember, Mrs Nicholls, I am an official observer. I have a document from the U.S. Army saying precisely that, if you are skeptical. Your mother's not from Scotland, is she?”

Why did we never have this conversation sooner?
Lily asked herself, charmed by this casual side of Major Wharton, now that the worst press of war was over and they had the time to linger over champagne, even if it was served from cupping glasses. “She was born in Spain and raised in Mexico City. My father met her in San Diego, Alta California. I believe it is one of your states now. He was a prisoner of war.”

“You're more interesting than the Whartons!” The major shook his head, his eyes full of something that looked like admiration. “Your father is a surgeon still?”

“A very good one. So are two of my brothers. The
third brother is the family black sheep. He went to Cambridge and became a successful banker. He met my husband there and brought him home once during the Long Vac.”

They laughed together, conspirators, in the ways of families. She felt a pleasant glow edge down her body. She felt as though she sat close to a glowing brazier, not a handsome man with a gap-toothed smile. Lily sat back, surprised at herself, and wanting a moment to consider what she was feeling.

That was a split second before she heard labored footsteps up the narrow flight of stairs to the administrator's office, and a moment later saw the red face of Sister Marie Xavier. She was breathing heavily from her exertions, but not too fatigued to scream “Fire!” in French.

T
hat's what Lily assumed she said, considering the aroma of smoke that began to drift over the barracks hospital. Equally startling to Lily was the way Major Wharton grabbed her hand and hurried her toward the stairs.

He didn't let go of her until they stood a safe distance away from the detached kitchen, where the roof threatened to collapse. Shocked, Lilly counted to twelve, relieved that all the nuns—in various stages of undress, to be sure—were out of their quarters behind the ovens and standing in the walkway between the kitchen and the hospital. And then the major only let go of her to clap his arm around her shoulders as she contemplated the loss of every possession she had brought to Anatolia, except for the clothes she stood in, hairpins currently employed and a pair of scissors in her apron pocket.

She turned her face into his chest, stunned at the loss of the kitchen more than her possessions. “How on
earth can we feed all those men?” she muttered into his uniform.

“Dear Lily, you have just lost all your possessions and what worries you is porridge for invalids?” he asked gently. Able-bodied men from the hospital were already pouring water on the flames. “Bless your heart.”

She looked at him, startled. “Of course it is. All we have now is that little diet kitchen off the main hall.” Lily looked at the nuns, who seemed to have dragged out their few possessions. “If someone can spare a habit, I'll be Sister Lillian until I get my marching papers,” she told him.

To her further surprise—where
was
his courage coming from?—the major touched his forehead to hers. “I have another idea, Sister Lily.”

 

He did, to the consternation of the French nuns and Lily's own amusement. Before midnight, they were comfortably settled in Sultan Abdul Ahmed Wasiri's seraglio, with his harem and his wives. “Look at it this way, Mrs Nicholls,” the major said, as he escorted her to the harem's elaborately curved doorway, where a eunuch stood watch. Wharton eyed the tall man, who was obviously not used to suffering fools gladly, especially infidel fools. “You'll have a wonderful story to tell your grandchildren some day.”

The Sisters of Mercy had taken longer to bring themselves to enter the harem, requiring all of Major Wharton's rudimentary West Point French. With considerable chatter, and even more flailing about of hands, they had finally succumbed with the air of potential martyrs.

Captain Penrose had been beside himself, turning an alarming shade of purple at this affront to British
womanhood and French ecclesiastics. His acceptance of the idea came with great reluctance, and only after the major reminded his subordinate that he, Major Wharton, U.S. Army, had been put in charge of the barracks hospital a year ago by Lord Raglan himself. “The hospital is full and there isn't anywhere else in this Godforsaken town that is safe,” he had said, speaking slowly, as though he addressed an idiot. “Could they
be
any safer than in a harem?”

“Just humor me, Captain Pot Roast,” the major had muttered under his breath as the other surgeon returned to his pony cart, looking less than dignified in a Paisley dressing gown and red nightcap with a tassel. “Mrs Nicholls, I am certain he will waste not a minute firing off a vitriolic protest to his own high command and perhaps to Captain McClellan, who thinks he is in charge of me in the Ottoman Empire.”

“Is he?” Lily asked, pleased that the hospital administrator could be so lighthearted about possible career disaster.

“Little Georgie? Mercy, no!” He leaned closer. “The rest of us outrank him, although you'd never know it to listen to him crow. My dear Mrs Nicholls, small men fight like terriers over small stakes.” He gave an undignified snort. “Lord help us if Georgie McClellan is
ever
put in charge of an entire army! I can't see it.”

He told her good-night at the seraglio door, assuring her that carriages would be available in the morning to take them the short distance back to the barracks hospital. “I'm afraid your little diet kitchen will be taxed to the limit, Mrs Nicholls. Hopefully we can make rapid repairs on the other one.” He sighed. “Wouldn't it be
nice of the British High Command to move out the men now?”

He touched her shoulder, which made the eunuch move forward and brandish his curved sword. Major Wharton backed away, smiling his most charming gap-toothed smile, which made Lily turn away to hide her own mirth.

She stood beside the eunuch, who towered over her. “Major Wharton,” she said to his retreating figure, “I still want a Christmas tree.” She laughed. “My, but I sound petulant.”

Maybe there was something wistful in her voice, because the major turned back to look at her, his gaze soft. “It's all a bit much, isn't it?”

He moved toward her again, but the eunuch elaborately ran his thumb and forefinger down the flat of his scimitar. Major Wharton chose discretion over valor and quit the field.

“I mean it,” Lily said softly. A few minutes later, one of the sultan's pretty wives took charge, chattering in melodious Turkish as she led Lily down the hall. In a few minutes more, Lily looked at the sumptuous chamber the wife had assigned her. After the door closed, she removed her clothes, stained with a day's typical work and smelling of smoke now. She took off everything, standing naked and wondering what she would wear to bed. She always wore
something
to bed.

She yawned, wondering why the loss of all her possessions meant so little, then wondering how long she would stand there, bare. She laughed a little, imagining the shocked look she would have got from her late husband, who was the most proper man she had ever met. An imp seemed to take possession of her mind then,
as she considered what Major Wharton would do, if he could see her now. Her cheeks reddened as she thought a most improper thought. And then she laughed to think how embarrassed
he
would be.

“All right, Lillian, what
do
you wear to bed?” she asked out loud. “You're getting tiresome.”

Nothing, obviously. She got into bed, enjoying the unexpected heat of a cloth-covered warming pan, remembering how nice it used to be to put her cold feet on her husband's legs. To her chagrin, that imp returned. She wondered whether Trey Wharton would object to her bare feet on
his
legs.

She lay on her back in strange surroundings, looking up at a gauzy canopy. The bed was amazingly soft. Her eyes closed, just as she was wondering what on earth she would wear tomorrow.