Earth Angels (10 page)

Could the angel have prevented Granny’s death? He’d indicated that he couldn’t help Prudence. His friend had explained long ago that certain medical situations were beyond his help. He’d said that in those cases, a greater power was at work, and passing into the next world was the choice of the spirit. Joseph had never been able to come to terms with that. His instinct was to fight death with everything he had.

A rational part of his brain told him that both Granny and Prudence had been beyond medical aid even before he reached them, but he couldn’t be entirely certain. Had Nathanial been right? Had they both been fated to die? Granny was old, and certainly she’d often said she was ready to go when the time came. But Prudence—Joseph shuddered. Prudence was young, newly wed, looking forward to her child. How, why, would she have chosen to die?

Joseph had seldom needed Nathanial more than he did at this moment. He needed the calm, comforting aura of his presence, his reassurance that Joseph had done all that was humanly possible. But he’d pushed Nathanial out of his life, just as he’d done with Emma.

In his head, he reviewed the two cases obsessively, trying to imagine what else he might have done, berating himself for omissions he now felt he’d made.

He was a failure. He’d lost two patients and driven away the two individuals he truly loved. He was alone, and he deserved to be, because he had no idea how even to begin to remedy the situation he’d created.

“Physician, heal thyself,” he whispered with a bitter laugh. And then he laid his head on the wooden table and wept.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust……”

Emma heart the preacher’s words, but it still seemed incomprehensible that her friend, dearest Prudence, could be in the pine box being lowered into the earth this sunny May morning, or that a short distance away and a scant hour before, Granny had also been laid to rest.

Two funerals in one day. It seemed the entire town had turned out, and most of them were weeping for both the old woman and the young one.

Benjamin stood near the edge of the open grave, his head lowered, his strong face ravaged with grief, and beside him his mother held his swaddled newborn son. The baby cried piteously all during burial, as if he, too, grieved for the young mother he’d never know.

Emma smothered a sob and dabbed at her eyes, her glance going to Joseph. This was the first time she’d seen him in weeks, and she could hardly believe the change in him. He’d lost so much weight his dark suit hung on him. His eyes, when they met hers, were sunken and hollow, as if he hadn’t slept in days. His burning glance lingered for a long moment on her and then slid away.

He looked lost and abandoned, and in spite of her resolve, her heart went out to him. She knew he must be devastated by the deaths of the women who’d been both friends and patients, and to make matters worse, there was the gossip. Some were saying he’d become derelict in his duties as a physician, a charge that made Emma furious.

She recalled the conversation that had taken place at the counter of her store just yesterday morning. One of her customers, a neighbor of the Irvines, had tearfully related to her friend gruesome details Letitia had given her of the baby’s birth.

Mrs. Lepage, also in the store, eavesdropped shamelessly, then waddled over to the counter. “I couldn’t help but overhear, and I have to say I blame Doctor Gillespie for the horrible death of Prudence Irvine,” she said in a loud, unctuous voice. “It’s common knowledge that he’s taken to imbibing spirits. Why, when I went to see him, he was outright insulting. They say he didn’t even get to Granny’s house until it was too late. She lay on the floor for hours, poor old soul. If dear little Prudence had only had a competent doctor, that poor little baby would still have his mother, you mark my words.”

The other women didn’t openly agree with Mrs. Lepage, but Emma sensed the seeds of doubt growing in their minds. She’d always made it a point to ignore any gossip she overheard, but she couldn’t this time.

“Mrs. Lepage, I do believe you’ve been misinformed,” she said in a sweet tone as she added up the other woman’s purchases. “Doctor Gillespie never touches spirits, and his medical qualifications are impeccable. Everyone knows he did the best anyone could do for dear Prudence, and Granny’s neighbor told me he came running immediately he was called, but there was nothing he could do there either. Granny was very old, you know.”

The two other women nodded agreement, and Mrs. Lepage’s florid face grew scarlet. Giving Emma a nasty look, she brayed, “Well, dear, its noble of you to defend him, especially when the entire town knows how he took advantage of you. Why, I saw him myself, coming down your back stairs in the early morning hours.”

Emma had felt her face flame. The other women had shot avid glances her way, and Mrs. Lepage had smirked and then huffed her way out of the store.

Emma’s anger rose even now at the memory, and she fervently hoped that vicious old thing never came near her store again.

“We commit the soul of Thy servant, Prudence Helen Irvine…..”

Emma closed her swollen, aching eyes and made up her mind that when the final prayer was ended, she would march straight over and speak to Joseph.

But when she looked up again, he was gone.

CHAPTER NINE

Emma hurried home and changed her black silk dress for a workaday cotton, thinking of Joseph the entire time. Instead of lessening, her feelings for him were just as powerful as ever. He’d hurt her deeply, but the love she felt for him was stronger than the memory of their quarrel. And she’d taken an honest look at the way she acted around men, and she had to admit that she
was
flirtatious. Not that she meant anything by it, but even her father had warned her about it several times. So maybe Joseph had a teeny, tiny bit of justification for his jealousy. Not that it excused his accusations.

It broke her heart, though, to see him so alone and desolate. She opened her handkerchief drawer, found Granny’s charm, and looped in over her head.

“Oh, Granny, I have to try and help him,” she whispered. He might reject her—he likely would—but at least she had to try and make the effort.

As she ran down her back stairs, she heard someone pounding on the store’s front door, demanding service, but she ignored the summons. She hurried down the street and raced up the front steps of Joseph’s house to the office door that was always open.

She turned the knob and then rattled it. The door was locked, although the sign, hanging lopsided, announced “The Doctor Is In.’

She knocked and knocked, but there was no answer. She ran to the back and up the stairs to the porch. This door was locked, too, but she was certain she heard movement inside. She lifted her fist and banged until her knuckles were sore, but still there was no response.

“Joseph, open this door, I know you’re in there,” she shouted. “I want to speak to you.” She waited, her temper fraying. “What on earth’s the matter with you?” She moved to the window. The curtains were drawn and she couldn’t see inside. She banged on the glass and called again and again, but there was no answer.

At last she lost her temper and shrieked at the top of her lungs. “Damn you, Doctor Gillespie!” She stamped her foot on the wooden boards and rested her hands on her hips, panting with exertion, tears of frustration running down her face. She sniffed loudly and robbed her cheek. “So help me, this is the last time I come running after you, Joseph. Stay here and rot, if that’s what you want, you stubborn, egotistical---idiot!”

Joseph heard her stomp down the stairs, the back gate squeak open and slam shut, and then silence. He climbed the staircase and went into his bedroom. He lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling and seeing only a bright pool of blood. He couldn’t seem to get the sight and smell of Prudence’s blood out of his mind.

Several times that day and the next, he heard patients mount the front stairs, try the office door, linger a few moments and then leave. He got up only to use the outhouse.

When it got dark the second night, he roused himself to go down to the kitchen and eat some cheese and bread. Near midnight, he went out the back door and down the street, following the road that led out of town.

He walked for miles in the darkness, knowing he had nowhere to go. The silence mocked him, reminding him that he was totally alone. He walked past the farm where he’d grown up. Its windows glowed with lamplight. Another family lived there now, and he had only memories of the happy years he’d spent with his mother and father in the small farmhouse.

He’d cut himself off from people, pushing them away instead of making friends. The love he’d felt for Emma had given him direction in life, connected him with other people because of her friendly nature.

He’d even begun to dare to dream of marriage, of a son, of a little daughter who looked like Emma. Now there was only an empty void where those dreams had once lived.

Even medicine was lost to him now. The two women’s deaths had stripped away his self-confidence. He couldn’t treat anyone when he doubted himself this way. And he’d made certain he no longer had Nathanial’s guidance either.

You have only yourself to blame
, the darkness mocked. His feet kept time to the words that drummed endlessly in his head.

Eventually he turned and retraced his steps, arriving home just as the first streaks of dawn lightened the eastern sky. He locked all the doors, washed himself and went up to his bedroom. He slept a few hours and then listened again to the footsteps that came and went, the buggies that passed on the street, the children’s voices as they played. When darkness fell, he got up and walked again, back to the farmhouse that had once been his home, and somehow the days and nights fell into a new routine.

“Have you heard what they’re saying about Doctor Gillespie, Emma?”

Emma ignored Belinda’s question, pretending to be engrossed in dusting the shelves behind the counter.

“Its such a tragedy for a gifted doctor.”

Belinda was obviously taking a great deal of pleasure in repeating what Emma had heard a dozen times already, in church last Sunday, on the street, and in her store. Her hand tightened around the duster and she vigorously attacked the stack of canned goods she’d already dusted twice today and three times yesterday.

“Hardly a soul has seen him since the funerals’ two weeks ago, you know,” Belinda continued with relish. “He’s locked himself in that house. They say the only time he comes out is at night. Mr. Wellington saw him walking on the road, miles out of town. When he stopped his buggy and tried to give the doctor a ride, he just shook his head and went on walking.” Belinda’s voice vibrated with excitement. “Mr. Wellington said the doctor looked quite demented. He had no hat or coat and no necktie either, and you know how meticulous he always was about his dress.” Her voice dropped to a computational whisper. “They say Granny’s and Prudence’s deaths have quite unhinged his mind, and he’s given up doctoring.”

“Poppycock!” The word exploded from Emma’s mouth, and she turned and brandished the duster at Belinda so that the other woman leaped back and pressed a hand to her bodice.

“That’s nothing but rubbish,” Emma exclaimed, smashing the duster down on the counter and glaring at Belinda. “You should be ashamed of yourself for spreading such idle gossip. I heard you myself not so long ago saying what excellent care he’d given your grandmother. Why, the poor man probably has the—the grippe. For all anyone cares, he could die all alone in that house.”

“But—but why would he be wandering the back roads at night if he’s ill?” Belinda tried to sound chastened, but the effort failed.

“I have no idea, but then, neither do you, Belinda.” Emma’s tone was scathing. “Do you?”

Belinda’s face turned as red as her hair, and she hastily paid for her purchases and scurried out the door.

Probably never to return,
Emma fumed. She was losing customers at a rapid rate, and all because of Joseph. “This is ridiculous,” she said out loud.

Olaf and Quincy were rooting through the nail barrels. She knew they’d been listening with avid interest to what she and Belinda had been saying.

“I’m closing the store,” she announced.

They both turned and stared at her.

“I’m sorry, but you’ll have to come back another time,” she told them.

“You can’t close the store in the middle of the day,” Olaf grumbled.

She ignored him. “I have an errand to run.’

It was time someone did something other than gossip about Joseph. Someone had to try and shake him out of his isolation and despair—and she was the one to do it, she decided with grim determination. She knew all about despair, thanks to him. She’d had more than her share since their breakup. And the days hadn’t grown any easier. If anything, she missed him more instead of less as time went by.

“It’s fixin ta storm right smart out there, missy,” Quincy remarked, thumping his collection of nails down on the counter and reaching in his pants pocket for the dime to pay her. “Wind’s gettin’ up. It might hail. Seen ‘em come down the size of goose eggs when there’s clouds like those.”

She ushered the muttering old men out the door and locked it. She turned her sign around. Rain was beginning to pelt against the windows by the time she threw her apron off and grabbed first the shawl that Joseph had given her, and then her sturdy woolen cape.