Her Hesitant Heart (9 page)

“I doubt the matter is quite that drastic,” Susanna said. “Still …”

She thought about it when her older pupils were preparing their afternoon recitations and her little ones were attempting the alphabet without benefit of any help from the blackboard this time. Her mind was no easier when Major Randolph stopped by the schoolroom after her students had filed out, to invite her to accept his escort to the Dunklins’ that evening.

After spending an inordinate amount of time trying to decide between green wool and black bombazine, Susanna settled on the black, which struck her as more sober and teacherly. In one of his better moments, Frederick had remarked how nice she looked in black, with the contrast of her blond hair. Perhaps Major Randolph would feel the same way.

He did, apparently, if the look in his eyes when she opened the door to his knock was any indication.

“Mighty fine, Mrs. Hopkins,” he said.

Susanna blushed like a schoolgirl, and turned the conversation, remembering the microscope. “Have you made any earth-shattering discoveries with your microscope, Major?” she asked.

“No. A few years ago, I read a paper in a French journal about Louis Pasteur’s theory of germ disease.
I thought a microscope of my own was in order, after that.”

“Why should that embarrass you?” she asked, curious because he seemed suddenly shy.

“I’ll share my little secret. I want to study germ theory in Paris with Louis Pasteur.”

“How did that come about?” Susanna asked, curious.

“My interest was always there. I was a long way through medical school before I admitted to myself that my favorite classes were the ones using microscopes, pond water and mold.”

“But you’re a good doctor of … of people.”

He bowed elaborately, which made Susanna smile. “Thank you! It’s theory that intrigues me the most, however.”

“Why didn’t you take that road instead of the practice of medicine?”

“A sensible question. After the Confederacy fired upon Fort Sumter, no one needed theory. I finished my last year of medical school in six months—we all did—and went into the army.”

“I think you should go to Paris,” she said, as he helped her into her coat. “Perhaps someone in the medical department would send you there, courtesy of the U.S. Army.”

He shook his head. “Such plum assignments require patronage in Washington, something a son of Virginia has not. I would have to do it on my own dime.”

“Well? What is stopping you?”

He seemed in no hurry to reach the Dunklins’ quarters. He stopped, obviously contemplating her question.

“I suppose nothing is stopping me. I have enough funds. Maybe when this summer’s Indian campaigns are over.”

“Only don’t do it until my teaching term is up, Major,” she said impulsively, then felt her face grow warm again. “I mean, I think you are my only ally.”

He patted her hand and started them in motion again. “You have several allies, but we could not consider the Rattigans or the O’Learys as possessed of patronage, either, could we?” He stopped again. “What
are
the Dunklins up to? I own to some uneasiness. You already know your students’ parents. I saw to that.”

“I’m uneasy, too,” she agreed quietly, and told him that Bobby Dunklin was home from school today, and the Dunklins had chosen to give a party, anyway.

“Let’s not take one more step toward the Dunklins’. In fact, I …”

He stopped, because Captain Dunklin opened the door, gesturing them inside. She saw through the front window that the parlor was full of people.

“No,” she whispered, suddenly fearful. But there was Captain Dunklin, w aiting.

“I’ll stay close to you,” Major Randolph promised. “What could have changed since yesterday, when you were everyone’s favorite teacher?”

C
aptain Dunklin took their coats and walked away with them, leaving Susanna looking at his retreating back wistfully. Every instinct told her to run, but the last time she had done that had led to total ruin. She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. The parlor door opened and there was Mrs. Dunklin, her smile as insincere as her husband’s.

“Mrs. Hopkins, we’ve been waiting for you. Major? How nice to see you.”

Terrified, Susanna looked around the parlor. Only the parents of her students were there, wearing expressions ranging from curiosity to hostility. Her bowels felt suddenly liquid, so she took several deep breaths.

Mrs. Dunklin just waited until her husband returned from hiding their coats somewhere. Susanna glanced at his bland face and swallowed again. She waited for him to speak—it was his
house, after all—but he only gestured to his wife, who cleared her throat and picked up a crumpled newspaper. Everyone seated themselves and Susanna looked around for a chair before she fell down. There were none. She and the major were left to stand there.

“Do you have a chair, Mrs. Dunklin?” Major Randolph asked.

“No chairs. She won’t be here long.”

“Then we’re leaving,” Joe said.

Susanna shook her head. “Get on with it, Mrs. Dunklin.”

Silence. Mrs. Dunklin looked around, a smirk on her face. “I had been racking my brain to remember why your name was familiar, but couldn’t come up with anything. Then when our Christmas box arrived, I found this balled up in the newspapers used as packing material. Take it.”

She thrust it at Susanna. The newspaper rattled in her hand, so Major Randolph took it from her.

“You read it then, Major,” Mrs. Dunklin said, “if Mrs. Hopkins is too much of a coward.”

The look he gave Mrs. Dunklin could have cut through lead. The woman stepped back involuntarily.

He read it. Susanna watched the blood drain from his face and then surge back. He handed it back to Mrs. Dunklin.

“You are sorely in need of honest facts, Mrs. Dunklin, before you do something that might ruin a life.”

“I know what I know!” the woman snapped. She glared at Susanna. “You came to us pretending to be a war widow.”

“I didn’t,” Susanna said, wishing her voice was strong right now, like Major Randolph’s. “Someone else started that story and—”

“Liar!”

“I don’t lie,” Susanna said. She wanted to back up against the post surgeon, but knew that would give this vicious woman ammunition for other charges.

Mrs. Dunklin thrust the newspaper at Susanna. “To think we trusted our children to a woman who abandoned her own child!”

The room was absolutely silent. Susanna forced herself to look at the faces staring at her. In this closed society, she would see these faces again and again until she figured out some way to escape Fort Laramie. She was trapped with people she could not escape.

Mrs. Dunklin snatched the paper back. “It’s all here, how you abandoned your child, and your poor husband was forced to sue you for divorce! And then you come here, playing on our sympathies by posing as a war widow. For shame!”

Susanna forced herself to look around the room again, knowing she was looking at officers who had fought in the Civil War and seen their friends on both sides of the conflict die in battle. She expected no sympathy and saw none.

“That rumor was started right here by one of your own,” Major Randolph said.

Mrs. Dunklin turned her vitriol on the post surgeon. “And who could ever trust a word out of your mouth, you son of—”

A lady gasped.

“—Virginia,” Mrs. Dunklin concluded. “I know General Crook doesn’t trust you. Why should we?”

“Please don’t excoriate Major Randolph because he’s from Virginia,” Susanna said, stung by the unfairness of it. “He’s not your target. I am.” She took a deep breath. “Yes, I fled my home, but only because my former husband, quite drunk, pushed my face into the mantel and I was bleeding. When I tried to get back in, he wouldn’t let me—”

“That’s not what the paper says,” Mrs. Dunklin interrupted.

“No, it isn’t.” Susanna felt her courage peeking out again from a dark place where it had hidden, even though she couldn’t stop shaking. “It also doesn’t say how Frederick Hopkins bought up all the lawyers in Shippensburg, Gettysburg and even Boiling Springs, so no one would represent me. It doesn’t say that, does it? The editor of the Shippensburg
Sentinel
is a drinking friend of my former husband.”

“You’re being ridiculous. Such a thing wouldn’t happen in Pennsylvania,” Captain Dunklin said, sounding more self-righteous than fifty saints.

“It happened to me.”

“Mrs. Hopkins, say no more,” Major Randolph said. “It won’t make any difference.”

She knew he was right, but she knew this was her only opportunity to speak. “I know,” she told him. “My side deserves a hearing, even if none of you listen.” Little spots of light started dancing around her eyes, and she blinked to stop them. “Whether you believe me or not, and I fear you do not, I had the choice between being beaten to death that night or running away to find medical help. I don’t see well out of my left eye, because there is only so much doctors can do.”

She didn’t bother to look for sympathy. “All I wanted to do here was teach,” she said simply. “I’m an educator and—”

“Not anymore,” Mrs. Dunklin said, producing another piece of paper. “This letter states that none of our children will attend school until we have a new teacher, and it has been signed by everyone here present.”

Major Randolph stepped between Susanna and Mrs. Dunklin. “That’s enough,” he said.

“This is wrong.”

It was a quiet voice, a lilting Irish voice, and Susanna looked around to see Captain O’Leary on his feet.

“Thank you,” she said simply.

“Rooney will still be in your classroom tomorrow, Mrs Hopkins.”

“Then I will be there, too,” Susanna said, finally
teasing courage out of its hiding place and holding her head higher.

“He’ll be alone!” Mrs. Dunklin said.

Captain O’Leary shrugged and headed for the door. “All the better to get the total attention of one good teacher, eh?”

“When the rest of us withdraw our support for this creature, will you pay her entire salary?”

“I can’t afford that, and you know it. Rooney will go to the enlisted men’s school then.” He smiled at the gasps in the room. “Should have done that last year. Mrs. Hopkins, come visit Katie anytime you want.”

He left the room without a word to his hosts.

“Mrs. Hopkins, what do you say we follow? Witch hunts scare me,” Major Randolph said. “Captain, our coats, please?”

The sparkles were back around her eyes. She shook her head to clear them this time, which made her lose her balance and stagger. The post surgeon steadied her.

The room was starting to revolve. Susanna took another deep breath, which ended in a ragged note. She turned to her hostess.

“Mrs. Dunklin, whether you believe me or a slanted newspaper article is your choice. I can tell you it was death or divorce.” She kept her voice low, deriving her only mite of satisfaction from watching the others lean forward to hear. “I chose divorce because I wanted to live, but you’ll be pleased to know that I chose death, too. Every
morning when I wake up, I die when I remember that my son is not with me and never will be.”

She stood there, silent, wondering if Captain Dunklin had taken their coats to the opposite end of the parade ground.
Breathe in and out
, she ordered her body.

After what felt like years, Captain Dunklin returned with the coats. In absolute silence, Major Randolph guided her arm into each sleeve, since she could barely move. He pulled on his own coat and took a firm grip on her, coaxing her into motion in that forthright way he probably used to get patients ambulatory.

She didn’t think she could manage the steps, but she did. She got as far as the board sidewalk. For the first time in her life, she fainted.

She returned to consciousness almost at once, embarrassed and terrified to be lying in the snow at the foot of the Dunklins’ porch. Major Randolph had gathered a handful of snow and placed it on her forehead, which did the duty of smelling salts. And there was Nick Martin, helping her to her feet.

“Can you walk, Susanna?” Joe Randolph asked.

“I think so. It’s not so far,” she said, embarrassed. “Forgive me.”

“Don’t apologize for something you cannot control,” he said promptly. “Forgive me for not taking you out of that den of vipers immediately.”

“As you say, it hardly matters,” Susanna reminded him. “If it hadn’t been tonight, it would have been tomorrow.” She sobbed out loud, and
put her hand to her mouth. “I swore I had cried my last tear over this!”

Without a word he clapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close as they walked along, him holding her up more than she was standing. He seemed so furious she was almost afraid to look at him. When she did glance his way, she saw all the anger in his face, and knew it couldn’t be just for this alone.

She stopped walking, and he was forced to stop, too. Gently, she disengaged from him.

“I was wrong to think I could escape this.”

“Now you’re going to blame yourself?” he exclaimed.

She shrugged out of his grasp and continued on by herself. She looked back at him standing there, puffs of winter steam coming from his nostrils. He was angry, but she knew in her bruised heart it wasn’t at her.

“Will it ever warm up here?” she asked in a normal tone of voice. She went into the Reeses’ house and closed the door behind her, wanting to lock it and never allow anyone in again, except it wasn’t her house, and the enemy was here, too.

Standing right in front of her, in fact. Susanna regarded her cousin’s white face.

There was so much she could have said then, none of it pretty. Suddenly Susanna was more weary than she been in months, tired of accusing faces and dead ends that brought her no closer to her son and toward no path leading back to respectability.

Frederick had seen to that. If there was a greater evil than alcohol, she had no idea what it could be. All these thoughts went through her tired mind as she started up the stairs to her space behind an army blanket, the only refuge left to her in the world.

“Did you tell them I started that little untruth?” Emily asked as Susanna neared the top of the stairs.

Susanna shook her head, sad that her cousin felt no pity and no concern for her, beyond her own wish not to be part of her ruin. Susanna turned around to take a good look at her cousin, and mourned the loss of what could have been a friend. Perhaps Emily had meant well. Someone more intelligent would have understood how terrible a lie like that would appear to veterans of the Civil War, and that person was not Emily Reese.

“No, I did not tell them you started that lie. If I had even a little money I would be out of here tomorrow, to spare you any further embarrassment.”

She knew sarcasm was wasted on Emily Reese, who probably thought she was serious. Susanna pulled aside the blanket, then let it fall behind her. She lay down to stare at the ceiling. She thought of how Joe Randolph had questioned her decision to remain silent. Obviously, neither of them had known how bad this would become.
I haven’t a brave bone left in my body
, she thought.
I should have said something
.

She lay in perfect stillness until the house
grew quiet and everyone in it slept. Because the walls were thin, she couldn’t help but hear Katie O’Leary’s tears through the wall.

Susanna went down the stairs a step at a time, careful to make no noise. She didn’t bother with her coat; she was only going next door. She knocked and waited.

Captain O’Leary opened the door and pulled her in quickly.

“You’ll catch your death out there, Mrs. Hopkins,” he told her, and put his arm around her shoulder. “Katie,” he called up the stairs.

Her friend came down quickly, gathering Susanna close when her husband released her, and leading her into the parlor.

“What terrible thing is this?” Katie asked, a sodden handkerchief in her hand.

With her own hands so tight that her nails dug into her palms, Susanna told them the whole story of Frederick’s descent into drunkenness, his brutality and degrading treatment, and her desperation the night she’d fled from her own home, blinded by her blood.

“He ruined me,” she finished simply. “Emily thought to call me a war widow to spare her own embarrassment.” She looked at Katie and held out her arms. “Katie! Joe wanted me to tell the truth to Major Townsend, but I was afraid! Am I always going to be afraid?” She started to sob.

Katie held her close, and looked at her husband. “Jim, is there anything we can do?” She kissed Susanna’s
forehead. “My dear lady, we have no credit here, either, or not much. Jim, please …”

Susanna wiped her eyes when he handed her a dry handkerchief. He looked at her for a long moment.

“I think I will tell Captain Burt tomorrow what you have told me.” He managed a ghost of a smile. “He’s infantry, but I trust him more than anyone here except Major Randolph.”

Susanna shook her head. “He and Mrs. Burt were in that meeting, too! They both signed that letter!”

“I know,” he replied, taking her hand. “But he’s a reasonable man, is Andy Burt. I may not convince him, but I can plant a seed.”

Susanna nodded, unconvinced, but determined not to say so to these kind people. “That will be a start,” she said. She stood up and looked at the O’Learys. “I hope you will forgive me for not calling out that lie immediately. I think I have lived in fear so long that I don’t know anything else.” She touched Katie’s shoulder. “I couldn’t bear to lose your friendship, although I do not deserve it.”

“You have never lost my friendship,” Katie said quietly. “Never.”

Susanna shook her head when the O’Learys tried to coax her to stay the night in their parlor, and went next door again, letting herself in as quietly as she had left. She climbed the stairs as though she wore lead boots, then lay down to sleep.

She was alone, at liberty to contemplate her ruin
in a small society she could not escape until she earned some money to leave it. For the first time in the whole ordeal, she considered the merits of walking out the door and onto the open field behind Officers Row. She could take off her clothes and keep walking until she froze to death, which wouldn’t take long. She discarded the idea; with her bad luck, she would likely encounter a sentry who would save her life.