The Doctor Takes a Wife (11 page)

S
he saw his blue eyes widen a bit, and thought he was going to assent, but then, from the other room, she heard Mrs. Tyler cough and utter a little moan.

To Sarah's disappointment, he shook his head.

“It's too long a story. There's no way I could summarize it in a few short sentences and send you on to your rest.” Then he reached out and took her hand. “But I promise I
will
tell you one day, Sarah, when all this is over. I want to tell you about it.”

She would have to be content with that for now.

“All right, Nolan. I'll say good night. Prissy and I will go back to the cottage to sleep, but Mrs. Gilmore told me there's a bellpull by Mrs. Tyler's bed that will summon Flora if you have need of anything. We'll see you in the morning. The guest room's been made ready for you down the hall,” she added, pointing. “When I relieve you in the morning, you can sleep.”

He shook his head wearily. “I'll have to go back to the office in case anyone else is seeking me.”

She nodded, realizing she had forgotten in the last
few hours that many others in and around Simpson Creek were also suffering from the influenza epidemic. How could one doctor take care of all of them? When could Nolan rest?

Her fears must have shown on her face, for he reached out a hand and cupped her cheek. “Don't worry, dear Sarah,” he said, in that flat downeast accent she was coming to love. “We doctors learn to doze in chairs, eyes closed, but with our ears attuned to any change. I'll manage. Now go sleep—doctor's orders.”

She managed a weak smile at his words and left, sure she would never sleep a wink for worrying.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear…

She fell asleep praying.

 

Sarah woke the next morning with Prissy shaking her arm. “Come on, we've got to go to the house.”

“Is your aunt—?” Sarah could not put her dread into words.

“She's no better—no worse, either—but Mama and Papa both came down with fever and chills during the night.” Prissy's eyes were wide with anxiety. “Anson's wild with worry.”

Sarah dressed hurriedly and followed Prissy out of the cottage. On the way, Prissy explained that Nolan had gone back to his office to get more medicine for them and would be back as soon as he could.

 

Going up the walk into his office, Nolan noticed that there was already a sign posted in front of the church:

A good, sensible man, the reverend.

Once inside, Nolan bent over his open black bag, replenishing his supplies of willow bark extract and morphine, conscious of the need to hasten back to the Gilmores'. He hadn't been surprised to learn that the mayor and his wife had come down with the first symptoms of influenza during the night; it often took hold quickly like that and this was apparently quite a virulent epidemic. He was concerned for them, for neither was young nor of a particularly sound constitution, and Prissy had mentioned her mother had a weak heart just as her aunt did. Both the mayor's wife and her sister, he suspected, were subject to dropsy. Perhaps Mrs. Gilmore and Vira Tyler would benefit from a little digitalis.

He sighed. There was so little in his bag that really helped with influenza. He could treat fever and pain, but after that, it was up to the body to recover—or not. He refused to buy the patent medicines that were advertised in the newspapers as the answer to every ill. He knew they contained little but flavoring and opium or alcohol. Nor would he use the drugs his colleagues had relied on but which he knew to be dangerous, such as calomel.

He was running low on morphine. Simpson Creek wasn't big enough to boast a druggist's shop, but perhaps he could persuade Anson Tyler to use some of
his nervous energy to ride to San Saba's chemist for some—it would give the man something to do besides pacing the floor outside his mother's room and glaring at Nolan.

A movement at the window caught his eye and he turned his head, but before he could focus on it, it was gone. It may have been only a bird perching on his windowsill, but might it be some patient peeking in to see if he was present before he knocked?

There was no one at the door, however. Going to the side yard where the window was, he looked down the street and was just in time to see a female figure in a green dress disappearing into the Spencers' house.

Had Ada been spying on him through the window? He felt a flicker of annoyance, then pity for the madwoman.

He thought for a moment of going to inquire at the Spencers' to see if they were well, and by so doing make it plain to Ada that she had been seen, but he decided against it. He needed to get back to the Gilmores' house, and didn't have time today for Ada and her pregnancy fantasies.

He didn't wish influenza on his worst enemy, but the thought occurred to him that if Ada Spencer contracted it, he'd at least have the opportunity to examine her—properly chaperoned by her mother, of course—and prove once and for all she was not with child.

 

For Sarah and Prissy, the day blurred into a nightmare of sponging the feverish Gilmores and Mrs. Tyler with cool water, changing their sweat-dampened sheets and covering them with blankets when the chills rattled
their teeth. They made sure the patients were propped up with pillows to help their labored breathing. They emptied basins. Sarah was glad when Nolan sent Anson after some additional morphine, for his constant barging into his mother's sickroom to check on her condition was making Prissy jumpy as a cat.

She supported both women and helped Prissy hold her father in a leaning position while Nolan thumped their upper backs rhythmically. This was called chest percussion, he told them, and helped loosen the mucus that congested their lungs.

It was clear to Sarah from the first, though, that the two women were taken worse than Mayor Gilmore. Though he coughed hard enough to rattle the windows, at least he
could
cough and clear his lungs, while the women both seemed unable to mount a defense against the rattling congestion in their chests and their raging fevers. Though Prissy's father complained of a pounding headache and stabbing pain when he breathed, they only moaned weakly, while he finally drifted into a peaceful, snoring slumber. He was, in fact, asleep when the sun rose the next morning and both Mrs. Tyler and Mrs. Gilmore died within minutes of one another.

Sarah held Prissy while she sobbed, her own tears blending with those of her grieving friend's. Though it had been years since her own mother had died, she clearly remembered the knifelike sorrow that had lacerated her then.

A stricken, pale Anson joined them in the parlor, followed by Nolan. Sarah released Prissy into Anson's embrace.

Nolan caught Sarah's gaze, his eyes somber. “I'll
go notify the reverend,” he said. “I'm sorry, Sarah, but I've had word of another influenza patient in town. I'm going to have to go there, but I'll come back when I can.”

Numb, Sarah nodded dully.

Flora entered the room, her own eyes already swollen from crying. “Senorita Matthews, I've closed the curtains and hung a black wreath on the door. If you will write the message, I will send Antonio to the telegraph office to notify Senorita Prissy's brothers in Houston and San Antonio of their mother's passing.”

Prissy pulled away from her cousin. “They won't be able to come in time. I wouldn't want them to risk their health coming here, anyway. Tell them to stay at home and I'll write when I can.”

Sarah saw Anson wince, and guessed he must be wondering if Prissy would eventually blame his mother for bringing the fatal illness into their home, even though there were so many already ill here in Simpson Creek.

“Prissy, why don't you come lie down for a while?” Sarah murmured, urging her friend toward her old bedroom. “As soon as I compose the telegram, I'll sit with your father, and Flora will take care of what's needed for your mother.”

To Sarah's surprise, Prissy let herself be put to bed.

The rest of the day, Sarah remained by the mayor's bedside, with Flora and Antonio assisting in his care. She stepped away only to take a little nourishment brought by the housekeeper at noontime. She hoped it wouldn't be left to her to tell the mayor his wife had
died, but in the afternoon Mr. Gilmore's fever soared, bringing delirium with it. He was incapable of asking questions.

She was left with a new fear—would he die, too? How would Prissy survive losing both her parents and her aunt?

Nolan returned at five, and was invited to join Sarah and Prissy for a simple cold supper in the dining room of the big house while Anson sat with the sleeping mayor. Now dressed in mourning, a hollow-eyed Prissy ate little and said nothing.

Anson came into the room when they were almost finished.

“Your father's awake, Prissy, and clearheaded. He's asking for you and about your mother,” he said. “I—he saw my black armband and asked about it, so I told him…about my mother. I think he's guessed about Aunt Martha, but he'll want to hear it from you.”

Prissy rose, looking almost relieved now that the time had come to share the burden of grief with her father. Sarah rose also, intending to go with her as support, but Anson put out a staying hand.

“I'll go with her, Miss Sarah. You look exhausted. Finish your supper, and keep Dr. Walker company.” All hostility toward the Yankee doctor appeared to have vanished in the wake of Anson's grief.

Gratefully, she watched Prissy and her cousin go, then turned back to Nolan, only to find him studying her.

“He's right, you know,” he said. “The old sergeant who was my surgery assistant would say ‘you look as
if you've burned all your wood.' Sarah, you must get some rest tonight.”

Sarah managed a tired smile. “Thank you, Doctor, but no more so than you. Who was the new influenza patient you went to see today in town, may I ask?”

His brow furrowed. “I'm afraid it's your old friend Mrs. Detwiler.”

She uttered a cry of alarm, and would have jumped to her feet, but he took gentle hold of her wrist.

“Sarah, there's no need for you to go charging out of here to nurse her, too. Her family is taking care of her very capably, and she doesn't seem to have a very bad case.”

“But she's old…” Sarah said, still gripped by fear for the feisty old lady who had been so opposed to the Spinsters' Club but who had become her and Milly's close friend this past year.

“I imagine if you were to call on her tomorrow you would find her much improved, unless I'm sorely mistaken,” Nolan said. “She's already been through the worst of it, and her daughter only just contrived to sneak out to ask me to call on her, just to be certain.”

Sarah felt her lips curve up in a smile in spite of the exhaustion that threatened to swamp her. “That sounds like her. Perhaps if I organized the Spinsters' Club ladies, we could provide nursing during the epidemic for those who aren't blessed with families like Mrs. Detwiler's…” she said aloud. Her mind already raced ahead to think how it could be done.

“Sarah, I've been so impressed with how you've shouldered the responsibilities here,” he said. “Prissy
would have been lost without you. You're quite a lady, do you know that?”

She could only stare at him, for she had felt totally inadequate to the demands and sorrows she had faced this day. She only knew Prissy and her family had needed her, and she was there.

“When I met you,” Nolan went on, after taking a sip of the coffee Flora had brought them, “I heard you were a very talented cook but got the impression Milly always made the decisions. It was Milly who ran the ranch, who started the Spinsters' Club…”

“She did,” Sarah agreed, not sure what he was getting at.

“I think she will be quite proud to hear what you've taken on here,” he said. “But I must tell you, the very first thing I had to learn as an army surgeon was that I could only concentrate on one patient at a time. No matter what they brought in after I had begun to remove a bullet or—well, you can imagine, there were worse injuries—I had to finish what I was doing before I could take on something else.”

“What are you saying?” Sarah asked him. She was sure his point must be plain, but her exhausted brain was too tired to glimpse his meaning through the fog that surrounded it.

“Prissy isn't as strong as you,” he said simply. “She's just lost her mother, and her father won't be healthy again for a long time. She's going to need to lean on you in the next few days and weeks.”

She could only stare at the table, her gaze unfocused, as realization dawned of what Mrs. Gilmore's death would mean. “Prissy won't be able to stay in
the cottage—she'll have to move back into the house to look after her father.” Her shoulders sagged in discouragement. “I can't stay there alone, so I'll have to move back to the ranch. How can I help her then? Poor Prissy—so much for her learning independence and the housewifely arts. Flora manages everything in the house.” Secretly, Sarah felt a little sorry for herself, too. She'd enjoyed living in town with Prissy. And she loved her sister, but Milly didn't need her as she once did.

“I hope you don't have to move back to the ranch, Sarah,” he said. He looked as if he wanted to say more, but he didn't. “Nothing needs to be decided tonight. As soon as Prissy retires for the night, please, I want you to, also.”

O
n the day after Prissy's mother's funeral, Anson left to take his mother home to Burnet to be buried.

During the farewells in the courtyard, Anson said, “Dr. Walker, would you mind if I spoke to Miss Sarah for a moment?”

Sarah saw Nolan blink in surprise, but after darting a glance at Sarah to see if it was all right with her, he nodded slowly.

Anson took Sarah by the elbow and steered her just out of earshot of the others.

“Miss Sarah, I hope you'll forgive me if I speak frankly, since I'm about to leave,” he said, gazing down at her, his dark eyes earnest. When she said nothing, he went on. “I—I'm sorry we didn't get to know one another better, that I didn't meet you before you met that Yankee doctor.” He nodded toward Nolan, who stood by Prissy's father, who was still so weak he'd been pushed outside in a wheeled chair. Nolan was trying very hard to keep his eyes averted from them. Sarah could tell, but there was a certain tenseness about him that told her he was very aware of them.

She wouldn't have been female if she wasn't at least a little flattered by the ruefulness that tinged the eyes of Anson Tyler, who remained handsome even in his grief. She couldn't help wondering, if she hadn't already met Nolan, if she would have found Anson more appealing. But it was no use pondering the matter. She
had
met Nolan first, and because of that, her heart was already occupied.

“Anson, I—” she began, struggling to find the right words, but he interrupted her quickly as if to spare her.

“But I know I'm leaving you in good hands,” he said. “I've come to respect your Dr. Walker. He's a good man, even if he
is
a Yankee.”

The admission touched her, for it represented a complete reversal of his earlier, automatic enmity toward Nolan.

“Thank you, Anson. And I believe there's a wonderful lady out there, just waiting for you to find her. Perhaps you ought to come back to Simpson Creek some day—she could be part of our Spinsters' Club.”

“Maybe I will.” A spark of the charm that was so much a part of Anson Tyler reappeared in his eyes.

Once Anson had departed, and Nolan had helped Prissy's father back inside, Nolan took his leave, for he had many ill people to attend to.

Mayor Gilmore called his daughter and Sarah into the parlor.

Sarah was braced for this talk. Prissy's father would express his thanks for her help nursing the family and for what she had taught his daughter, tell Prissy he needed her in the house and offer Sarah the help of
Antonio and the use of the wagon to move her things back to the ranch.

Mayor Gilmore cleared his throat and dabbed at red-rimmed eyes with a rumpled handkerchief. “Sit down, both of you girls,” he said, then waited as they did so. “Your mother was so proud of you, Prissy—proud of how sweet and lovely you are, and especially about all you'd learned in the short time you and Sarah have been living in the cottage. But a little bird told me—” his gaze now wandered to Flora, who stood by the door in case she should be needed “—you thought it was your duty to reside again in the house and take care of your old papa. I want to tell you that I don't feel it's necessary.”

“But Papa,” Prissy protested, surprised. “Of course I'm going to move back in! I want to look after you!”

“Your mother would not want you to give up all you were learning just to keep an old man company day and night. Flora and Antonio will still be here, and with you living just across the grounds, you're close enough to take suppers with me whenever you like—even cook the meals yourself—right, Flora?”

“Oh,
sì,
senor, I would enjoy the two senoritas taking over the cooking whenever they wish,” Flora agreed.

“I have to face the fact my little girl has grown up, just as her brothers did,” Mayor Gilmore said, dabbing at his eyes again.

“Oh, Papa, you're the best father a girl could ever have!” Prissy said, throwing her arms around his neck.

Sarah saw a proud tear trickle down the mayor's cheek as he hugged his daughter. “And you're the best
daughter. But once this blasted influenza lets up, I need to get back to governing the city, eh? I've got a reelection campaign to run this spring, remember?”

“Oh, Papa, as if any man in town wouldn't vote for you!” Prissy cried.

“Assuming there's anyone left to vote,” he added, shaking his head sadly. “At the funeral, I heard Mr. Patterson died the day before yesterday, and Andy Calhoun the day before that.”

“And Miss Mary, the millinery shop owner,” Prissy said. “And Pete Collier, Caroline Wallace's fiancé. Poor Caroline! Their wedding was to be in March!”

“Reverend Chadwick looks worn to a frazzle,” Sarah murmured, mentally saying a quick prayer for the gentle old shepherd of their church.

At least word from the ranch was good, Sarah thought, reaching into her pocket to feel the note Milly had had Isaiah drop off this morning. No one at the ranch had been ill, and she had to think it was because they'd stayed away from town. Isaiah had waited outside while Sarah had written a note back to Milly, then gotten back on his horse and rode out again.

Mayor Gilmore stifled a yawn. “Why don't you girls plan on coming for supper tonight? I've asked Flora to make your favorite tamales, Prissy.”

“Wonderful, Papa! We'll be there, won't we, Sarah?”

“Good, good. Right now, though, your old papa is tired and needs a nap.”

 

“That was very generous of your father,” Sarah murmured as they walked back to the cottage.

Prissy sighed. “He's being so brave.”

Sarah agreed. Even as she mourned for the dead and fretted about the continuing ravages of the epidemic, though, she felt a sense of being reprieved. She would not have to move back to the ranch—
away from Nolan,
her heart whispered.

The thought stopped her short. Hadn't she decided that no matter how she admired his fierce dedication to healing, he was not for her, because he was not a man of faith? But her heart didn't seem to be listening.

“What shall we do this afternoon?” Prissy asked. “I feel as if we've been cooped up in the big house forever. I don't want to sit in the cottage and just think about how I miss Mama. But it's not a good time to go visiting, and all the shops are closed….”

“I had an idea,” Sarah told her, remembering the thought she'd first broached to Nolan at dinner after Prissy's mother and aunt had died. Perhaps now was the perfect time to transform her thought into action. “Let's go brew a pot of tea, and I'll tell you all about it.”

Prissy thought her idea was wonderful. By suppertime they had visited all the Spinsters in town who weren't already nursing family members or mourning a loss, like Caroline, and enlisted their aid. Then they called on Nolan to inform him. And so the Spinster Nursing Corps was born.

 

Nolan's first impulse, when he found Sarah and Prissy waiting at his office after he returned from yet another call upon a new influenza victim, was to forbid Sarah to have anything to do with nursing the sick.
She'd done more than enough already in her care for the Gilmores. She was too sheltered, too fragile…
too precious to him.
He did not want her exposed again to the ravages of influenza.

Yet he realized even as his mouth opened to form the words that he couldn't forbid her to do this. He had no authority over her. She'd accepted him as her friend, but he was nothing more to her, and she'd do this thing with or without his blessing, he could tell by the determined jut of her jaw and the warlike glint in her eyes. He couldn't very well permit Prissy to nurse the sick and not allow Sarah to do so, also.

And he had to admit he desperately needed help. Each day brought word of new influenza cases. There were so many down with it in and around Simpson Creek that it was no longer practical to remain at the bedside of each one until they passed the crisis and either gradually got well or developed a fatal pneumonia. He needed capable assistants whom he could trust to watch over feverish patients and dose them with medications according to instructions, and who could judge when it was necessary to summon him back to the bedside. In short, he needed nurses, and here were two young women saying they wanted to be just that, and had enlisted others, too.

He met with them at his office just after sunrise the next morning, and smiled in spite of his fatigue to see the row of earnest-looking young women. All of them were clad in dark, practical clothing, either actual mourning or somber-hued skirts and blouses.

“Good morning, ladies. I'm thankful you're here, and I applaud your dedication to your community and
your willingness to place yourselves at risk. You do understand, don't you, that you could be putting yourself in a position to contract the infection?”

To a woman, they all nodded, their faces solemn. His eyes lingered on Sarah, who nodded again, almost imperceptibly. He could imagine what she was thinking—
if I didn't catch it nursing Mr. and Mrs. Gilmore, or Mrs. Tyler, surely I'm not going to.

“Very well, then, before I send you out,” he said, “we shall just cover a few basics, with which some of you may already be familiar.” Then he spoke of providing warmth for patients who were chilled, but not over-blanketing them, which slowed down the body's natural cooling mechanism, the specific diet for those able to eat, the brewing of willow bark tea, accurate dosing of the morphine and laudanum he would send with them.

“In regard to these medicines, it is not a case of ‘if a little is good for the patient, a lot is better,'” he cautioned the would-be nurses. “These drugs can be deadly if not properly used, so you must adhere strictly to the guidelines I have given you for indications, amount and frequency.”

He saw them all taking it in. Sarah and some others took notes.

“Lastly, the most important preventative measure you can take for your own health is to
wash your hands vigorously with soap and water
after touching a patient. If they're able to follow instructions, tell them to cover their coughs and sneezes. And get the proper rest and nourishment. If you fall ill yourself—” He could not look at Sarah as he said those words. Visions of his
wife and son, dying so quickly and miserably in the cholera epidemic, swam before his brain. Once again he wished he could forbid her to expose herself to this danger.

He cleared his throat with difficulty. “If you fall ill yourself,” he began again, “then someone must nurse
you
, so do not allow yourselves to become exhausted or go without eating and resting. You must let me know immediately if you develop chills, fever, headache or sore throat—promise me, ladies?”

There was an answering chorus of yeses.

“Very well then. We shall move on to assignments. In some cases, I will send you out in pairs if there is more than one family member ill at a residence. In other cases, only one of you will go. Miss Harkey and Miss Thompson, I'd like you to go to the Fedders' house, where both Mr. and Mrs. Fedders are ill. Miss Jeffries, to the Hotchkiss ranch. Miss Shackleford, to Mrs. Brenner…” He allowed himself to look at Sarah again, toying with the idea of asking her to accompany him on calls as his assistant, a way of keeping an eye on her and making sure she did not overtire herself in her zeal to help. But he knew it might cause talk, and worse, she'd see right through his claim of needing a nurse to accompany him and resent his ploy.

“…Miss Gilmore and Miss Matthews, to the Poteets—both the sheriff and his wife are ill.”

At this point the bell over the door tinkled, and Nolan looked up to see Reverend Chadwick entering, wearing his care like a heavy frock coat.

He didn't wait to be greeted. “Dr. Walker, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you're needed at the Spencers.”

“Ada's ill?” Sarah asked, before Nolan could form the question. “Or is it…”

He knew she was trying to ask whether it was influenza, or her supposed pregnancy, but didn't know how in front of the other ladies, some of whom still believed Ada's story.

“Both her parents have come down with the influenza,” the minister said. “Miss Spencer seems…well enough…”

Nolan guessed Chadwick didn't want to add
physically, at least.

Sarah and Prissy exchanged glances, as did the other ladies. Ada had been their friend and part of the Spinsters' Club, after all, before she had started acting so strangely.

Nolan rubbed his chin. “Well, then, that means a change of plans. I was going to keep you, Miss Bennett, and you, Miss Lassiter, in reserve, to take over when the others need to be relieved or if new cases should arise, but instead I'll need you to come along with me to the Spencers.”

He sought and found Sarah's gaze. She would understand why he dare not have her come to the Spencers, after the way Ada had acted toward her at the Gilmores' New Year's Day party. He sensed that her thoughts mirrored his. What might her parents' illness—or worse, their deaths—do to Ada Spencer's already troubled mind?