The Ghosts of Aquinnah (7 page)

Christopher rested his head back on the pillow. “It sounds so cold. I wanted to go to Savannah to get away from the cold.” He shivered in the bed.

“
You’re cold now,” Stella said, coming back towards the bed. “You may still have a touch of the fever. You’ve been burning up with it.”

Christopher remembered the cough that had plagued him before he ever got on the ship. And his failure to listen to Mrs. Pitts’ advice to stay home until he had recovered.

“
I was ill before I ever got on the boat,” he said. “Feverish and coughing like mad…”

Stella nodded. “You’re lucky it didn’t turn into the consumption.”

She walked to the closet and pulled a thick brown blanket from the top shelf. Carrying it back to the bed, she opened the blanket and wrapped it around Christopher. “Get yourself warm, Mr. Casey.”

Christopher nodded. “That feels good. Thank you.”

“
Are ya hungry?”

Christopher hadn’t realized how empty his stomach was. He hadn’t eaten since he’d boarded the boat. His stomach growled as if on cue in response to Stella’s question. “I am, yes.”

Stella smiled. “I’ll be right back.”

He watched her leave the room, her long hair swinging from side to side as she closed the heavy wooden door behind her. He turned back towards the window as he heard ice pellets hitting the panes of glass and the wind howling like wolves on the full moon. He wondered what the weather was like in Savannah at that moment.

Never mind that now, he thought. He should be thinking about all those men he had seen hanging on the rafters of the ship with him. Had any of them survived? He knew Stella’s husband had told him he was their only patient. Surely others must have been rescued. Perhaps they had just been taken to another part of the island.

He leaned back on his pillow and waited for Stella to return. The room felt too empty without her, and he felt too alone. In spite of the fact that she had only been gone a few minutes, he missed her. He missed her presence.

****

“
Our patient is awake, Mrs. Mayhew,” Stella said as she entered the kitchen of the lighthouse keeper’s home. “He’s very hungry, the poor thing. I dare say he’s not eaten since he boarded that ship.”

“
I’ve got chowder for him,” Mrs. Mayhew said as she dried her hands on her long white apron. “And bread baking in the oven just now.”

“
It smells lovely,” Stella said.

“
As long as it tastes good, that’s all we need to worry about.”

Mrs. Mayhew was nothing if not practical. And that trait no doubt came in handy when running a house on top of a range of cliffs where her husband could be called out to man the lighthouse at any time of the night. Mrs. Mayhew seemed naturally calm and easy-going, although those may have been learned skills she had acquired to keep herself sane while raising the Mayhew’s five sons. The youngest was now 20 and had married a girl from Chilmark the previous autumn. Like the rest of her children, he’d left Gay Head behind. Mrs. Mayhew didn’t want to admit it, but she was thrilled to have the company of Stella and her young patient while they all waited out the storm. The house felt alive again for the first time since her youngest son had moved away.

“
And what’s our patient’s name, Stella?” Mrs. Mayhew asked as she ladled steaming clam chowder into a large bowl.

“
Christopher Casey. He’s an Irishman.”

“
Would be with a name like that.”

“
He’d been living in Boston and planned to go to Savannah on the ship.”

“
Plans sure can change, can’t they?”

Stella thought of all the plans she’d had for her life when she was a child. Yes, plans certainly can, and do, change.

“
He’s in terrible pain from the arm,” Stella said. “I gave him some more laudanum.”

“
All you can do for him, poor child.”

Mrs. Mayhew set the bowl of chowder on a tray and pulled her freshly baked bread from the oven. She noticed Stella staring at the bread with anticipation.

“
Would you like a slice for yourself?”

“
Yes I would, please.”

“
I could see your tongue hanging out for it. I’ll cut you both two slices. You could use some more meat on those bones of yours, child.”

“
Thank you, Mrs. Mayhew.”

“
Let me get you some coffee now. I know that bedroom has to be cold with this breeze kicking up.”

The woman put the chowder, bread, coffee, and condiments on a serving tray and handed it to Stella.

“
There you go, girl. Best get back to your patient.”

Stella thanked her again and slowly walked out of the kitchen, focusing on keeping her tray steady.

As she walked along the hallway, she smiled at the thought of Mrs. Mayhew. She was nothing like her mother had been, but she felt like a mother all the same. Stella enjoyed being in her company. It had been too long since she’d had a woman to talk to. Or anyone to talk to, for that matter.

She carefully opened the door and broadened her smile for Christopher, who had managed to sit himself up in the bed. It crossed her mind that she wasn't sorry the snow had delayed Josiah's return to Gay Head. She didn’t miss her husband at all.

****

“
We need to mend your clothes,” Stella said as Christopher struggled to sit up in bed to greet her the following morning when she entered his room. “All that thrashing around on the boat tore them to shreds.”

Christopher looked down at his shirt and pants and grimaced.

“
I don’t have any other clothes to put on,” he said. “And I don’t have a coat either. I lost it on the boat.” He glanced out the window and shivered. “Looks like a blizzard out there.”

“
It’s not a blizzard,” Stella said. “Quite a breeze, sure, but it’s just a storm.”

Christopher stared out at the snow still falling and swirling through the air and shook his head. “As you say, Mrs. Winslow.”

“
I brought some of Mr. Mayhew’s clothes for you to wear while I do the mending.” She looked Christopher up and down. “You’re not far off his size. And he has a coat you can wear as well.”

“
I don’t know how I’m going to pay back Mr. and Mrs. Mayhew.”

“
I wouldn’t worry about that. They’re good people who want to help you is all.”

Christopher winced with pain as he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.

“
I know you need more laudanum,” Stella said. “I want to give you your dose before I change that sling.”

“
What?” Christopher asked. He didn’t like the idea of changing anything about his arm.

“
I need to change your bandage and your sling. Josiah told me I’d need to change it if he got delayed getting back up here. You need a clean bandage for that gash on your hand.”

“
It can wait, yeah? The pain…”

“
It cannot wait, no.” Stella busied herself with measuring out Christopher’s laudanum. She stuck the vial in his mouth without a word.

While Stella waited for the medicine to take effect, she poured a pitcher of hot water into a large bowl and dipped in a bar of soap and a cloth.

“
Once that medicine eases your pain I’ll help you get cleaned up. You can’t be dirty when you’re fighting an infection. And believe me, that gash in your hand looked right wicked before we bandaged it.”

She glanced at Christopher’s matted curls and the mixture of sand and seaweed that was caked to his ear and head. “And besides, look at you. You’re a mess, aren’t you?”

Christopher chuckled. “I’ve no doubt I am.”

He watched as Stella expertly folded out a new sling from a clean piece of cloth and set out an array of bandages.

“
Are you a nurse for your husband then?” he asked.

“
Not officially,” Stella said. “But I’ve learned how to help. I like doing it.”

“
You ought to make yourself an official nurse.”

“
Like Clara Barton, you mean?”

Word of the American nurse’s role in caring for soldiers in the Civil War and involvement in the Franco-Prussian war had spread all the way to Ireland, and from what Christopher had heard, the woman was an angel. He looked at Stella and found himself thinking the same about her.

“
Maybe so.”

“
I don’t think Dr. Winslow would go along with that. He'd surely say he doesn't need a nurse.”

She sat down next to Christopher on the bed and washed his face and neck before starting to unbutton his tattered shirt. “I think the medicine should be working enough now. I’ll try my best not to hurt you though.”

“
I can take it off myself,” Christopher said, suddenly embarrassed. He used his good hand to undo the rest of the buttons at the top of his shirt and remove his suspenders from his shoulders. He pulled his good arm free of the sleeve and, biting his lip from the pain, grimaced and pulled the shirt over his head.

“
I need to take that sling off for you now,” Stella said.

Christopher cringed as she untied the sling and held the weight of his fractured arm in her hands. He moved as quickly as he could to pull the shirt off his arm.

He shivered from both cold and embarrassment as he sat on the bed wearing nothing but his trousers.

“
I know you’re cold,” Stella said, “but there’s no need to be embarrassed.”

Christopher wondered if Stella could read minds in addition to being a nurse. “How’d you know I was embarrassed?” he asked.

“
Because your cheeks are as red as the sun coming up over the horizon in the morning,” she said, smiling as Christopher’s cheeks turned an even deeper shade of crimson.

Stella rubbed the soap onto the wet cloth and gently washed Christopher’s shoulders and chest. She struggled to keep from turning red herself as she ran the cloth over his pectoral muscles and her hand brushed the curly brown hair that ran in a line down the middle of his chest to his abdomen.

She rinsed the cloth in the bowl of hot water and soaped it up again, this time focusing on cleaning Christopher’s unbroken right arm. She felt his eyes on her and glanced up into his face, blushing again as his chocolate brown eyes seemed to bore into her.

Stella cleared her throat. “I have to wash your broken arm now. I’ll be gentle.”

Christopher wanted to say he had no doubt of that, but he didn’t trust his voice to speak. He cringed and let out a soft moan as Stella straightened his arm to run her cloth around his elbow.

“
I’m sorry,” she said. “I know it hurts.”

Within seconds, she finished and bent Christopher’s arm back into its set position. He clutched it to his chest as she used a towel to dry him off.

Stella got up from the bed and pulled a clean shirt from the pile of clothes Mr. Mayhew had given her for Christopher. She held up the white wool shirt in front of her.

“
This looks like it should fit you, don’t you think?”

Christopher nodded.

Stella returned to the bed and pulled the shirt over Christopher’s head. He braced himself for another shot of pain as Stella pulled his broken arm through the sleeve, and then quickly finished putting the shirt on himself, using his good hand to fasten the small row of buttons at the collar.

“
I still need to clean that wound on your hand,” Stella said.

She got up from the bed, took a fresh cloth from the dresser, and poured hot steaming water into a new bowl. Sitting down again, she took Christopher’s wrapped hand in her own and gently removed the bandage her husband had used to cover the wound.

“
Do you remember how you got this wound?” she asked.