A bucket of ashes (22 page)

Nell I hope he is a good husband to you that doctor, not like I was. I didn’t mean to do what I done, but when I get angrey there is no telling what I will do and I reckon you had you’re fill of that.

God bless you and make you happy,

Duncan Sweeney

Nell heard a girlish squeal and looked through the rear wall of the greenhouse to see Gracie, in her white swim dress, darting across the lawn with Eileen close on her heels; on the beach in the distance sat her little towheaded playmates, waving to her.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” called Will, striding toward her from the carriage house.

She hesitated, looking back and forth between her beloved “Uncle Will” and her favorite playmates.

Will took Gracie’s hand and told Eileen, in a voice barely audible to Nell to go on ahead, that he would bring Gracie down to the beach in a couple of minutes. Eileen continued on with Gracie straining in her direction as she tugged against Will’s grip. She said something to Will, pointing toward the beach with a plaintive expression, as if every second spent away from her friends were torment.

Will knelt on one knee, his back mostly turned to Nell, his hands on Gracie shoulders. Nell moved closer to the open back door of the greenhouse in a shameless attempt to eavesdrop, but he was talking to softly for her to hear.

Gracie nodded in a preoccupied way as Will spoke to her. She cast an impatient glance toward the beach, whereupon he gently cupped her face and turned it back toward him. She dutifully met his gaze and listened to what he was saying, her expression of forbearance gradually giving way to one of rapt attention.

She stared at him, her mouth opening. He stroked her braids.

Her eyes grew huge and shimmery; her chin wobbled.

She flung her little arms around his neck as he gathered her up, his face buried in the crook of her neck. Tears trickled down her cheeks, her mouth contorting in that way it always did when she cried, the way that broke Nell’s heart.

Presently Will kissed her cheek and said something to her that made her laugh. He untied his cravat and wiped her tears with it, and then he spoke to her for a few more seconds, she nodding intently.

Glancing over his shoulder, Gracie noticed Nell watching from the greenhouse doorway. She broke away from her father, who turned to look at her, his eyes gleaming wetly, as she raced excitedly across the lawn toward Nell. “Miseeny! Miseeny! Guess what?”

*   *   *

Late that night, Nell, in her shift and wrapper, sprinted across the back lawn to the boathouse and climbed the stone steps. Lamplight glowed in the sitting room window, so she knew Will hadn’t gone to bed yet, though she also knew there was a good chance he was sitting at the end of the dock, like last time.

“Please be Nell,” he called from inside.

She found him sitting shirtless at the desk with his right arm in a wash basin, reading one of his medical journals. He set it down, smiling, as she approached. “It
is
you.”

“How’s your arm?” she asked, noting the items laid out next to the basin—gauze, shears, Epsom salts, silver nitrate solution, and a clean, folded towel.

“Hideous to look at, but with no sign of infection. Greaves is a bloody genius. I’m going to suggest he write an article about silver nitrate for the
New England Journal of Medicine
.”

On the desk under the lamp was the letter Will had been in the middle of writing to President Grant when Nell and Cyril came looking for him Monday. He’d finished it, but had not yet mailed it, although it seemed to her he’d had plenty of opportunity, what with their trips into Falmouth these past couple of days.

She picked it up, skimmed it, and ripped it into pieces, which she dropped into his wastebasket.

“It took me days to compose that bloody thing,” he said in a laconic, perhaps slightly amused tone.

Sitting on the edge of the desk, she said, “Your father is right, you know.” August Hewitt had been stunned when Nell announced at supper that Will had been chosen to receive the Medal of Honor, and incredulous when she added that he was turning it down.

“He’s not my father,” Will said.

“He’s still right.”

It is a slap in the face of the president to refuse such an honor. For pity’s sake, William. Have you no sense of propriety at all?

Sliding a baleful glance at Nell for having brought the subject up, Will said,
It’s undeserved.

Of course it’s deserved,
Mr. Hewitt had said as he cut into his beefsteak.
The requirements are extremely exacting—I read about it in
Harper’s
. One must have risked his life performing an act of the most extraordinary gallantry. At least two eyewitnesses are required. There is no margin for error. Why you balk at accepting it is beyond me.

To Nell’s knowledge, these were the first words August Hewitt had spoken to Will since his arrival at Falconwood. Viola had captured Nell’s gaze across the dining table with a look of quiet astonishment.

“The only reason you feel unworthy of that award,” Nell said, “is that you’re mired in your old notion of yourself as flawed and undeserving. Frankly, I’m beginning to find that refrain fairly tedious.”

“I’ve never known you to be quite such a pitiless shrew,” he said as he lifted his dripping arm from the basin. “I find it captivating.” As ghastly as the wound still looked, especially discolored as it was from the silver, it no longer showed any signs of redness or suppuration.

Pushing aside the basin, Nell scooted over on the desk, draped the towel across her lap, and motioned for him to lay his arm there.

“I do so love being tended to,” he said as she carefully patted him with the towel.

Reaching for the scissors and gauze, she said, “You should have put yourself under the care of a physician the moment you got off that mail packet in Boston. What were you thinking, getting on a train and coming down here in that condition?”

“I
had
meant to remain in Boston and ask Foster to treat it. I was fairly confident I could trust him not to reach for the bonesaw before he’d exhausted all other options.”

“But...?” said Nell as she packed the wound with gauze soaked in silver nitrate.

Will looked away with an uncharacteristically sheepish expression. “But my first evening in Boston, over drinks with Martin, he told me about you and Greaves.”

“What did he tell you?”

“About seeing the two of you on the front porch the night before he came back to Boston. He overheard Greaves tell you that he would move to Boston to make you happy. And then he saw him kiss you.”

“On the cheek. Did he tell you that?”

“He did. At that point, I was beyond mollification. What was I to suppose, except that he meant to make you his mistress? After all, you were both married, as far as I knew.” He glanced at her and then away.

Bandaging the arm, Nell said, without looking at him, “I, um... I came here to tell you something that perhaps I should have told you earlier, but...”

“About filing for divorce from Duncan?”

Her head shot up.

“Greaves told me—this afternoon, before we left Packer’s Mortuary.”

“
That’s
what you two were talking about?”

“Well,
he
was doing all the talking. He said something to the effect that I must not be quite the pig sconce he’d taken me for, since I’d finally declared myself to you—and that it was obvious you cared for me more than you would ever be able to care for him. And he told me that if my intentions were truly serious, this would be the time to do something about them, since you had a Boston lawyer working on terminating your marriage.”

“Is that... all he told you?” she asked, thinking about the baby.

“Isn’t that enough?” he asked with a chuckle.

“Why... why didn’t you
tell
me you knew about the divorce petition?”

“For the same reason you didn’t tell me you’d filed it.” He smiled as her cheeks warmed. “You were hesitant to encourage the attentions of an incorrigible reprobate such as I. Good sense is nothing to be ashamed of, Cornelia. I’ve always respected your pragmatism.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Leaning down, she took her face in his hands and kissed him, hard. He dragged her onto his lap and deepened the kiss, holding her so tightly that she could feel the pounding of his heart through her own chest.

“I love you,” she told him as they drew apart, “deeply and madly and completely without reason. You must know that, especially after...” Her face grew even hotter, recalling their lovemaking the night before he left for France. “Surely you know I wouldn’t have...”

“Of course,” he said, enfolding her in his arms. “But I also knew you were uneasy at the notion of throwing in your lot with me, as well you might be. I didn’t want to put you in an awkward position by bringing up the divorce before you’d sorted things out. My intent was to convince you that I could be more than a vagabond cardsharp with a taste for the poppy, so as to encourage you to tell me about the divorce petition. But you’ve gone ahead and let the cat out of the bag ahead of schedule—proving you’re not quite so clever after all.”

“I mustn’t be,” she said, “or I would never tell you that the divorce has been granted.”

“What?”

“As of the nineteenth, I am a divorcée. Makes me feel rather deliciously decadent, actually.”

“Don’t get used to the feeling, because I mean to make you a respectable married lady again as soon as you’ll have me.”

She pulled away to study his face, as if to gauge his sincerity. His eyes were dark and earnest. Threading his fingers through her hair to tilt her face up to his, he said, “I want you to be my wife, Nell. I’ve wanted it for so long, and I... God, I thought I’d have to spend the rest of my life wanting you, needing you, but knowing I could never have you. I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy. I’ll give you the kind of life you want, the kind you deserve. I swear to God I’ll never touch a playing card again, or an opium pipe, or a morphine syringe.”

“You don’t believe in God,” she said.

“I don’t much care for religion. God is a different matter entirely. Gracie can come live with us, as she’s always wanted. I’ll sign that five-year contract to teach medical jurisprudence at Harvard.”

“If you really wanted to teach, you would have been doing it all along,” she said.

“You little nit. I love teaching, and I especially love the research—I just didn’t love the agony of being in Boston, where all I could think about was you and how I could never have you. I appreciate your skepticism, though. You’re not sure I’ve got what it takes to turn over a new leaf, and who could blame you? I know I have to prove myself to you, and I will. We can have as long an engagement as you like—two or three years, even longer if that’s what you need.”

“Oh, I need it be quite a bit shorter than that,” Nell said, a smile quirking her mouth. “A month or two, at the most.”

 Will’s expression gradually transmuted from quizzical to stupefied. He lowered his gaze to her stomach, then looked up, his eyes huge.

“I assumed it wasn’t possible,” she said. “That’s why I didn’t think we needed... you know. Precautions. But it would seem you’re right—I’m not quite so clever after—”

He pulled her close and kissed her for so long, she thought her heart would explode from joy. “I
am
going to make you happy, Nell, as happy as you’ve just made me.” He kissed her forehead, her eyelids, temples, cheeks... “I’ll build a house for you—for all of us. A palace—one of those the Back Bay monstrosities.”

Nuzzling his prickly jaw, she said, “I’m actually quite fond of your house on Acorn Street.”

“Then we can live there,” he said between kisses. “But I want another house on the water somewhere, and a boat so I can take you out sailing, you and Gracie and the baby. Or sometimes just you and I.”

“And we’ll drop anchor at night, and swim naked under the stars.”

“And dream about the future.”

“And then we’ll go home,” she whispered against his lips, “and make those dreams happen.”

*   *   *

From the
Boston Advertiser,
October 15, 1870

A FELICITOUS WEDDING.

DR. WILLIAM HEWITT MARRIED—Medal of Honor

Recipient and Miss Sweeney United at King’s Chapel—President Grant Among the Distinguished and Fashionable Guests.

Rev. Martin Hewitt Officiates

The wedding of Miss CORNELIA SWEENEY and Dr. WILLIAM HEWITT, which took place yesterday afternoon at 1 o’clock at King’s Chapel, was one of the most notable events of the kind this season. It was a balmy autumn day, with bright sunshine, which was seen as an auspicious omen for the future happiness of the wedded pair.