A Fall of Marigolds (15 page)

The mail had indeed been delivered. And there was a letter for me, but it was from my father. I opened it as I walked back to the nurses’ quarters, but stopped as I read what he had to say.

He was coming to Manhattan that week and he wanted to have lunch with me. He, my mother, and Henrietta were worried about me.

He would meet me at noon on Friday.

At the dining room at the Hotel Albert on East Tenth Street.

I
sat on the edge of my bed with my father’s letter in my hand, long after I had read it and read it again.

I’d assumed that my parents and sister believed me to be happily engaged in my work at Ellis’s hospital, and so enamored with my post that I was fully content to spend every waking moment on the island, even on my days off.

I was nothing but cheerful in my letters to my parents. I couldn’t think of one sentence I had written that betrayed my real reason for not leaving the island in nearly six months. The sad girl my parents had left in Manhattan had found renewed purpose on Ellis. But I had been a bit more forthright in what I wrote to Henrietta. As I sat there, I tried to remember what I had written to her that might have suggested that something besides dedication to the job kept me planted in one place. I hadn’t mentioned Edward, but I had told her the island was filling an empty space within me, one that the fire had created. Had she surmised there was more to it? If she was concerned about me, she wouldn’t hesitate to bring the matter up with our parents. But why couldn’t she have asked me first whether something was bothering me? I would have assured her that I was quite content.

That was the least of my concerns, of course. I could not picture getting on a ferry on Friday to have lunch with my father. Just sitting there on my bed thinking about it made my heart race. I wasn’t ready.

And I didn’t have that day off.

Spinning thoughts circled in my brain as to how I could decline the invitation. I could send a telegram addressed to my father at the hotel, expressing my regrets that I had to work. He might wonder why I was not able to ask for the afternoon off when he had given me plenty of notice. I would have to say that I had tried but was unsuccessful. I would have to lie to him.

I sprang from the bed, clutching his letter. I wasn’t in the habit of lying outright to my father. In fact, I never had. I had allowed him to think things that weren’t true, but I had never told him I had done something that I had not done. The thought of it now was nauseating.

Perhaps I could tell Mrs. Crowley that my father had asked me to lunch but that I knew how busy the children’s ward was and I could meet him another time. I could tell her this when she was busy. She would be glad not to have to think about finding a floater for me for Friday afternoon. “Fine, fine,” she would say. And then I would not have to lie to anyone.

In fact, I would ask her right then. Mondays were notoriously busy and she’d remember that I’d asked a favor of her already that day, so my telling her that I wouldn’t be asking for Friday off would actually sit well with her.

I stuffed the note from my father in my skirt pocket and quickly braided my hair. Then I headed down to the hospital’s main reception area to find Mrs. Crowley. It was nearly lunchtime and there was only a small crowd at registration. I waited until the last patient had been properly admitted and then, as Mrs. Crowley rose and began to collect her things before heading to the staff dining room, I approached her.

“Mrs. Crowley, I’ve had a letter from my father asking me to lunch in Manhattan on Friday, but I will understand completely if asking for that afternoon off is too much of a complication, especially since you’ve already done me a favor today by allowing Dolly and me to switch rotations.” I said it too fast. She blinked at me.

“What was all that?”

I repeated what I had said, overly mindful that she was now paying attention to every word. I had hoped she would be distracted with more important details and would simply nod in agreement.

“Your father, you say?”

“Um. Yes. But—”

“And when was the last time you went ashore?” She motioned for me to follow her. We began to walk.

“The last time?”

She turned to me. “Yes. I can’t recall that you’ve left the island since I’ve been here. So it must have been a while.”

The conversation was not going as I had hoped. “Yes,” I said, but nothing else.

“So how long has it been?”

“Quite a while.”

“Then you should go. No one on my staff is as dedicated as you are, Nurse Wood. But you can’t let your work be your everything. Go have lunch with your father on Friday.”

“But I am sure we can make it another time. I know how busy the children’s ward can be.”

She waved that excuse away as if it were a mayfly. “They’re all busy. Just go. Be glad you’ve a father to have lunch with. I want you to go. You’ll be no good to me if you work yourself to death, Nurse Wood.”

“Oh, but I don’t mind the hours I put in. I truly don’t.”

Mrs. Crowley frowned at me. “Yes, that’s my point. You should mind. You should want a break from all this. How can you not? I want you on the eleven o’clock ferry on Friday.”

She quickened her step, signaling we were through talking.

I slowed my speed to absorb what had just happened. Mrs. Crowley had practically ordered me to take the afternoon off. I could get out of it now only by feigning illness. Hard to do when all your colleagues knew when someone was faking it.

I had no appetite but I wandered into the dining room anyway, looking for Dolly and a sympathetic ear. I found her at Nellie and Ivy’s table, but before I could leave unnoticed she saw me and beckoned me to join them.

“Where’s your tray?” Dolly patted the chair next to her.

“I’ll eat later.” I sat in the chair only to allow them to go back to whatever conversation they had been engaged in before I arrived.

But Nellie and Ivy were staring at me while obviously trying not to stare at me.

Dolly sensed my unease and that something was on my mind. “You girls wouldn’t mind finishing up at another table, would you? I need to ask Clara’s advice about something.”

Nellie and Ivy dutifully obeyed, but with questioning looks on their faces. When they were gone, Dolly turned to me. “What is it? You look perplexed.”

I pulled my father’s letter out of my pocket and handed it to her. It took her only a minute to read it.

“So you are going, right?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I don’t see how I can get out of it. Mrs. Crowley is practically insisting I go.” I recounted my conversation with the matron. “I think the only way I can beg off now is to pretend I’m having my monthly time.”

Dolly reached out to squeeze my arm. “Don’t do that, Clara. Please don’t.”

I stiffened a bit at her urgency. “I don’t see why I have to go. Why do I have to go? It’s just lunch.”

“But you do know you have to go sometime. You do know that, don’t you? Now is as good a time as any. Isn’t it? And it’s not just lunch. Not for you. And not for your father. He’s worried about you. And so am I.”

I extended my hand for the letter, loosening her grip on me. She handed it to me wordlessly. “I’m fine,” I said.

“No, you’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t be looking for ways to stay here.”

I slowly put the note back in my pocket as I searched for words to oppose her. But I could think of none.

“I wish I could go with you, Clara. But I don’t think Mrs. Crowley would give me the afternoon off as well unless we told her everything. She might then.”

I bristled. “I’m not telling her anything. It’s none of her business.”

“But I am concerned about you going alone, Clara, I am. I so very much want you to go but I worry about your setting foot on the pavement without someone with you. Can’t we please tell her?”

“No.”

“And you are quite sure you can manage it?”

I wasn’t quite sure of anything except that too many people were imposing their agendas on my life. “I guess I will find out, won’t I?” The words fell hard from my lips.

For several seconds Dolly said nothing, but her gaze was on me. Her thoughts were about me.

“All right then,” she said. “I will ask Mrs. Crowley if I can accompany you merely because I am your friend and I know the streets of Manhattan better than you. Perhaps she will say yes. May I do that? I can wait in a coffee shop or something while you have lunch with your father. You don’t have to worry about me intruding on that conversation. All right?”

I nodded. In truth I didn’t want to make the trip alone. And I wasn’t completely sure I could.

We were silent for a moment as the tension between us evaporated.

“Your Mr. Gwynn is a very polite fellow,” Dolly said.

“He’s not my Mr. Gwynn.”

“Well, he’s still a very polite man. And I think he’s sad that you left the ward so suddenly.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He mourns his wife.”

Again there was silence between us.

“I think I will get a tray after all.” I rose from my chair, to prove to myself and to Dolly that I was not as fragile as everyone believed.

•   •   •

THE
following morning as I entered the children’s ward a peculiar sadness came over me. And because it did, I was as firmly resolved as ever that I had made the right choice to rotate early. There should be no sadness at ward changes. None. The wards were the same and the people in them the same. They all needed our careful attention and they all would leave the island after we made them well, if indeed we could.

The children’s ward was full of little ones with mumps and a few with typhus. They were kept separate so as not to share their illnesses. Some were old enough to understand why they were being kept from their mothers, but most were scared little tykes who latched onto every adult female who offered them kindness.

I mentally prepared myself for Dr. Randall’s rounds with the children, since Dolly had told me that he and Dr. Treaver were sharing that responsibility. But I was still nervous when he appeared midmorning while I was coaxing away anxious tears from a two-year-old in my lap. There were more nurses on the children’s ward per patient than in the men’s wards, so Dr. Randall made his rounds bed to bed with another nurse, but when he arrived to examine the little girl in my lap, who had at last quieted into slumber, he asked the nurse who’d been accompanying him to fetch him an otoscope with a smaller speculum from the main nurses’ station.

When she left the room, I steeled myself for whatever he might say.

“Your roommate who took your place in the scarlet fever ward says these little ones tire her out.”

I nodded. “They have a lot of energy. Even when they are sick.”

He smiled. “Nice of you to switch with her.”

It was obvious he didn’t believe any of it.

“We are good friends. She would do the same for me.”

“I’m sure she would.”

I rose from my chair and placed the sleeping child on her cot so that the doctor could listen to her heart and lungs.

“I wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about the book,” he murmured.

“And why would you? What is there to say?”

He gently palpated the little girl’s neck and stomach, and she stirred slightly.

“Look, I need to say something before Nurse Pruitt comes back,” he said softly. “And I’m afraid she will soon return, so I don’t have time to ease into it.”

Wordless, I stared at him.

“Nurse McLeod asked Mrs. Crowley for Friday afternoon off and was denied. She can’t go with you to the mainland. But I can. I’ve already asked for the leave, and Dr. Treaver granted it.”

My mouth dropped open. No sound came out.

“I know you’re probably going to be angry with her that she told me about your lunch invitation with your father. She knows it, too. But she doesn’t want you to go to the mainland alone. She cares about you more than she cares about how angry you will be.”

“Dolly told you?” Hot anger made the words slip out like sizzling coals.

“She doesn’t want you going alone. And I don’t think it’s a good idea either.”

“I didn’t ask either one of you if you thought it was a good idea!” I raised my voice, waking the sleeping child. She began to cry and reached for me.

“Even so, I’d like to accompany you, if I may.”

I pulled the now screaming child back into my arms. “Am I some infant that must be fussed over? I can’t believe you two were discussing me as though I were.”

“She cares about you, Nurse Wood. And in case you’ve forgotten, you told her that I offered to accompany you on your first trip to the mainland. You told her that I offered to help you with this situation and you said yes.”

The child’s cries abated and she nuzzled her wet face into my neck.

“When I said yes, this wasn’t what I meant.”

“Well, it was what I meant. And I still do mean it.”

“You barely know me.”

“I know you’re bound to this weight as much as any sick person is bound to her illness. I know that.”

“And so that’s why you want to help me? Because you feel sorry for me?”

“Even if that were the only reason, it would be reason enough. Yes, I feel sorry for you.”

Behind me I heard the sound of footsteps. The nurse was returning with the otoscope.

The conversation came to an abrupt halt. When the nurse reached us, Dr. Randall crossed to the side of the bed where I stood with the child in my arms.

“I will hold her curls out of the way,” the other nurse said, as Dr. Randall bent to look inside the little girl’s ears.

“There’s a good little girl,” the nurse said sweetly. “The doctor won’t hurt you.”

The child whimpered in my arms, but the nurse’s soft voice and my own gentle strokes across her back convinced her to believe it was true.

I
could not stay angry with Dolly.

She was penitent to the point of annoyance the first night in our room after Dr. Randall insisted on going to Manhattan with me. And while she was sorry I was angry with her, she wasn’t sorry she had told Dr. Randall about my Friday plans and the associated predicament. Not really.

“Who else could go with you, Clara?” she said. As the rest of the week unfolded, I gradually warmed to the idea of Dr. Randall accompanying me. By Thursday afternoon he and I had the plan mapped out. After morning rounds, we would both change into street clothes and then meet at the ferry house for the eleven o’clock crossing. We would land ashore in plenty of time to get to the Hotel Albert. He would take a cab with me to the hotel at noon, drop me off, and then return for me at two o’clock.

The night before the trip, Dolly helped me choose a dress and then tried out hairstyles for me to wear. I didn’t care about either, but both were a welcome distraction.

As I sat at the vanity and she experimented with my hair, she told me that Andrew Gwynn would be discharged the next day.

A peculiar pain nudged me. I had learned from loving Edward that sometimes there are people you meet in life who are yours for only a moment and then they are gone. Edward had been like that, and now so would Andrew. Edward’s brief time in my world had changed me forever, and I knew that after Andrew left Ellis, he might think the same thing about me, that I had changed his life, and perhaps not for the better. Still, I would play a role in the course of the rest of his life just as Edward had played a role in mine.

“Clara?”

Dolly had evidently asked me a question and I hadn’t heard her.

“What?”

“I said, before you go to bed tonight, you might want to get that pattern book and the scarf out for me. I will be returning them to him tomorrow. Unless you’ve changed your mind and want to do it yourself.”

“No. I don’t. And please see to it that Mr. Gwynn isn’t on the eleven o’clock ferry.”

Dolly sighed and pinned a loop of my hair to my head. “He won’t be. He and a couple others who were on the
Seville
are leaving first thing in the morning. He’s already sent a telegram to his brother that he’s being released.”

“Good. I mean, it’s good that he’s being discharged.”

“He asked about you,” Dolly said after a long pause.

“In what way?”

“He asked if you were well.” She pinned up another loop and then rested her hands on my shoulders.

“I trust you told him I was fine.” I looked at her in the reflection of the mirror. She held my gaze for a moment.

“Of course.” Dolly stepped back to admire her work. “Looks very pretty. But I think you will want to borrow Nellie’s green hat. It would go so nicely with the green stripes in your shirtwaist.”

I stood up from the vanity. “I don’t need to borrow anyone’s hat.”

“Yes, you do. Don’t pull the pins out of your hair yet. I am going to go ask her for it. Stay here.”

Dolly pulled open the door and was gone.

I checked my best shoes for scuff marks and inspected my handbag to make sure I had money for the cab, extra hairpins, and a handkerchief.

With everything in order, I then knelt by my bed and pulled out the pattern book and the tissue-wrapped scarf. The top of the pattern book was dusty, as it hadn’t been touched in three weeks. I grabbed a stocking out of my laundry basket and wiped it clean.

And then for no other reason than sentimental curiosity, I opened the book. The pages were filled with sketches of suit coats, blouses, trousers, and rows of measurements in a lovely script that made me want to reach out and touch it. Between some of the pages were folded pattern pieces, soft bits of thin muslin that smelled like leather, tobacco, and mint. I lifted out a piece and held it to my face, drinking in scents that could be described only as strong and handsome. I replaced it when I feared I would inhale the very soul out of that treasured piece of fabric. I turned the pages, admiring the artistry that had created them, and picturing Andrew in his father’s tailor shop learning the trade just as I had learned the healing arts from my father. As I turned the last page, I saw that the back inside cover of the book had been inscribed in the same flowing hand that had sketched the clothing.

My dear sons Nigel and Andrew:

I wish I’d had the pleasure of meeting your mother at an earlier age so that I would not be such an old man when God blessed me with fine sons such as you. I wish we’d had many years together and not few, and I wish the few that we had were not so crowded with my illness. Know that I am so very proud of you, in every way. I know that you will care for your mother when heaven calls me home as I am now sure it will. I have taught you everything I know to be good tailors, but I trust I have also taught you all you need to know to be good men. I spent many years alone before I met your mother, but I would change nothing if I were to live my life again. The person who completes your life is not so much the person who shares all the years of your existence, but rather the person who made your life worth living, no matter how long or short a time you were given to spend with them.

May God bless you with love such as this—true and absolute.

Your father,

Alistair Henry Gwynn

June 1902

A tear, one that I hadn’t noticed, had crept to my eyelid, slipped unchecked, and landed on the page. Startled, I pressed the edge of my sleeve against the wetness, knowing it would surely leave a mark. I hastily closed the book and held it to my chest as I waited for my stirred emotions to settle, reminding myself that the words had not been meant for me. They did not belong to me.

I looked at the small parcel on my bed that hid Lily’s letter and certificate. Doubts again assailed me. Was I doing the right thing by giving Andrew what would have been destroyed unread had I not opened the wrong trunk? Had divine circumstances, or diabolical ones, allowed me to intervene?

Dolly returned as I sat with the pattern book on my lap and the tissue-wrapped package next to me. In her hands was an emerald-green hat with sparkly black netting attached to its brim. She looked at what I held in my lap and what lay next to me.

“Give me those.” She tossed the hat onto my bed and scooped up the pattern book and parcel. She laid them inside her wardrobe and shut the door on them. “Now. Let’s try the hat.”

I positioned myself back on the vanity stool and she placed the hat on my head, cocking it slightly and pulling the netting down to just above my brows.

“Perfect,” Dolly announced. “Now you’re ready.”

I still said nothing as she removed the hat and began to pluck out the hairpins.

•   •   •

I
went about the morning getting ready as one in between sleep and waking. Dolly pinned my hair up the way she had the night before and then positioned my nurse’s cap carefully over the pins so as not to muss them. When we went down early to breakfast, Dolly carried the pattern book and parcel in a laundry bag, which she deposited at the nurses’ station in the scarlet fever ward before any of the men had awakened. Inside the dining hall, we were the first to arrive, and it took supreme effort to eat two pieces of toast under Dolly’s watchful eye. I had no appetite.

Once in the children’s ward, I found myself constantly looking at the clock on the wall. First because Andrew Gwynn was leaving on the earliest ferry off the island. And I very much wanted him to have neither the time nor inclination while he waited to open the parcel that held the scarf. Throughout the early morning I told myself that of course he wouldn’t open it. He knew what it was. It was Lily’s scarf, washed and neatly folded and ready to be packed with the rest of his things. He wouldn’t fuss with it. Unless he wanted to wear it off Ellis as he had worn it on . . .

When the doorway was darkened a few minutes before nine, I glanced up in terror, thinking it was Andrew looking for me with the open parcel in his hands, demanding to know what I had done. But it was Dr. Randall, ready to do his morning rounds before we left for the ferry house.

“You all right?” he asked.

“Fine,” I answered quickly, and without conviction.

As he completed his rounds my gaze was on the clock. At ten, Dr. Randall left the ward, and half an hour later so did I. I practically jogged to the ferry house to make sure the first ferry of the day had come and gone. Relief filled me when I saw that it had long been away, but melancholy wrapped itself around me as I left to go change into my street clothes. It seemed that a chapter had ended in my life, and again, I had nothing to show for it.

I walked back to my quarters, trying very hard not to ponder that in less than an hour I would also be on a ferry bound for Manhattan. I would be stepping willingly out of my in-between place and onto the solid surface of the real world, the one where time didn’t stand still.