Redeeming Gabriel (21 page)

Camilla sighed and set down the bandbox. She sank to her knees, taking her grandmother’s hand in both of hers. “You’ve got to make Papa let me go. I love Harry.” Her feelings had somehow shifted to brotherly affection, but Lady needn’t know that.

Lady looked away.

“I’m eighteen now. You taught me to seek what God would have me do. Lady, the Lord woke me up last night to pray, and I heard His voice as clearly as I’ve heard anything.”

“What I’ve taught you is to go to God’s Word when you need direction. People who hear voices in the night—”

“It
was
God’s Word. You’ve had me memorizing verses since I was a baby. What was it for, if not to guide me when I have to make a decision? Sometimes God’s people have to move on faith, and this is one of those times for me.” Camilla laid her cheek against Lady’s hand. “Can’t you see I don’t want to disobey you, but I can’t disobey my heavenly Father either?”

Her grandmother’s hand turned to cup Camilla’s chin. “I fear for you, child.”

“I’m afraid, too.” Camilla looked up. “But the Lord has promised to go before me and protect me.”

Lady sat quietly for a moment, then muttered, “This is not at all wise.” She reached for her reticule lying on a table near her elbow. “You’ll need money.”

Camilla smiled. “Thank you, Lady.”

Lady sat in injured silence as Camilla kissed her cheek and gathered her bags.

Why did obedience to the Lord so often rupture relationships, leaving one feeling uncertain and lonely? Where was the joy Jesus had so often promised? Sighing, Camilla entered the house to say goodbye to Portia.

Camilla arrived at the station with barely enough time to purchase her ticket while Horace arranged for the disposition of her luggage. As she waited in line, she couldn’t stop praying for Harry and worrying about whether Delia had told her the truth.

Watching the train chugging on the tracks, heaving and spitting sparks, she noticed a bedraggled band of soldiers being herded off a freight car some distance down the line. Unkempt and dirty, stumbling with wounds and exhaustion, they must have been bound for the hospital. As they came closer, she realized the uniforms were neither gray nor butternut.

Blue. The uniforms were dark, Union blue.

“Nasty Yankee dogs!” someone behind her jeered. “Blueback baby killers!” There were other, worse epithets shouted.

She put her hands over her ears as she strained to see over the gathering crowd.

“Miss Milla!” She felt Horace’s hand at her elbow. “You gonna get trampled. Let’s get you on board.”

“No, wait.” She pushed through the restless, muttering body of people blocking her view of the Union soldiers. By the time she had fought her way to the outside of the crowd, the clump of blue-uniformed men had been shoved toward the station house, where they stood shuffling, shoulders hunched and caps pulled low, in the shade of a sycamore tree.

She was vaguely aware of the conductor calling, “All-l-l abo-o-oard!”

As she rushed toward them, a gray-clad arm snatched her around the waist. “Here, miss, stay back, now. Them’s dangerous fellows.”

Camilla looked up into a grim bearded face. “Oh, please let me go! One of those men might be my cousin.”

“I wouldn’t be claiming him. These fellas are headed for a trade against some of our men on Ship Island.” The officer gave the prisoners a pointed glance. “If they make it that far.”

Struggling against the guard’s arm, she scanned the obscured faces of the bluecoats. “I only want to speak to them.”

She staggered as she was suddenly released.

“Sir!” The officer saluted someone behind Camilla.

“Corporal, you may permit Miss Beaumont to approach the prisoners. I’ll make sure she comes to no harm.”

“Yes, sir!”

She looked around and returned the speculative stare of Israel Duvall, the young officer with whom she’d danced at the subscription ball.

He bowed.

The train blasted a warning whistle, and the rhythm of the engine increased. She glanced at the prisoners, then back at Duvall.

She was just about to dash for the train when one of the prisoners, leaning weakly against the outer wall of the station house, squinted up at the merciless afternoon sun. Something about the tilt of his head made her catch her breath. He caught her gaze and broke out into a familiar lopsided grin.

Camilla picked up her skirts and ran.

The train pulled away from the station with a squeal of brakes and an explosion of steam.

She was gone.

Gabriel listened to the rhythm of his boots crunching on the shell drive path of the hospital and repeated it like a litany:
She’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone.

Camilla was safely on a train headed out of town. He stared at the imposing facade of the hospital building, wishing he could go after her to protect her and ensure her happiness. He felt more alone than he’d ever felt in his life. No amount of heroics or pleasure-seeking would fill this great, gaping hole in his life.
Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
Indeed.

All he’d ever wanted to be was a doctor, a healer.

All he’d managed to become was a liar.

Gabriel jammed his fists into his pockets and climbed the hospital steps. One thing he knew for sure. He couldn’t stomach much more of this preaching thing. To stand in a pulpit and mouth platitudes he neither fully understood nor believed was a refined sort of torture.

As he opened the heavy front door, the medicinal smells smacked him in the face. He breathed deeply, feeling the pull of his calling. He’d been drawn here as if by a force beyond himself. Camilla had said the Lord had brought him to Mobile to show him—What was it? That God had a purpose for Gabriel Laniere, that He loved him. It had sounded unlikely at the time, even more so now.

He wandered into one of the ground-floor wards. Faint moans came from the cots lining the room. Sick women, wounded men, mangled children. Where was God, after all?

Be still and know that I am God.

Gabriel looked around, thinking someone had spoken aloud, but saw no one, heard only his own heartbeat.

A sudden commotion of voices and heavy boots passed the open door of the ward. By the time Gabriel reached the hallway, the noise had passed into a nearby surgical ward. He could hear the deep groans of a patient, shouts for a doctor, then, as he got closer, the voice of a woman underneath like a sweet ostinato. Gabriel strode into the surgery uninvited.

Camilla hovered beside a patient writhing on the surgery table, while two Confederate officers tried to hold him down. She should have been halfway to Malbis by now. Her traveling costume of navy merino wool indicated that she had been on her way but abandoned the trip for this man.

Camilla looked up at the closest officer. “Where’s the doctor?”

Gabriel recognized one of General Forney’s staff officers, Second Lieutenant Duvall.

“I don’t know.” Duvall bore down on the patient’s wiry arms. “Miss Beaumont, you have no business here. The man’s all but dead anyway.”

Camilla’s expression darkened, but before she could respond, Gabriel strode forward. “Perhaps I could be of assistance.”

Duvall looked annoyed, but Camilla’s face lit. “Gabe—Reverend Leland! Thank God you’re here!”

Gabriel glanced at the man on the operating table. It took every bit of self-control he possessed to show no more than bland concern.

A million questions swarmed into his mind, but he walked toward the table as if he’d never seen the man thrashing feebly against the soldier’s restraining hands. Ignoring Duvall and the aide, Gabriel laid his hand against Harry’s forehead. He found it dry and burning with fever. Harry’s face was haggard, darkly bearded, the eye sockets pronounced and the cheeks sunken.

Gabriel looked at Camilla. “I agree with the lieutenant that you don’t belong here, Miss Beaumont. Perhaps you could explain your concern for a Federal…prisoner, I assume?”

“Yes, he’s a prisoner.” She gave him a hot, indignant look. “He needed medical attention, so I—I insisted!”

Harry fainted, his lanky body going limp. Gabriel would guess he suffered from simple malnutrition and exhaustion rather than any serious disease.

He folded his arms and met Camilla’s eyes. “Miss Beaumont, your humanitarian impulses are going to get you in serious trouble. This man obviously suffers from Septigarius disease.”

Both officers backed away from the table. “Are you sure? How do you know?” Duvall brushed his hands against his coat.

“I’ve preached many a funeral for the victims of this malady.”

Duvall grasped Camilla’s elbow. “Miss Beaumont, I insist you allow me to escort you home.”

She resisted. “You may return to the guard and inform him this man is too ill to leave the hospital. Reverend Leland and I will see that he’s returned to prison when he’s well enough.”

“But—”

“Lieutenant, a dead prisoner is no good to you in an exchange,” she pointed out. “You have a duty to discharge, and I have nothing else to do.”

Amused, Gabriel put on a show of reluctance. “Your grandmother wouldn’t want you to stay here where you might contract any miasma floating in this contaminated air.”

Camilla rolled her eyes. “I come here nearly every day. But you may tell my grandmother my trip has been postponed and I’ll be home as soon as possible.”

Duvall bowed stiffly. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” He gestured for the other officer to follow him from the ward.

When they were gone, Camilla hurried to shut the door. She returned to Harry’s bedside and took his limp hand. She rounded on Gabriel. “Don’t just stand there—do something for him!”

“What do you suggest I do?”

“I don’t know, you’re the doctor.”

“I’m not a—”

“Oh, horse-puckey! You
are
a doctor, whatever you’re pretending to be at the moment.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“I’ll keep it down when you do something for Harry.”

They glared at one another as the sounds of people and horses on the street passed the open window.

Gabriel shrugged and bent close to Harry’s chest, listening for several moments, wishing for some of the instruments he used to own. He lifted one of the closed eyelids and examined the pupil. “What’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know.” She watched every movement of Gabriel’s hands. “I was about to board the train when about a dozen prisoners were herded off a freight car and made to stand in the heat outside the depot.” She shuddered. “I almost didn’t recognize Harry.”

“Did he recognize you?”

“I think so.” Camilla stroked Harry’s bearded cheek. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Not much that a long, cold drink, a few hot meals and a week’s sleep won’t cure.”

“What about the Septagarius—”

Gabriel gave a bark of laughter. “No such thing.”

She stared at him, then dissolved into giggles. “Mercy, you had me scared to death.”

“Good. Maybe it’ll make you think before you do something like this again.”

“I’d do it again, Gabriel.”

And that was the heartbeat of her. Unselfish to a fault. A dangerous fault.

He grunted and finished his examination. Eventually he looked up and met Camilla’s worried eyes. “I’d give a lot to know what he’s been through. Don’t know exactly how to treat him. Trouble is, he’s in such shock, he may not wake up for days. By then he could be dead.”

“I thought you weren’t worried.” When he shrugged, Camilla bit her lip. “I’m taking him home.”

“Are you out of your mind? You can’t take a Union prisoner into your father’s house!”

“Papa wouldn’t turn Harry away. Jamie wouldn’t let him.”

“Camilla, think. Isn’t General Forney still billeted in your home?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Besides, why would the Rebs release a prisoner to you? Your family would be implicated as Union sympathizers.”

“My grandmother is rabid Secesh. My father’s financing Confederate transportation. And my brother has been running arms into port, for heaven’s sake. Surely the presence of one very sick relative, even if he’s in a blue uniform, wouldn’t make us suspect.”

Gabriel thought of his interviews with the Vigilance Committee before he’d been allowed to enter the city. Camilla couldn’t know what a precarious situation her family was in.

He tried another tack. “Then think of Harry’s safety—”

“I
am
thinking of him. He’ll die if he doesn’t get proper care. Gabriel, you’ve got to help get him released into my custody. I know you’ve got the influence to do it.”

Maybe he did. Maybe if he kept the situation under control, he could avert disaster. The situation was getting more complicated every day. The advantages of working in a place where one was known always traded in pitfalls.

Gabriel scrubbed both hands down his face. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.” The joy that lit Camilla’s face sank a stone in the pit of his stomach. She loved Harry. He swallowed, closing his eyes to the pain.
God, if you’re there, we need you.

He looked up when Camilla gasped. “Lady!”

“What in the name of Adam’s house cat is going on here?” Delythia St. Clair stood in the doorway, leaning on the arm of General Forney himself. Tugging at the general’s arm, she advanced into the ward. “Was leaving the city on a whim not enough to upset the entire household, but you decide to compound the embarrassment by adopting Yankee prisoners?”

Camilla straightened her backbone. She bore an uncanny resemblance to her grandmother in that moment. “Lady, do you know who this is?”

“Reverend Leland.” Lady nodded regally.

Camilla stamped her foot. “This isn’t just some stray Yankee. It’s Harry!”

A frown descended on the matriarch’s countenance. “My dear, you’ve taken leave of your senses.”

Gabriel intervened. “Mrs. St. Clair, perhaps you should come closer and see if this man is indeed your grandson.”

“No grandson of mine wears an enemy uniform!” She looked up at General Forney, who patted her hand in sympathy. “It’s Ezekiel’s side of the family that spawned such traitors.” She hobbled over to the surgical table to peer at the patient. “I’ve never seen this man before in my life. Camilla, you will go home. Reverend Leland, will you see to it that this man is treated humanely and returned to wherever he came from?”