Chapter 26
“Ugh,” Hannah moaned, sinking to the dusty, newly installed wood-plank floor with her head in her hands. “Why is this the hardest thing we’ve had to do yet?”
“Whatever do you mean?” Rosalind Murphy exclaimed from the windows, where she was perched atop a stepladder, holding up two slightly different hues of mint-green curtaining. “Hannah, get up off the floor at once!”
“No,” said Hannah, continuing to sink down until she was flat on her back, sawdust in her hair. “No, I hate this.”
“Mrs. Beck!” Rosalind screeched, dropping both curtains and leaping off the stairs with a flounce. “Gracious!”
Mae was already laughing from the corner of the room, shaking her head at the display. “You won’t like it, Miss Murphy, but I agree with our ginger-haired friend here. Decorating a clinic is far more torturous than running one. Give me a bone to set any day.”
Rosalind stopped just above Hannah’s supine form, her shadow falling across her waist, and frowned, dropping her hands to her hips. “It is just a bit of paint and some curtains!”
“And doorknobs and linens and wood finish,” Hannah recited, staring at the ceiling. “Rugs, and cabinets, and pillowcases, and bloody sconce shapes. I want to go home.”
“You are home,” Mae said in a somber, threatening tone. “I am so sorry. You cannot ever leave.”
Hannah sighed and closed her eyes, crossing her arms over her chest, much to Rosalind’s very vocal dismay.
The click of another pair of boots entering from the front door was accompanied by a little tsk of acknowledgement. “Well,” said Vix, crisp and unimpressed. “I see this is progressing as expected.”
Hannah did not bother to open her eyes.
“You should at least have the good sense to faint on the carpet samples,” Vix continued, stepping over Hannah toward the windows. “Ah. The seafoam, I think, Miss Murphy.”
“That is what I thought as well!” Rosalind said, with so much relief in her voice that Mae immediately began to snicker.
“Yes, earth colors are supposed to calm the humors,” Vix continued, rustling through something as she spoke. “Nurseries are decorated in blues and greens for that reason, though I cannot say if it does any good. Can’t hurt to use the same logic here.”
“My nursery was red,” Mae volunteered.
“Yes,” Vix replied flatly. “I believe that it was.”
“Now, now,” Hannah said with a sigh, rolling onto her side and heaving herself back up to sitting. “Let’s not paint this room red as well, hm?”
Vix flashed her teeth. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“No?” Mae replied with an arch of her dark brows. “I would.”
Rosalind frowned very loudly, bouncing on her heels. “I simply think we ought to choose quickly,” she said with a wobble in her brogue. “Before the pamphlet goes to press and the cots are delivered. We don’t want there to be wet paint smearing about or people arriving before we’re ready.”
“We’ll be ready,” Hannah assured her, offering up her hands and letting the other girl help her to her feet. “We are just playing. Did you bring the pamphlet?”
“No,” Rosalind said, pausing to grunt as she helped hoist Hannah up. “No, it is at home. Do you need to read it first? Millie said you wouldn’t.”
“I don’t,” Hannah replied with a little laugh. “I wouldn’t dream of ever interfering with the step between Millie’s writing and her publishing ever again. Ask her about that sometime, if you’d like a long and harrowing tale.”
“Harrowing sounds good,” Vix said absently, pacing between rooms with her arms piled high with fabric swatches. “I like harrowing.”
“Oh!” exclaimed Mae, suddenly brightening and pushing herself away from the wall. “Speaking of which, I finished the book. Very naughty. I enjoyed it thoroughly.”
Vix tittered, stopping short of the wooden table they’d brought to store their linens and looking over her shoulder. “Poor Ambrosio. So very doomed.”
“Doomed and strapping,” Mae agreed. “Have you read it, Hannah? The Monk?”
Hannah shook her head, but Rosalind gasped, as though the title itself was enough to scandalize her.
“Have you both read it?” she demanded, pink-faced and clearly delighted by the prospect. “Do you have a copy? I heard it was banned!”
“I’m sure it is,” Vix replied with a curl of her lips. “It ought to be. You may borrow it next.”
“Well, what is it?” Hannah wanted to know, blinking from one woman to another. “I will wish to read it as well.”
“A tale of sin and pleasure and so on,” Mae said, waving her hand. “A tempted priest and his broad shoulders and his lovely victims.”
“And a demoness,” Vix added. “A heroine.”
Mae scoffed and walked away, shaking her head.
“And the priest is called Ambrose?” Hannah asked, amusement tinting her words as the image of the silver-haired Mr. Aster swam into her mind’s eye.
“Ambrosio,” Vix corrected. “Why?”
“No reason,” said Hannah, clearing her throat and blinking innocently at her sister-in-law. “You still have to come by the Flaming Fox sometime, you know. It is quite different to the Tod & Vixen.”
“How different could it be?” she asked with a sniff. “Faro tables and drunkards on waxed wood. Behold and tremble.”
“A different bevy of potential husbands, I think,” Hannah said with a tilt of her head. “While you’re still hunting.”
“Ah,” Vix replied, raising a single, manicured brow. “Now, that is a fair point. The temperature cannot decide if spring is upon us yet or not, but the ton will be descending soon either way, won’t they?”
“Some already have,” Hannah replied sweetly. “The tables fill a little more by the night.”
“Hm,” Vix pondered, giving Hannah a once-over with a flick of her dark eyes and turning away. “I suppose you just want me gone sooner rather than later. All the same, I shall consider it.”
“Very benevolent of you,” Hannah replied, smiling to herself and catching the clearly distressed eye of Rosalind Murphy. “Yes?”
“The curtains!” said Rosalind.
“Oh, just pick one,” Hannah told her. “And then come upstairs and I’ll show you the classroom we outfitted.”
“Oh! Yes, please!” Rosalind said, immediately dropping the curtains with an enthused little squeal as she hurried after Hannah up the stairs. “Mama is so excited about the prospect of me teaching a little course. She wanted to come watch, but I forbade it.”
“It is a good idea,” Hannah told her, leading her to the rear of the hallway, past the little room that would be the nursery.
“The vicar who performed our wedding will assist you if you require it. He is the one who will be placing the injured in their new positions once you’ve taught them their tally work. ”
“Tally work,” Rosalind repeated. “I did not realize there was such a demand for simple counting.”
“Neither did I,” Hannah confessed, “but it is well that we landed upon it, because we can train the men and the women and find placement for both. Perhaps, in time, we can expand to some other things, but this is a good option for those who cannot walk or haul the way they once did any longer.”
“I shall be a very good instructor,” Rosalind promised, blinking in wide-eyed earnestness. “I have observed my mother teaching since I was old enough to speak. And if I am bad at it, well, then I simply hope the students will tell me!”
“Someone will tell you,” Hannah assured her, though she wasn’t sure anyone would have the heart to, should the occasion require it.
“Oh, I shall need chalk!” Rosalind whispered to herself, lacing her fingers under her chin as she walked the edges of the room. “Colored chalk! Pink and green and blue …”
Hannah bit down on her chuckle and turned to leave, only to find her husband standing in the frame of the door, watching her with his head cocked to the side, a gentle smile on his face.
She blinked, ever astonished that such a large man was able to move so very quietly. When he had arrived or how he had scaled those stairs without making a single sound would forever remain a mystery to her, she supposed, but perhaps life was better for a bit of curiosity.
If she asked him to do it again and let her watch, he would only chide her lovingly.
And of course, she enjoyed that very much.
“It looks good,” he said softly, leaning forward to peek into the classroom. “Almost ready to open, isn’t it?”
“Almost,” she agreed, taking a bracing little breath. “Isn’t that something?”
He nodded, turning and running his hands over the bannister as he peered back down at the ground floor. “It’s almost impossible to believe what used to be here. What a disaster it all was.”
“Almost,” she said again, finding her way to his side and looping her arms through his tightly.
“It will never be done, though. Not really. Already there are more injured, more accidents and illnesses and disasters to attend. I suspect that the day we open the door, we will be full up, straightaway.”
“Agreed.” He glanced down at her, a glint in those beautiful, dark eyes. “Does that displease you?”
She shook her head. “No. I find it reassuring, I think. I will remain useful.”
He laughed, a soft rumbling sound, as he turned toward her and pulled her closer to him. “Do you think that your mother could have predicted that you’d take that year she gave you and rather than choose a path, instead claim all of them?”
“All of them?” Hannah repeated, smiling back at him with a quizzical little blink. “What do you mean?”
“Wife,” he said first, softly, “benefactress, caretaker, community pillar. All four, and likely many more in the years to come. I think she only expected you to choose one, and here you are, collecting them like seashells in a basket.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” she said immediately, her face warming as she averted her eyes. “That is a bit too much.”
“It is the truth,” he told her with a little grin, using his hand to tilt her chin back up to look at him. “And somehow, you are all of that and still chose to be mine. If I have to reckon with that fact on the daily, Hannah, you should have to face it at least once. It is only fair.”
She smiled at him, her heart soft and warm in her chest, and shook her head.
“Oh, my St. Thaddeus,” she replied. “When have I ever played fair?”