Chapter 18
May 6th, 1898, Eagle Creek, Montana
It had been a long night. As the clock struck three o’clock in the morning, Matthew rubbed his face and stared at the floor. Finding Andrew the way he had been, Matthew had truly feared that he had arrived too late, and that anything he could do would be futile. He was grateful that Maud and Rachel had been there and had taken the actions they could, but he should never have been so far away. If he’d not been such a pig-headed fool, he would have been at the clinic when the call came.
He heaved himself up onto his feet and went through to the ward and sat beside Andrew’s sleeping form. He had done what he could, but he still feared that his friend might lose his leg. If infection set in due to the nature of the tool that had caused the wound, if it had been left open too long, or if the ancient medical kit he had used had not been as clean as it might have been. There were so many things that could go wrong, even if the surgery seemed to be a success. But he had no signs of fever, was breathing evenly again now, and his pulse seemed strong. Matthew had to hope that he would make it.
He dozed for a while, but he was alert to the tiniest sound or movement from the bed beside him. Rachel joined him, once she’d been back to the boarding house to bathe and change. “You should go and get cleaned up, too,” she urged him. “I’ll stay with Andrew and will send for you if anything changes.”
“I won’t leave him until he wakes up,” Matthew said. “He’s been so good to me. I can’t leave him.”
“Then I’ll fetch us both a cup of coffee,” she said. “We’ve a long wait. I sent Maud home to rest. She was in bits, but she insisted on staying with Mrs. Walker.”
“She’ll not desert anyone until all is well, our Maud.” Matthew looked at her tired face. She still looked lovely, even with heavy bags under her eyes. He’d forgotten how often they’d both looked this tired, even though it had only been a matter of weeks since the outbreak of influenza had started to draw to its close. “I’m sorry for how rude I was earlier,” he said softly. “If I’d not been so hot-headed, I would have been here when you got the call.”
“None of that matters,” she said. “And there is nothing for you to apologize for. If anyone should be saying sorry, it is me – and I am sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“But you’re not wrong, which is probably why I was so angry.” He buried his head in his hands, then looked up at her. “I’d just met the loveliest lady. She was clever and funny, pretty and I thought we had gotten along really well. Then she abruptly told me I wasn’t what she was looking for. Then you said almost the same things to me, and I just was furious.”
“You really liked her?” Rachel asked, her voice oddly brittle.
“I thought I did. But the more I thought about it, she was right. You’re right. How could I possibly marry anyone, when I won’t stay in one place long enough to get to know them?”
“That’s what letters are for,” she teased awkwardly, nudging his arm with her elbow.
He grinned and gave a rueful laugh. “So everyone keeps telling me. I suppose I’m impatient. I want everything to be straightforward. I meet someone, I like them enough, we get married. I think I would have been delighted to have parents who would have arranged a marriage for me so I didn’t have to think about all of this.”
“Why not slow down a little? Not just the search for love, but the moving around?” Rachel asked. “What is the worst that could happen if you stay here in Eagle Creek a little longer? After all, the town has rather a big vacancy to fill for a while, and there’s the hospital to get up and running? Why say you’re going to leave as soon as you find someone else to do the work you are perfect for? The work you’ve been enjoying for months.”
“I just can’t,” he said. She sighed and patted his hand affectionately.
“You can, you just don’t want to,” she pointed out. “Why, I don’t know. And I doubt you’ll ever tell me, but you should think about telling someone. Whatever it is, that is back there in your past, it’s eating you up and ruining your present. Talk about it, let it go, move on from it – not from everyone who cares about you.”
“You care about me?” he asked, trying to sound like he was teasing her, that he wasn’t affected by all she’d just said, or that it mattered even a tiny bit to him whether she cared or not.
“Of course I do, so does Maud, and Andrew and almost everyone else in town. You have good friends here, Matthew, if you’d just let any of us in.”
She left to fetch them both a drink. Her words echoed around Matthew’s head. Whatever his plans might have been, he knew that there was no possibility that he would be leaving Eagle Creek before Andrew was up on his feet and fully well. But that meant it would be even harder to leave, because he already cared about too many people, far too much. Perhaps Rachel was right, he did need to talk about it with someone. To say out loud everything he’d kept trapped inside for all these years. But he was certain he couldn’t actually say the words. Could he perhaps write them? But if he could, who would he send them to? And would they understand and forgive him, given he’d been unable to forgive himself all this time?
He didn’t have time to dwell on it further as Andrew started to stir in the bed beside him. Matthew leaped to his feet. “Andrew?” he asked softly, placing a gentle hand upon Andrew’s shoulder to reassure him, and restrain him. The last thing he wanted Andrew to do as he awoke was to try and move.
“Argh,” Andrew moaned as he tried to open his eyes. “What happened?”
“You had an accident with a scythe,” Matthew said. “Don’t move. I’ve fixed your leg as best I can, but you’re going to have to stay really still so it can heal.”
“Marsha?”
“Maud is with her. I’ll send Rachel over there to fetch her for you.”
“No, let her rest.”
“You may be brave enough to take that decision out of her hands, and Maud’s, but I’m not. I’ll send Rachel,” Matthew teased and Andrew gave a weak smile.
“You’re probably right,” he said. “Maud would never forgive me.”
“I doubt Marsha would either.”
“Oh, Marsha would make me work hard for forgiveness, but she’d grant it eventually. But Maud can hold a grudge like nobody else I’ve ever known.”
“It’s good that you’ve not lost your sense of humor. I always think that is a positive sign after an injury like this,” Matthew said with a grin.
Rachel entered the ward with two steaming cups of coffee in her hands. She beamed when she saw that Andrew was awake. Her relief was visible, her shoulders and face relaxed and she suddenly didn’t look so tired anymore. “How are you feeling?” she asked him, once she’d put down the cups and taken his hand.
“I feel like a wrung out rag dolly,” Andrew said. “But I’m alive.”
“Only just,” Matthew reminded him. “And if someone doesn’t fetch your wife and Maud soon, I doubt any of us will be when they find out you’ve been awake for a while.”
“I’ll go,” Rachel said giving Andrew’s hand a squeeze. “They’ll be so happy.”
Once she’d disappeared, Andrew chuckled, then moaned at the effort of doing so. “When are you going to tell that girl how you feel about her?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It has been as clear as the nose on my face that you are smitten with Rachel and have been since the day she arrived. When are you going to tell her.”
“Never, because she is my friend and my colleague, and I won’t.”
“You sound like a little boy,” Andrew said shaking his head in exasperation. “Why are young men these days so foolish? In my day, when there was a wonderful woman in the vicinity we asked her to marry us almost before we’d been introduced.”
“Was that what happened when you met Mrs. Walker? You asked her as soon as you met her?”
“I did, that very night. It was at a dance at university. She was attending with her cousin, Albert. Spotty little fellow, terrible at remembering body parts, but she was perfect. As soon as I saw her, I knew. I claimed the dance before supper and the last one of the evening on her dance card, and asked her as I walked her home.”
“I never realized you were such a romantic, Andrew,” Matthew said, feeling slightly envious of Andrew’s certainty.
“Only for her. I was like you before I met her. Thought that I needed to focus on my studies, stay aloof, not let anyone in too close for fear of losing them. But you lose them anyway, and it hurts just as much if you tell them or you don’t. I think it’s best to tell people how you feel about them before it is too late.”
Matthew was saved from a further lecture as Maud and Mrs. Walker arrived with Rachel. Maud checked Andrew over thoroughly, then once assured he was doing quite well under the circumstances, went home to rest at Matthew’s urging. Mrs. Walker stayed with Andrew until he fell asleep again. Rachel wanted to stay, but Matthew insisted she go home and get some rest. She had been working non-stop for almost forty-eight hours, without a single complaint. Reluctantly, she agreed, and once alone in the clinic, Matthew settled himself by Andrew’s bed again.
He jerked awake at the sound of the bell over the reception room door. He glanced at the clock on the wall, and realized it was almost time for him to hold the morning surgery. He got up and went through to see who had arrived early. Alfie Pinchin was standing by the door, a thick leather satchel over his shoulder. “None of the mail boys around today?” Matthew asked him.
“We’re a little short-handed, but I’m only delivering the mail to people along Main Street,” Alfie explained. He handed over a pile of letters for the clinic, then dug further into his bag. “As you’re here, I can give you this, too.” He handed Matthew a letter addressed to him in Caitlin’s hand. Matthew smiled to see it. If ever a letter had arrived at a more opportune moment, it was this one. He needed a dose of her positivity more than ever.
“Thank you, Alfie,” he said.
“How is Andrew?”
Matthew nodded, of course Alfie would want to know. He had taken over the role of postmaster as fully as possible, and like his forebear, Aston Merryweather, was the fount of all town gossip, though he regularly claimed not to be. “Andrew has slept well overnight, but we’ll just have to wait and see how his wound heals. He’s doing as well as can be expected.”
“Oh good, please send him my best. He’s been my doctor since I was naught but a twinkle in my Pop’s eye.”
“I shall. He’ll be glad to know that everyone is rooting for him.”
“Don’t know a soul in town who’d speak ill of him, they’ll all be wanting to see him back up on his feet as soon as possible. Anything we can do to help, you just let me know. I’ll get it arranged.”
“I will, thanks, Alfie.”
Alfie said goodbye and let himself out, and Matthew sat down at the desk and opened Caitlin’s letter immediately.
Dear Dr. Inglis,
Thank you for your wonderful letter. I can most certainly say that your letters bring a smile to my face, too. So, hopefully we are doing each other some good.
I am afraid that it is not a good time for us to meet at the moment, but that does not mean that I don’t want to meet you soon. I very much do, and hope that I will be able to write and arrange something in the coming weeks.
However, in response to the rest of your letter. I became a nurse because I have always enjoyed looking after everyone. Even though my father took on a nurse to care for us all once my mother passed away, I was always the one that my siblings came to if they had a fall or a sore tummy. I suppose it just always seemed to be what I was destined to do.
I trained in the local hospital, under a rather doughty matron, called Mrs. Murgatroyd. She was such a dragon, but she taught us all well, and I was just finishing my training when we had a young soldier come in, with a gunshot wound to his shoulder. I was called in to theater to assist the surgeon, who wasn’t one of ours, but was like you, a military doctor. He was brilliant and I learned so much, just from that one procedure. He spoke to me afterwards and said that the military were always looking out for good nurses, and if I wanted a letter of introduction, he would be glad to furnish me with a reference.
I must confess that I wasn’t sure at first. It meant moving away from my family, living amongst strangers, and moving around to serve where I was needed most. But my sister talked me into it. I think she hoped I’d be able to introduce her to some handsome young officers, and she was right. I enjoyed it, and I had to learn so much more than I would have done in a civilian hospital.
Having six siblings is exhausting. I am one of the seven, remember! (you asked what it was like to have seven siblings in your last letter), but it means there is always someone there to laugh with you, or cry, to argue with or to comfort. It means you never feel alone, and I am so lucky to have had that growing up, especially as we lost my mother when I was barely fourteen. Now I know what I do, about how hard on a woman’s body a pregnancy can be, it amazes me that she went through so many in such a short time. It is no wonder that when Alec, my youngest brother, came along, that her body just decided it had done enough.
I am so sorry that you lost your mother when you were so very young. It was hard enough at fourteen, a time when a girl needs her mother, perhaps more than anyone else in the world, but it must have been worse for you. I don’t mean to pry, but you did not mention anything about your father. Was he not there to care for you at that time? Or is it just too hard for you to write about any of it? I do understand if you do not wish to share such intimacies with someone who is, after all, a stranger to you.
But, on a lighter note. What did you think of Alice’s Adventures? Wasn’t it just the most surreal thing? I adored it, but it is quite a peculiar book. I know many people I knew were quite alarmed by it. I too love Dickens. I find his characters to be so richly drawn and can see them in so many of the people I have known in my life.
Do you know that I have never been to a play? There is a theater nearby, and yet I am always caught up at work or too tired to attend. I really should try harder to go someday, for I can imagine that seeing a story being performed in front of you would make it all the more real and fantastical, all at once. Perhaps when we do meet, we might go together?
I must go, but please write back soon. I shall look forward to the arrival of your next letter with bated breath.
Yours, most interestedly,
Caitlin