The Doctor's Undoing

“Thank you,” Ida said, feeling as though she were addressing the chandelier. While she was pleased Grimshaw had said “welcome,” she was equally displeased that he referred to the place as “our facility.” Facility? The clinical term matched the clinical decor. Even coming from the monochromatic army world, Ida found the lack of color in the Parker Home for Orphans nearly suffocating. First thing tomorrow she was going to write her dear friend Leanne and beg her assistance in finding some cheery curtains for her “suite” of rooms.

Parker took his place at the head of the table, at which point everyone sat. “Let us give thanks.”

Ida gave a sigh of relief. Table grace had always been a particular comfort to her, and she was glad to know the practice was in place at the Parker Home. She folded her hands and lowered her head, curious to hear the doctor’s deep voice in prayer.

“Bless us, O Lord, for these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Ida had never heard such dear words uttered with such a complete lack of emotion. In truth, the doctor’s grace was as hollow as the children’s greeting. He did mean the words—there was no doubt about that—but she could hardly guess if he felt them at all.

“There were times at Camp Jackson when table grace was a test of faith,” she offered, smiling at her new colleagues as she draped the dull gray napkin on her lap. “Army food isn’t always worthy of much thanks, you can imagine.”

No one laughed.

It was going to be a long meal. Gracious, it was likely to be a long year.

* * *

Daniel watched his mother’s ringed finger tap against the rim of her tea glass. He’d learned it as a sure sign of her irritation. It was a suffocating Tuesday afternoon, and she blamed her slow movements on the season’s wretched heat. He could hardly blame her for that. As immune as he often was to the humidity, today it bothered even him.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as gently as he could. “That ache bothering you again?”

She shooed away the question with a flap of her hand and a muttered, “Pshaw, Daniel, don’t you start. I am old and it’s a steam bath out this afternoon. I should be in the mountains.”

He refused to reengage in that battle. He’d given Mother endless permission to go, but had been just as persistent in his unwillingness to go with her. He was needed here. Instead, Daniel changed the subject. “The new nurse arrived yesterday.”

Mother’s eyebrows shot up. “Did she? The one from Camp Jackson?”

“Yes. Miss Ida Lee Landway.” The sight of Miss Landway peering through the Home’s front gate came back from his memory. He’d expected someone so much more sensible looking. Ida Landway struck him as a barely contained whirlwind.

“A war nurse.” Mother waved her hand in front of her face as if to fend off the unpleasant thought. “To tend to children. Whatever got into your head?”

Daniel sipped his coffee rather than reply.

“Why do you drink that dreadful coffee in this heat?” His mother had always accused him of preferring coffee simply to irritate her tea service. He could never truly dispute the theory.

“You know I dislike tea. Hot coffee makes me feel cooler by comparison.” It was a trick told to him by a schoolmate who had summered in Turkey. While it had some scientific basis, today it sounded like a childish prank when repeated to his mother. How had Ida Lee Landway become the least unpleasant choice of conversation topics? “And as for Miss Landway, we needed someone sensible and...stout hearted.” It was a terrible choice of phrase. Sensible and stout hearted were the last adjectives he felt could apply to Miss Landway—though he hoped and prayed he was wrong. The orphanage couldn’t bear a third vacancy lightly.

“Heavens, Daniel, you sound as if you were buying a mule, not hiring a nurse for children.” He watched her shift weight gingerly off one hip.

“With the war over, Camp Jackson is the best source of experienced nurses. We tried hiring ones fresh out of school, and you know what happened.”

Mother snapped her fan open. “I can’t believe Charleston has no other fine nurses.”

“There are plenty of fine nurses, Mother.” Daniel set his cup back down on the rattan table between them. “Just not many willing to work for what the orphanage can pay. I stand by my choice.”

“March over and tell Buxton Eckersall you need more donations.” Mother threw a scowl in the direction of the Eckersalls’ impressive house just down the street. According to Mother, she’d been over there yesterday pleading the orphanage’s case. “They lost no boys in the war. I’d expect them to show a little more gratitude.”

“I take it the Eckersalls didn’t...”

“They did, but not nearly what they ought to have,” she said, cutting him off. “It was all I could do not to be offended. And now we’re resorting to army nurses.” She made it sound like the most drastic of choices, sniffing a final proclamation of annoyance in the Eckersalls’ direction. “I’d expected more of Lydia Eckersall, really.”

Mother expected more of everyone. She had good reason. There was a time—back before the war changed so much—when a single direct glare from Amelia Parker could move societal mountains. “The Parkers are a force to be reckoned with,” Father would always say when Mother had achieved one of her social victories. The name still commanded—and demanded—respect, but not on the scale it once had.

“The war has ground down many fortunes.” Daniel sighed. It was what he always told himself to ease the sting of shrinking donations. All while the mountain of need continued to grow.

“Well, not his,” Mother nearly hissed. “All the more reason to show some kindness to the unfortunate, I said.” Daniel huffed, and she turned to look at him, her eyes softening. He held her gaze until she backed down. “Well, of course I didn’t actually say that, but I tell you the thought hung in my mind. You should go over there and make him see why he of all people should contribute more.”

Difficult as she was, it was hard to stay annoyed with his mother. For years, Amelia Parker had nearly single-handedly funded the causes of her choice, bending the pockets of Charleston society to her will in the name of any number of philanthropies. His father had been named chairman of the war-bond effort not so much for his persuasive skills as for his wife’s. But the orphanage had always been their special project—the one to which they had given their name, and their direct supervision. Daniel’s mother felt charity to be her God-given gift, and she wielded it with a boldness the Lord Himself surely admired. Her stories from after the War Between the States, her tales of generosity to friend and foe alike, were the foundation of his faith, shaky as it was.

Only it seemed as if those rules of Southern culture were shifting without this generation’s permission. Mother couldn’t fathom that the playing field had so shifted, and every time her application of social pressure failed to achieve desired results, she would command, “You go over there and make him see.”

“I will,” Daniel conceded, returning to his coffee. And he likely would. He could leave no stone unturned, no pocket unbeseeched, in the name of the Home. For the Home was his “gift,” a yoke settled on his shoulders by both earthly and heavenly fathers. His earthly father had since joined his heavenly one, leaving Daniel to run the Home and its ever-growing operations. “Only I doubt I’ll have better results.”

Mother folded the fan shut and pointed it at Daniel. “A Parker prevails, always.” She invoked the family motto whenever Daniel expressed doubts as to his ability to call forth charity out of thin air as his parents once did.

He had begun to wonder if the adage had crumbled with Charleston’s other traditions.

Chapter Three (#ulink_d7322835-8a89-5df9-b574-8331f7e237c9)

By Wednesday morning, Ida had settled in sufficiently to launch a thorough examination of her new infirmary. It was a small, tidy place, brighter than the rest of the facility thanks to the traditional white of the furnishings. A wall of cabinets and a small desk, as well as three chairs and a meager examining table, completed the room. Ida had spent the past hour peering into cabinets and opening drawers, stopping far too often to wrangle her hair back into place.

She’d been here not even two full days and already the humidity had wound her curls into a bird’s nest. Wasn’t it supposed to be cooler by the sea? Either it was the humidity or the closed-in feeling of these buildings, but Charleston seemed to be poaching her composure. Not to mention the woeful lack of supplies—if there was one thing the army had been, it was well stocked. Not so here. Counting far too few rolls of bandages, Ida blew out an irritated breath.

“Something not to your liking, Miss Landway?”

She startled, banging her head on the cabinet. Hard. The blow sent her backward into her desk chair, nearly toppling furniture and nurse over in an undignified heap.

“Don’t you knock?” she snapped, head stinging. Ida looked up, cringing in recognition as her eyes met the owner of that voice. “Pardon me, Dr. Parker, I hadn’t meant to be so direct. You startled me.”

“The door was already ajar. And somehow I think you always mean to be so direct.”

Ida grabbed the chair arm, seeing stars. “It seems I can’t find enough open doors and windows in this heat. And what’s that supposed to mean about being direct?”

Dr. Parker pushed the infirmary door farther ajar and peered at her. “You’re bleeding.”

Ida reached a hand up to her hairline only to feel a wet warmth that confirmed the doctor’s diagnosis. “Your cabinet has teeth.” She went to walk toward the cabinet, but found rising to be a rather painful enterprise.

“Sit back down,” Dr. Parker ordered, motioning her into the chair. “I am a doctor, you know.”

“Why Dr. Parker, that could almost be called a joke.” Ida sucked in a breath as a change of expression sent a stinging pain through her forehead.

“Despite what you may have heard, I do possess a minute portion of bedside manner.” He reached into the predatory cabinet and handed back a bottle of disinfectant and a roll of bandages.

Ida took them gingerly. “I’d have preferred to discover your lighter side under more dignified circumstances.”

He turned and narrowed his eyes at her forehead. “Let’s hope you don’t need to discover my skill with sutures, shall we?” He made an odd motion toward his own head with his hands.

She cocked her head at the gesture, an unfortunate choice since it sent sparks of pain flying across her hairline. Furrowing her brow against the ache only made things worse.