Crescent City Courtship

“China,” she replied without thinking.

“Oh, pooh. I didn’t believe you was Goldilocks, neither.”

Chapter Four

A chill had sneaked across the river during the night, sending fog drifting across the graveyard, twining through Abigail’s hair and muting her and Dr. Laniere’s footsteps. The ground was soft, even on this elevated patch a mile or so away from the river, and she had to step over puddles of water in the shallow hollows of sunken graves.

Abigail carried the baby, dressed in a tiny white gown worn by Meg just a few months ago. Camilla would have attended the funeral service, but she’d had to remain with the feverish and itchy Diron. Tess was induced to remain in bed only by Abigail’s promise of writing down exactly what was said at her baby’s interment.

They were to call her Caroline.

“Here we are,” said Dr. Laniere, halting beside a tiny fresh grave, barely three feet long and a couple of feet wide. He opened the lid of the small wooden casket he’d carried from the house and looked across the top of it at Abigail. “It’s time to put her in the casket.” His deep-set dark eyes were somber, filled with sympathy. “Remember—”

“I know. She’s with the Father.” Abigail closed her mind against the instinct to pray. She’d been brought up to talk to God at every turn and the habit kicked in at moments of stress. But it was difficult to believe God was really interested in either her or this small wasted life.

Placing the baby in the box, she arranged the lacy white skirts in graceful folds. She was glad Tess couldn’t see this. She could remember Caroline cuddled in her arms like a white-capped doll.

Dr. Laniere placed the lid on the box and was about to lower it into the grave when pounding footsteps approached.

“Wait!” John Braddock ran out of the mist, panting. In one hand he carried his black medical bag. “Professor, I want to see her again before you bury her.”

Dr. Laniere straightened.

Abigail hadn’t expected the young doctor to actually come for the burial. She was even more surprised that he’d apparently already been on a medical call. “What are you doing here?” she blurted, sounding perhaps more defensive than she’d intended.

“I’ve a right to be here,” he said breathlessly. “I delivered this baby, and—” He swallowed. “Let me see her, please.”

When the professor opened the box, Braddock removed his hat, clutching it as he stared at the baby. “I’m so sorry,” he muttered. “I promise I’ll learn to do better.”

Abigail’s throat closed. She didn’t want to like this privileged rich boy. Pressing her lips together, she looked away.

She heard the lid go back on the box and then the gritty sound of wood landing on sand and clay. The two men picked up the shovels left by the grave diggers and began to fill in the small hole in the ground.

The job took less than a minute. She made herself look at the mound of fresh dirt, the only visible trace of Tess’s baby—except the scars on her friend’s body. She thought of her father’s pontifications on Scripture. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The Lord cherishing the death of his beloved.

She couldn’t find anything particularly precious about this stark moment.

“Oh, God, we know you’re here.” Dr. Laniere lifted his resonant voice. “We know you give and you take away and you are sovereign. We pray you’ll remind us of your presence even in the darkness of grief. We pray you’ll be ever near to Tess as she recovers. Please champion these young women and help them find real help as they seek you. Please use Camilla and the children and me to meet their needs. And I pray you’ll hear and meet young Braddock’s desire to be a healer, even as you heal his heart.”

What about my desire to be a healer? Abigail thought as the professor paused. What about my wounded heart? She opened her eyes and looked up just as a ray of sunshine broke through the patchy fog. An enormous rainbow soared from one end of the graveyard to the other. She caught her breath.

“In the name of our Lord, who takes our ashes and turns them to joy…Amen.”

The professor and John replaced their hats. Abigail, shivering in the cool morning dampness, hurried toward the cemetery entrance. She wanted to get back to Tess, to write down the words of the service before she forgot them. Ashes to joy…

“Wait, Abigail.” Shifting his medical bag to the other hand, John caught up with her, took her hand and pulled it through his elbow. “I thought you should know I went back to the District last night.”

“Did you?” Stumbling on the soggy, uneven ground, she reluctantly accepted the support of his arm. “Needed a bit of alcoholic sustenance?”

“No, I—” He gave her an exasperated look. “Must you assume the worst?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know many men who lead me to expect anything else.”

“Well, in this case you’re wrong. I went back there because I’d heard a child coughing in the apartment next to yours. The walls are so thin—”

“Yes, they are.” She didn’t need to be reminded. “That would be the McLachlin baby. He has chronic croup. I’ve tried to get Rose to move him out of that mildewy apartment, but she can’t afford anything better.”

“Well, I went back to see about him. Stupid woman wouldn’t let me in, even though I told her I was a doctor.”

Abigail looked up at him. “To the contrary. For once she was using her head, not letting a strange man into her apartment.”

There was a brief silence. “I see your point.” John opened the graveyard gate and held it as Abigail passed through. “Then perhaps you’d agree to return with me this afternoon and persuade her of my good intentions. I’d like to look at the baby to see if anything can be done about that cough.”

Abigail hesitated. “She can’t afford to pay you.”

“I know that.” He let out an exasperated sigh. “Prof encourages us to see charity cases when we have time. It’s good practice.”

“Oh, well, then. For the sake of your education, I suppose I’d best come with you.”

He stiffened. “Miss Neal—”

“Mr. Braddock.” She squeezed his elbow. “I was only tweaking you.”

He looked at her for a moment before a slow grin curled his mouth. “Were you, indeed? Then for the sake of your education, I’ll allow you to observe a man who practices medicine for more than money. Perhaps you might learn something.”

His eyes held hers. Something shifted between them. Abigail looked over her shoulder to find the professor’s reassuring presence several paces back.

John followed her gaze. “Prof, I’m going back to Tchapitoulas Street with Miss Neal to look after a sick little boy.”

“Fine. Just bring her back before noon and you may stay for dinner, too.” Dr. Laniere waved them on and turned off toward Daubigny Street, where his family attended church.

For the next couple of blocks, Abigail maintained a tense silence. In the distance church bells began to ring. “Are you a church-going man, Mr. Braddock? Perhaps your family will wonder where you are.”

“My family would be quite astonished to see me at all on Sunday before late afternoon,” he said easily. “I don’t live at home.”

“Oh.” When he didn’t elaborate, she looked at him. “Then a wife or—or sweetheart?”

“I assure you I am quite unattached at the moment. Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“Of course not.” Abigail looked away, blushing, as they turned the corner at the saloon. “I agreed to come with you to check on the baby.” Her relief that he was unattached was absurd. There was nothing personal whatsoever in his escort.

“Yes, you did. And here we are.” He stood back as Abigail opened the outer front door and knocked on the door across the entryway from her old apartment with Tess.

She could hear the baby crying inside, Rose’s anxious voice, the other two children giggling and shrieking. “Rose?” She knocked again. “It’s Abigail.”

The door jerked open and Rose appeared with the baby on her hip. A little girl and a little boy of about four and five clung to her skirts, one on each side. “Abigail—what are you doing here? Is something wrong?”

Abigail glanced at John over her shoulder. “I brought Dr. Braddock with me. He wants to look at Paddy.”