A Distant Shore (17 page)

Even more overwhelming had been the whirl of social engagements that had followed, each making Maggie’s head spin. Dinners, parties, musicales... nearly every night Maggie had experienced some new amusement.

She’d enjoyed it all, mostly, but she hadn’t really felt at home, or able to be herself, until she’d started teaching at the First School.

Here in the schoolroom she didn’t need to worry about which fork to use or if she was holding her teacup correctly or if her laugh was too loud. While her Aunt Margaret had shown her nothing but warmth and kindness, Maggie didn’t think she was imagining the occasional pursed lips or raised eyebrow her presence in the best drawing and dining rooms of Boston caused.

The students at the First School, although poorer and a bit shabbier, were very much like her. She recognized their longing for more than they had, their hope and excitement about all life could offer, as well as the fear of what could be taken away. Whether it was one bad harvest or an injury that kept a young boy or girl from paying work, hunger and destitution were not so far away for any of them.

Maggie tried to explain her feelings to Margaret, but her aunt hadn’t seemed to understand at all. “Nonsense, Maggie,” she said. “You’re nothing like these poor souls. They are destitute, whereas you have a prosperous farm and a loving family.”

Maggie had silently accepted the rebuke, but she still felt a solidarity with her pupils.

While Margaret taught the older students, Maggie had been given responsibility for the younger ones. She loved gathering them in a circle around her while they read haltingly from their primers, loved seeing their faces light up when they sounded out a difficult word or managed to write a complete sentence on their slates.

“We’re expected at the Cavanaughs tonight,” Margaret told her as she finished checking one of the older students’ essays. “At seven, so we should be quick about getting home.”

“All right,” Maggie said, trying to hide her reluctance at attending yet another evening event, and Margaret frowned.

“You sound tired, my dear. Perhaps you should stay back from school tomorrow.”

“No, no,” Maggie said quickly. “I love being at the school. I couldn’t miss a day.”

“I don’t want you overtaxing yourself.”

“I’m not—”

Margaret smiled. “I’m glad you enjoy the school so.”

The door to the little building opened, sending a shaft of late afternoon sunlight across the wooden floor, and then the shadow of a man. Maggie tensed, and even Margaret stilled, her expression suddenly alert. They had never actually encountered any danger while teaching at the school, but at that moment Maggie was acutely conscious of the fact that the school was on the fringe of Boston’s notorious Murder District and guarded by Henry’s man, John Caber, during the day.

Then the man stepped forward and Maggie saw that he was only a little older than she was, perhaps eighteen or twenty. He wore the homespun shirt and trousers of a recent immigrant, and twisted his cap in his hands. “This is the school?” he asked, his accent distinctly Irish.

Margaret rose from the desk. “It is.”

“And you teach reading and writing and things? Anyone who wants it?”

“We do, Mr. …?” Margaret raised her eyebrows, and for a moment Maggie thought she looked just like the other Bostonian society ladies whose drawing rooms she had been paraded through.

“Flanagan, Seamus Flanagan.”

“And on whose behalf are you inquiring about an education, Mr. Flanagan?”

He blinked, and Maggie imagined he was trying to untangle her aunt’s fancy words. Aunt Margaret did have a rather eloquent, if sometimes confusing, turn of phrase.

“My own, ma’am.”

Margaret did not reply, but rather her gaze swept over Seamus Flanagan from his bare head to his worn and patched-over boots. “How old are you, Mr. Flanagan?” she finally asked.

Maggie saw a blush stain his cheeks but he kept his chin lifted, his gaze steady. “Eighteen, ma’am.”

Margaret nodded, her lips pursing. “You see, our oldest student now is only eleven years old.”

Maggie felt a stab of sympathy as she saw Seamus Flanagan’s shoulders slump in unmistakable disappointment. “I see. So there’s a limit to how old you can be to learn?”

“There isn’t, is there, Aunt Margaret?” Maggie burst out, knowing she was speaking before she was thinking—again—and by the quick, quelling look her aunt gave her it was not appreciated. “Not officially, I mean,” she added more quietly and Margaret nodded rather briskly.

“Not officially, no. But surely you have some gainful employment, Mr. Flanagan?”

Seamus’s flush deepened at the implied rebuke. “I work nights as a watchman by the harbor.”

“You are quite young for such a position of responsibility.”

“My uncle owns a warehouse,” Seamus replied with dignity. “He hired me. And since my days are my own, I wanted to get some education. Learn how to read.” He nodded towards Maggie, although his gaze remained steady on her aunt. “Is it as the young lady says? There’s no limit to how old you can be?”

“There is not,” Margaret said slowly. “But I must confess I am reluctant to admit so old a pupil as yourself.”

Seamus’s gaze didn’t waver. “And why might that be, ma’am?”

“It would be disruptive to the classroom.”

“Are you saying I’ll cause a problem?”

“You might not mean to—”

“I just want to learn, ma’am. I thought that’s what this school was about.”

“Please, Aunt Margaret—” Maggie burst out again, and received another reproving look.

“Come back tomorrow,” Margaret told Seamus, her tone still cool. “I’ll have an answer for you then.”

He nodded, thanked her, and the door creaked closed once more. Margaret turned to Maggie.

“I did not think,” she said stiffly, “you would contradict me so in front of a stranger.”

Maggie flushed. “I didn’t mean to, Aunt Margaret. I’m sorry. It’s just—he wanted to learn so—”

“We cannot take every newly arrived immigrant into this school.”

“We haven’t turned anyone else away,” Maggie pointed out, and now Margaret flushed.

“He is a man, Maggie, and we are two ladies. It is neither seemly nor safe—”

“But John Caber is right outside the door!” Maggie protested. “With a flintlock! And you’ve never been concerned about seemliness before, Aunt Margaret.” Maggie was confused, and strangely hurt, for her aunt’s frostiness was so at odds with the woman she’d come to know and even love over the last month. Margaret was usually warm, generous, with an easy laugh. Now she seemed frosty, stiff with formality. “Why don’t you want to admit him?”

Margaret pressed her lips together and shook her head, and Maggie didn’t think she was going to answer. Finally she let out little sigh. “In truth I do not know. But we’ve never had a grown man in our school before, Maggie, and I am not certain I am comfortable with his rough ways.”

“His ways aren’t much rougher than mine,” Maggie said quietly, and Margaret gave her a surprised glance.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I’m no Boston socialite, Aunt Margaret, and nothing will turn me into one, not a new dress or a thousand drawing rooms teas. I’ve lived my whole life on a farm and my parents were born on a farm in Scotland, same as yours—and you yourself. You were all immigrants once, as fresh off the boat as Seamus Flanagan, if perhaps a little richer.”

Margaret’s eyes narrowed, although she did not deny the truth of Maggie’s words. “You seem to have taken a liking to this young man.”

“No,” Maggie said, although she half-wondered if she was speaking the truth. There had been something honest and open in Seamus’s face, and it had, she forced herself to acknowledge, been a handsome face at that. “I just want to do what’s fair. And if we don’t teach him to read, who will?”

Margaret stared at her for a long moment and then with another sigh she reached for her mantelet and reticule. “Oh, very well. When he returns tomorrow I will tell him he can attend the school, on probation, for one week only. Does that satisfy you?” She softened her words with a smile, although she still didn’t look entirely pleased about the prospect.

“Yes, Aunt Margaret,” Maggie said, as meek as a church mouse. “That satisfies me very well indeed.”

“And now we must hurry,” Margaret said briskly as she turned towards the door. “Don’t forget we are due at the Cavanaughs at seven.”

“Yes, Aunt Margaret,” Maggie said again, and with a sigh she followed her aunt out of the schoolhouse.

The Bulfinch Operating Theatre was buzzing with surgeons, medical students, newspaper men and more than a few curious gawkers as Horace Wells prepared to take the stage to demonstrate the first public use of ether as an anesthetic. The operation was to be a tooth extraction, which should be simple for Wells since he had trained as a dentist.

Even so, as he stood to the side of the stage waiting for Wells to begin, Ian felt a deep-seated pang of uneasiness and even of fear. Every eye would be trained on Wells as he performed the extraction... if it failed, it would be tomorrow’s joke in the newspapers, or worse.

He studied Wells discreetly. His eyes looked bloodshot and a little wild, and his hair and clothing were both in some disarray, his coat stained on the front, his cravat crooked.

Caroline’s words echoed in Ian’s mind.
If Mr. Wells cannot perform the operation, then you must do it.

He’d considered the matter endlessly for the last few weeks, yet had reached no satisfactory answer. He’d attempted to compose a letter to Wells in Hartford, but nothing he said seemed adequate. If he suggested he perform the operation, Wells would think he was trying to steal the glory for himself. And Wells, Ian acknowledged with a shaft of recrimination, might even be right. He’d worked on the experiments with ether for five years. He’d contributed just as much to the cause as Wells had, yet it would be Wells who would receive the adulation and praise if the operation succeeded.

And if it didn’t?

It would be Ian who received the condemnation for allowing the procedure to go forward in the prestigious Bulfinch Operating Theatre. Either way, he suffered—and yet he told himself it didn’t really matter to him if Wells received all the praise. The far more important thing was the acceptance of ether as an anesthetic by the medical community, the possibility of operations being carried out that were now nothing more than a distant dream. Conditions that were a death sentence could be treated, and in a far more humane way. How could he begrudge Wells anything, if all that came to pass?

Ian glanced at him again, saw Wells’s hands tremble as he attempted to straighten his cravat. His unease deepened to something close to panic. A man could not operate, or even extract a tooth, with shaky hands. Ian didn’t know what was the matter with Wells, if his condition was indeed the result of an addiction to ether, but he could see clearly that the man was not in the proper frame of mind—or condition. His mind made up, Ian approached him.