Believing the Dream (26 page)

“And Father said we have at least twenty-five new subscribers.” Elizabeth reached for the teapot. “You want milk with yours?”

Annabelle nodded. “I’ll be right back. I won’t disturb you if I sit here with my needlepoint, will I?”

“Of course not.” Elizabeth poured both cups and added milk and one cube of sugar to each before leaning back in her chair, china cup warming her hands. No matter that the fire in the hearth snapped and flared and the furnace poured heat through the registers, she could not seem to get warm.

“Are you feeling all right?” Her mother reentered the room.

“Why?”

“It’s hot enough in here to open the windows, and there you sit with a shawl over your shoulders and a hot cup of tea cradled in your hands.”

“Yes, and Jehoshaphat at my feet, who’s purring besides playing foot warmer.” She stroked the cat’s back gently with a wool-slippered foot. “He likes my slippers. You think the catnip I planted in the toes has something to do with that?”

“You didn’t?”

“I did. Some that Cook had dried for him.” Elizabeth sipped her tea, enjoying the fragrance as much as the heat melting down her throat.

“I’m sorry to hear about Mrs. Branson. She was such a sweet thing.”

“Me too.”
That’s probably why I can’t get warm. Her house was so cold, and watching her cough her life away . . .”
And there was nothing we could do. It seems with all the medical knowledge we’ve gained in the last years that we could have done something for her.” She shivered at the memory of the trickle of blood that had come from the corner of the woman’s mouth after a coughing spell.

Elizabeth could feel anger simmering just below the surface. Dr. Gaskin had warned her again that she must not take the loss of a patient personally.

“And you don’t?” she had asked him.

“I try not to, but some do get through anyway.” They both knew he was referring to Mrs. Mueller.

Elizabeth had tried to see his face in the silver dawn.

“If she had been willing to come to the surgery . . .” He had paused. “No, I cannot say that for certain, but Miss Browne is a mighty good nurse, and if we could have caught this before it went so far . . .”

His face looked as gray as the lightening sky. He turned his head. Elizabeth would never forget his eyes.

“That’s the most important thing, to get some of these infections before they get entrenched. Folks don’t have the money, so they wait too long. I’d rather they never paid me a dime if they would just come for help sooner.”

Elizabeth took her hand from under the heavy robe and patted his arm. “Education is part of it.”

“And pride. They don’t want to take anything from anybody unless they can pay for it. Stubborn Norskys. And the Germans are no better.”

“Nor the Swedes nor the . . .”

“Human nature, I guess.” He pulled the horse to a stop in front of her house. “You go on in now and get some sleep. Things will look better after a rest and a good breakfast. At least that’s what the missus always used to say.”

And you still miss her,
she thought. “And you’ll do the same?” She tucked the robe back around his legs.

“For a bit.”

She knew he’d be at work at nine when Nurse Browne opened the doors to his patients. “You have any surgeries today?”

“Not that I know of and no babies due in the next week or so. Of course that never kept some of them from coming. Babies come when they are ready, not when the calendar says. Thanks for coming along. I know you were a comfort to Mrs. Branson. You have a good way about you.”

In spite of the cold, Elizabeth could still feel the warmth that his compliment had caused.

“You’re not catching something, are you? That’s what I worry about when you go off on these home visits with Dr. Gaskin.” Annabelle watched her daughter over the rim of her cup.

Elizabeth didn’t answer. She had no good answer, other than that’s the risk doctors take. She had given in to her mother’s request that she not go out on school nights unless it was an emergency.

She left the desk and went to stand in front of the fire, her back to the blaze, still sipping her tea.

“You should have stayed in bed longer.” Annabelle pulled the fine wool yarn through the eye of the needle and began the methodical stitches that would fill in the background. She already had the blousy ring of roses finished.

Not for the first time, Elizabeth wondered how her mother could keep from keeling over from boredom at the repetition of inserting the needle, pulling the thread through, and pushing the needle down through the next hole, square, or whatever you wanted to call it. But since this was the twelfth chair seat besides all the pictures, footstool covers, and gifts she’d made, her mother must get some satisfaction from it.

Elizabeth would rather stitch wounds closed. But then, that would not appeal to her mother in the least. Her medical skills tended more to bringing tea and chicken soup, not that those weren’t helpful.

Jerking her attention away from her mother, she asked, “Have you been reading Thorliff ’s story?”

“Of course. I read every word of the paper; well, not all the ads. I can tell who wrote each one, whether it has a byline or not. Each of you has your own style and viewpoint.”

“Mother, all I write are obituaries and family news. Oh, and I help design the display ads.”

“Your father appreciates your help, you know.”

“I know.” Elizabeth crossed to the desk to refill her cup. She held up the pot, asking without words if her mother wanted a refill also. Annabelle shook her head and continued stitching.
Father wants me to follow him in the newspaper business. Mother wants me to marry Thornton or some nice young man and become a concert pianist. Doesn’t it matter what I want?

Elizabeth Marie Rogers, quit feeling sorry for yourself. You know both your parents are supporting you to get the education you want. You can put up with a few sighs, looks, and innuendos
. She made her way back to the chair and took up her pen. She had a paper due in her American Literature class, and for a change she hadn’t finished it early. Finding time to read and compare Poe and Melville took longer than she had planned.

She’d much rather be studying physiology.

Sometime later Elizabeth heard the ringing of the doorbell.

“I’ll get it,” she called over her shoulder as she headed down the hall to answer the summons. Opening the door, she smiled as brightly as the sun on the snowbanks. “Why, Thornton, how nice to see you. Come in.” Stepping back, she motioned him inside, then shut the door.

“I was hoping you might take pity on a fellow student and come along ice skating with me. If I have to read another line, I shall go stark raving, maniacally mad.” He made a face fit to scare a young child.

“Now, really, it can’t be that bad.” She motioned for him to hang up his coat and scarf.

“It is in that house. Between Uncle talking on the telephone, the boys fighting, and the dog barking at the boys, I—well, I just left.”

“You could bring your books to study here.” She led the way into the parlor.

“Who was it, dear?” Annabelle entered the room and answered her own question with a pleased smile. “Ah, Thornton, it seems like ages since you were here. I shall order tea and—”

“Thornton has asked me to go skating.”

“Oh, well, in that case we shall have tea when you return, or if you like, you could join us for supper.”

“If you are sure that wouldn’t be imposing.”

“Of course not. I’ll tell Cook. Now you bundle up well, Elizabeth. We can’t have you coming down with something.”

As Annabelle left the room, Thornton raised an eyebrow at Elizabeth.

“It’s nothing, just that I was out on a call all night with Dr. Gaskin, and we lost a patient. I couldn’t seem to get warm this morning after that.”

“You can’t let . . .”

She held up a hand, flat palm out. “Don’t you start too. Knowing to do something and putting that into practice takes just that, practice.

Some things are harder than others.”

“I know.” He gazed through the arch into the music room. “Perhaps this evening you could play for a while?”

“That I will. Now, if you are warm again, let’s be off before the sun sets and the wind whips up.” She heard a male voice in the kitchen.

“Or I get asked to do something else.”

“By all means.” He held her coat for her. “Do you have your skates?”

“Here.” She shoved her arms into the sleeves and turned to the closet where she pulled skates and boots out at the same time. Within a minute they were out the door, still pulling on gloves and tucking scarves into the necks of their coats.

“Oh, what a glorious afternoon. Thank you for getting me out of the house.”

“And for me. You have no idea what it is like at Uncle’s. I feel so sorry for the children, but at least they have their aunt Sonjia there now. She is young and lively.”

She watched a cloud darken his face. “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing.”

But she knew from the twitch of his upper lip that something was indeed bothering him.
Should I tease him out of his mood or find out what lies behind it?
As they strode down the street toward the pond, she thought some more. Rather than the usual half smile, his eyebrows drew a straight line across his forehead, two lines carved the sides of his mouth, and his usually smiling eyes made her think of storm-tossed Lake Superior.

“Thornton, what is wrong?” She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I cannot keep up with you today, and you know I am a fast walker.”

“Sorry.” He covered her mittened hand with his own, still staring off in the distance. “It is not something you can do anything about. I’m not sure even I can.”

Fighting against her nature to urge him on, she waited.

“Let’s walk, or you’ll get chilled.”

“Only if you talk.” She upped the candle power of her smile.

“I . . . I’m concerned about my uncle.”

When he didn’t continue, she prodded. “Yes?”

“I fear he is making a fool of himself. She is so young.” He uttered the words with a noticeable lack of feeling, or perhaps the feeling was trapped behind a wall of propriety.

And any relationship is too soon.
She ignored her jaw that wanted to clench.
No surprise this.
“Can you talk with him?”

“As in, ‘Please pass the salt’ and ‘Do you think it will snow today,’ of course.”

But not as in, “What’s wrong with you, Uncle?”
Elizabeth clamped her teeth over her bottom lip.
Why can men be so smart in some things and so terribly dense in others?
“How can I help you?”

“You already are.” He tucked her hand under his arm. “More than you know.”

True to form, he tucked his cares away behind a wide smile, and they skated until the setting sun turned the snowdrifts to sparkling fire and then dimmed to the shades of her favorite pink rose with blue in the hollows.

“You will stay for supper?” She turned to ask over her shoulder as she opened the front door.

“Of course. I already agreed to that. And after we eat, you will charm us all with a private concert?”

“Of course. You know that is such a trial for me.” She hung her skates back in the closet, along with coat, scarf, and hat, before sitting down on the dark oak Parson’s bench to pull off her boots.

“Let me.” Thornton knelt before her, taking her boot in both hands to pull it off. He glanced up at her to find her studying him. “What? Am I some bug under your microscope?”

“No, not at all.” Their eyes locked.

“Oh, there you are.” Annabelle dusted off her hands as she came down the hall. She stopped midway, trying to hide a smile. “Excuse me if I am interrupting.”

“No, not at all.” Elizabeth turned with a smile, one that she didn’t feel any further than an upturning of her mouth.
What is hiding back there, dear friend, behind the smile you so glibly apply?

“We had a marvelous time skating, Mrs. Rogers. You should have come along.”

“Everyone was out.” Elizabeth tucked her boots under the bench and stood, wishing she could move back the clock to moments before and yet grateful for that impossibility. Surely Reverend Mueller wasn’t behaving improperly?