Firefly (36 page)

Oddly enough, Katharine had not suggested that Julie cancel the invitation as a way of avoiding trouble.  She seemed, rather, quite content to leave the situation as it stood.

Wilhelm did not.  As if echoing Katharine's earlier admonitions, he took a half step closer to Julie and asked, "Just what do you think you will tell your fiancé?  That you had dinner with another man? And what do you think he will say to that?"

"Must I tell him anything?" Surprised at her own defiance, Julie turned back to the gravy that was just beginning to thicken.  "No, Papa, I'm not trying to keep anything from Hans, and of course I will tell him that we had Dr, Morgan for dinner.  I have nothing to hide."

It was just as well she had turned around, because a guilty flush crept up to her cheeks.  Those kisses loomed much greater suddenly.  And her feelings.  Stirring the gravy slowly, she began to think about hiding those feelings, not just for a day or two or even a few weeks, but for the rest of her life.

"Papa, it's over and done with.  I invited him, and whether it was a mistake or not, we can't turn him away.  I promise not to do it again."

"You most certainly will not.  And I think it is time to start thinking about a date for this wedding.  Hans and I will discuss it Sunday."

The spoon nearly clattered to the floor, but Julie caught it just in time.  When she looked around, Wilhelm had already retreated to the parlor.

Julie spoke very little through the meal, except to acknowledge Morgan's compliments, both on the food and on her work at the office.  She kept a watchful eye on her father, who said even less than she, and on her mother, who talked almost incessantly.

Julie heard very little of that constant chatter, because her mind was staggering under a weight of confusion.  Seated across from her, Morgan rarely so much as glanced her way, but there was something about his manner that suggested he was more than just grateful for a decent meal.  But how much more?  Enough to encourage her in the enterprise that impish little voice proposed to her?  If not, she'd make a complete fool of herself, worse than before.  On the other hand, she cringed at the thought of losing something that could be hers for the asking.

If only she knew how to ask.  The men she had known before Morgan had all come to her without any conscious effort on her part.  She knew that.  Even her father and mother had told her that she could hardly help herself and must put herself under their guidance to avoid additional transgressions.  What, she tried to remember, had she done differently then?  The eyeglasses were gone, but other than that, she could think of nothing.  Her clothes had never been different from what the other girls wore, nor her hairstyle.

"Julie?"

Morgan's voice brought her back to the present with a blink.

"Would you pass the gravy, please?" he asked politely, but his little wink suggested something else.  "It's been quite a busy week, hasn't it.  You'd better turn in early and get a good night's sleep."

She didn't dare sigh her relief that he had thought her lack of concentration due to nothing more than exhaustion.

He seemed about to say something else, but a loud pounding on the door interrupted him.  He set his silverware down and waited alertly while Wilhelm went to the door.  Just a few seconds later, he returned.

"A patient for you, Doctor," he muttered, barely civil.

Morgan pushed his chair back and set his napkin beside his plate.

"Excuse me," he said quietly, his face a mask of concern.

At the door stood a boy of twelve or thirteen, his clothes dirty and threadbare.  Morgan didn't recognize him.  Another person,  a woman, sat on the top step of the porch.

"You the doc?" the boy asked.

"I am.  What can I do for you?"

He stepped outside, strode past the boy to the woman, who moaned in pain.

"It's my ma," the boy said.  "She's havin' a baby only Pa says it's too early.  She's in a awful bad way."

"Take her over to my office," Morgan ordered.  "Carry her if you have to.  The door's locked, but I'll be there in a minute."

"Is she gonna die?"

"I can't tell that, son, until I take a look at her.  Now get going."

He waited just long enough to see the pair on their way, then turned to re-enter the house, but Julie was already standing in the doorway.

"I'll come if you need me," she said.

He had only a second or two in which to make up his mind.  She was exhausted, more so even than he, but he knew he might very well need her help.

"Thanks, Julie."

Chapter Twenty-one

The long struggle was over.  The surgery smelled of blood, of sweat and tears and pain.  One lamp had guttered out, leaving the room bathed in sharp shadows.

Morgan dried his hands on a clean towel and stepped away from the table where Alice Elroy's body lay still.

"I did everything I could," he sighed.  "Everything I knew how."

He dropped the towel to the floor with the dozens of others and then turned to Julie.  She was bent over the makeshift crib on the counter.  At first he thought she was just checking on the tiny infant nestled among the flour sacking in the hastily emptied packing crate, but when he saw her body shake and then stiffen, he knew she was desperately fighting tears.

"Go on home, Julie.  Ard will be here in a little while, and I can take care of the rest."

She shook her head.  Why did he always send her away? And why couldn't she tell him that no matter how difficult, how gruesome the tasks ahead, she would endure any and all of them if only she could stay with him?  To go home and be alone while her mind relived the events of the evening would be far worse torture.

"I'm all right," she insisted, trying not to sniffle.  "Besides, what are you going to do with the baby?"

"There's nothing I
can
do.  You saw for yourself how weak he is."

She knew he was right.  She knew that if she stayed she would only watch another human being die.  Another shudder rippled through her like a blast of cold wind.  Then warmth enveloped her as Morgan's hands on her shoulders gently turned her around and pulled her into his arms.

Finally, having steadied his voice if not his hands, he whispered, "Thanks, Julie.  I don't know what I'd have done without you."

He had no intention of doing anything more to express his gratitude, yet he still felt somehow relieved when Ard Hammond, the stage agent and undertaker, arrived.   Julie found a sheet to wrap the body in before Morgan lifted Alice onto Ard's stretcher.

"You want some help carrying her down to the shop?" the physician asked.

"Nope, I brought my boy with me," the grizzled, morbid-looking Ard replied.  Julie's first impression of the man weeks ago had never changed; she could not imagine anyone who fit the image of an undertaker so perfectly.  "Dave!" he called suddenly.  "Git on in here and he'p me."

His son, who entered the room briskly and took up the other end of the stretcher, would no doubt eventually look just like Ard.

"The Elroy boy says he's gonna go back fer his pa," Ard explained as they maneuvered the stretcher through the door Morgan held open.  "It's a long walk, though, so I loaned him a horse.  Not too many people steal from an undertaker."

He laughed, and the sound, so dry and morbid, sent a chill down Julie's back.

She watched the men and their burden leave, then returned to her work.  The table had to be cleaned and disinfected, as well as the floor.  She walked wearily to the kitchen to fill a bucket with hot water from the stove and to get the mop.  The cauldron was nearly empty by then, so she pumped it full and added more wood to the fire as well.  The mess had to be cleaned now, or it would be impossible to stand tomorrow.

When she returned to the surgery with her bucket and mop, she found Morgan already busy at the table.  He had cleaned up the worst of the gore.

"What are you doing?" she asked, echoing his own earlier question.

"I thought I'd lend a hand.  I figured you wouldn't leave until everything was done."

"You were right.  By the way, have you got any spare clothes here you can change into? You ought to get that shirt soaking in cold water or the bloodstains will never come out."

He looked down at his shirt, knowing it was a ruin.  It was a good shirt, too, not one of his old ones.  He had worn it to dinner, never expecting an emergency of quite this proportion.  The pants, too, were stained, and with more than just blood.

"No extra shirts, but I think there's a pair of old denims upstairs."

"Then go put them on and I'll get these soaking."

"Winnie can do it; that's what she gets paid for," he protested, wringing out a cloth and swiping it across the enamel again.

"Miss Upshaw does your laundry on Monday and this is Friday night.  Now, for once, will you do as I tell you without an argument?"

He managed somehow to find a bit of a smile, then dropped his rag into the basin and headed for the stairs.

The two rooms above were almost bare, except for Horace's bed and dresser in one and a stack of boxes that served as storage crates in another.  It was in the second room that Morgan had left the old denims, folded more or less neatly on top of a crate.  He set the lamp he had carried with him on the floor and shrugged out of his shirt.  He hoped it wasn't totally ruined.  Next came the pants, which at least wouldn't show the stains.  Quickly, knowing that Julie was working and waiting, he pulled the dungarees up over his hips and buttoned them.  They fit more snugly than his others, so he didn't worry about their falling off as he hurried back down the stairs.

Julie had hauled the galvanized washtub from the pantry and filled it about half full of cold water.  When Morgan couldn't find her in the surgery, he went immediately to the kitchen, and there she was, kneeling over the tub while she wrung out the towels that had already been soaking various buckets and bowls and basins.

"Need some help?" he asked, dropping to his knees beside her.

She shook her head and turned slightly away from him.

He sensed the change instantly.

"Julie, what's wrong?  Is it because I'm not wearing a shirt? Shall I get my coat and put it on?"

Again she shook her head, but this time she could not maintain complete control.  A softly strangled sob burst from her like a soap bubble, and she dropped a wadded rag into the washtub with a mournful splash.

"The baby's gone, too," she said.

"Oh, God, no."

Torn between not wanting to leave her and yet needing to check on the infant himself, Morgan got to his feet but did not immediately go to the surgery.  He told himself over and over again he had known it would happen, that there was no hope, but the reality, the finality, only now hit him.

Let Ard Hammond tend to the dead; Del Morgan's job was with the living.

He knelt beside Julie again, curling her into the embrace that she fit so well.