Her Hesitant Heart

Her cousin made no move. There had been a time when they had shared secrets, and a bed when they went to visit their mutual grandmamma, a tough old boot from Gettysburg who had spent that battle frying doughnuts for whichever army happened to control the town on any particular day and tramped near her kitchen.

One of them had to speak, and Susanna knew she was the one with both gratitude and grievance. “Emily, I appreciate your arranging this teaching position,” she said, before the silence between them reached an awkward stage.

Emily turned startled eyes on her. “I had nothing to do with it,” she exclaimed. “Mama knows a lady in town who is a sister of the colonel of the regiment. Mama inquired about any teaching positions out here, and word eventually got to the colonel. Mama contacted me.” There was no ignoring her tiny sigh, until Emily put on her company face again. “I told her we didn’t have room, but you know my mama.”

“I appreciate your sacrifice,” Susanna said. She knew her aunt’s expertise in twisting Emily’s arm, even through the U.S. mail. “This is a fresh start for me.”

She should have left it there, but she couldn’t, not with her anxiety about Captain Dunklin and his wife from Carlisle. “Why did you tell people I am a widow?”

Emily’s company face vanished as her eyes grew smaller. “Do you think I want anyone to know that you abandoned your child, and your husband divorced you for neglect?” she whispered.

Susanna gasped. “Emily, what have you heard? If I hadn’t left the house, Frederick would have beaten me to death!” She closed her eyes, remembering the pain and terror, and Tommy’s mouth open in a scream on the other side of the window as he watched her stagger down the walkway. “I didn’t abandon him! I had to save myself!”

“The newspaper Papa sent me said abandonment,” Emily told her, sounding virtuous, superior and hurt at the same time. “Such a scandal! I had to say what I did, or you never would have been hired. You should thank me for thinking of it.”

“What the papers printed was a lie. My former husband—when he sobered up—hired a good lawyer and paid all the other lawyers in a fifty-mile radius not to take my case,” Susanna said, trying not to raise her voice. “You never had to say anything. I am just Mrs. Susanna Hopkins. All they want is a teacher.”

Emily looked at her with sad eyes. “What did you do to make him so angry?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Susanna replied, wanting to end this inquisition, because her cousin’s mind was already made up. Pennsylvania may have been miles away, but nothing had changed. “About five years ago, Frederick’s business began to fail and he started drinking to excess. After that, nothing I did was right. Nothing.”

She stopped, thinking of those afternoons she had come to dread, waiting for Frederick to return home. She’d always tried to gauge his attitude as he walked up the front steps. Was he going to be sober and withdrawn, ready to sulk in his study? Or would he be drunk and looking everywhere for something to touch off a beating or more humiliating behavior, once Tommy was asleep? She never knew which it would be.

For all his simplicity, Susanna knew Emily’s husband was a kind man and her cousin would never suffer such treatment. Emily hadn’t the imagination to think ill of Frederick, who could put on a company face as good as her own.

“I’m certain you meant well,” she told her cousin. “Captain Dunklin informed me that his wife is from Carlisle, too. Suppose she writes someone back home and mentions Susanna Hopkins?”

“Carlisle is so far away,” Emily said, locating it somewhere next to Versailles. “I’m sorry if I did the wrong thing, but you don’t know these women, Susanna! They’re so superior. If they knew you were a notorious divorcee, no one would receive me, and Captain Reese’s career would suffer. I had to tell that little lie!”

“Notorious divorcee?” Susanna said, stunned. “Emily, I am nothing of the sort! I have been wronged in the worst way, whether you believe it or not.”

They stared at each other, her cousin with a wounded expression, and Susanna wondering how Emily had become the victim.

“When did you start wearing spectacles?” Emily asked, obviously wanting to change the subject.

“After Frederick pushed my face into the mantelpiece and fractured the bone under my eye,” Susanna said, not so willing to let Emily off the hook. “I don’t see too well out of that eye.” Susanna touched Emily’s arm. “We’ll hope that Captain Dunklin’s wife has no curiosity about doings in Pennsylvania.”

“I won’t give it another thought.”

I don’t doubt that for a minute, Susanna thought as she said good-night. After she closed the army blanket around her quasi room, Susanna sat still, her mind in turmoil. As she contemplated the gray blanket that constituted a wall, she felt a chill more than cold seeping into her bones.

She undressed in the cold space, then did what she always did, closed her eyes and thought of her son. Usually she got no farther than that, but this time she added Major Randolph to her mental inventory. It was not a prayer, because she had given up pestering God.

A bugle woke her in the morning, followed at an interval by a different melody. After the second call, she smiled at a massive groan from the Reeses’ bedroom, which suggested to her that Emily’s lord and master was not an early riser by inclination.

Captain Reese eventually clumped downstairs, swearing fluently, which told her the true source of his son’s salty language, rather than the family through the wall. Susanna heard Captain—O’Leary, was it?—go down his own set of stairs on the other side of the wall, and decided there wasn’t much privacy in army housing.

As Susanna lay there, she heard Mrs. O’Leary, in her bedroom through the wall, reciting the rosary. Her low murmur sent Susanna back to sleep.

When she woke again, Stanley had pulled back her blanket and was staring at her. She remembered the times when Tommy had done the same thing: same solemn stare, same lurking twinkle in his eyes. With a laugh, Susanna pulled him down beside her. Stanley shrieked, then giggled as she snuggled with him.

“Did your mama send you to wake me up?”

“Damn right,” he said, the twinkle in his eyes daring her.

Time to nip this in the bud, Susanna thought.

“Do you know what I used to do to your cousin Tommy when he said things that he knew would shock me?”

Stanley shook his head. “Mama usually shakes her fist at the wall.”

Susanna sat up, her arms around Stanley, who had settled in comfortably. “I reach for a bar of pine tar soap, shave off a handful and make Tommy chew it.”

Stanley’s eyes grew wide. “You would do that to a small child?” he squeaked, which made her cover her mouth and turn her head slightly, to keep her amusement private.

“Yes! Tommy never cusses anymore. I would advise you not to, either,” she said, looking him right in the eye.

Stanley considered the matter. “Would you make my father chew soap, too?”

“I’ll leave that to your mother. But as for you …” Susanna reached around him into her carpetbag and found a bar of soap.

Stanley flinched but did not leave her lap. With that dignity of children that always touched her, he eyed the soap and said, “I’ll tell Mama that you will be down to breakfast directly. Major Randolph is waiting, too.”

Oh, he is, she thought, flattered. “I’ll hurry. Stanley, no more cussing. Promise?”

He nodded. She put the soap back in her carpetbag and hugged him, then set him on his feet. “Stanley, I knew you would see the good in doing right.”

He nodded in that philosophical way of four-year-olds and went down the stairs at a sedate pace that lasted for only a few steps. Susanna dressed quickly, wishing that everything she owned wasn’t wrinkled. She had no washbasin, so she went into her cousin’s room and washed her face, hoping Emily wouldn’t mind.

Major Randolph sat in the dining room, frowning at a bowl of oatmeal. “My mother always told me it was good for me.”

“It is, Major,” Susanna said, standing in the doorway.

“Very well. I’ll eat it if you’ll join me,” he said, indicating another bowl of oatmeal.

She sat down beside the major and picked up her spoon. “Race you,” she said.

He smiled and started to eat. Emily came into the room and sat down, too, a stunned look in her eyes.

Susanna put down her spoon. “Emily?”

“Stanley told me he will never swear again. What did you do?”

“I threatened him with pine tar soap, then appealed to the better angels of his nature, to quote our late president,” Susanna told her.

Emily’s eyes were wide with puzzlement. “Our late president?”

“Abraham Lincoln. Stanley knows his limits now. I am fond of little boys.”

Susanna glanced at the post surgeon, who was smiling at her. She returned her attention to her oatmeal, pleased.

When Emily returned to the lean-to kitchen, Major Randolph whispered, “After sick call this morning, I went to Captain Dunklin’s quarters, prescribed a moderate diet and praised him for bearing up under the strain of what I am calling erobitis.”

“Erobitis?” she repeated. “I am afraid to ask. I know that ‘itis’ means inflammation of, or disease of.”

“I expected a teacher to know that. Just spell ‘erob’ backward and you have it.”

“Where is this erob located on the body?” she asked when she could speak.

“Somewhere between the spleen and the bile duct, I should think, right next to the coils of umbrage,” he said serenely. “More coffee?”

“If I drank coffee right now, I would snort it out my nose,” she joked.

“Bravo, Mrs. Hopkins,” the doctor replied with a grin. “I have never heard anything resembling wit come out of Captain Reese’s quarters.”

“Hush,” she whispered. “You will get us both in trouble.”

Before the major could say anything, the bugler blew another call.

“Guard mount,” Major Randolph said. “To the porch.”

He gestured toward the front door as Stanley ran in from the kitchen. The major scooped up the little boy and carried him outside. He set Stanley on the porch railing and held him there, then pointed toward the end of the parade ground. “The bugler stands in front of the adjutant’s office, or post headquarters.”

“And the bugle calls?”

“Rubbing the sleep from his eyes before any of us—unless I have some calamity to deal with in hospital—the bugler starts with reveille first call, which is followed by reveille, and then assembly, when all the men line up in front of their barracks to be counted.” Major Randolph touched Stanley’s head. “What comes next, lad?”

“Breakfast call,” the child said promptly. “My favorite.”

“That is followed by surgeon’s call,” the major continued, “my favorite, Stanley. The infirm, lame and malingering stagger to the hospital, or I am summoned to the barracks. I just came from surgeon’s call, so the call that followed was guard mount.”

Susanna looked at the other porches down Officers Row, where other women and children watched.

“Usually the band performs for guard mount. They won’t play outdoors until at least the end of February. The night watch will pass—here they come now—and be replaced by the day watch, which means the guard for a twenty-four-hour period is mounted. Right now, the new guard is being inspected by the sergeant major—see? Over there in front of the old guardhouse.”

She looked. “I gather the sergeant major is someone to be obeyed.”

“I never cross him, even though I far outrank him,” Major Randolph joked. “Now he is giving the new guard their assignments. Here comes the officer of the day, Lieutenant Bevins of Company D. That means I am on high alert today, because his wife is about to present him with a child. He will be unbearable if I do not stop by his quarters a few times today.”

“You know these people well.”

“There are few secrets in garrison, and I am privy to most of the sordid details,” he told her.

Let’s hope my fake widowhood remains a secret, Susanna thought, returning her attention to the parade ground. “What is Lieutenant Bevins doing? He’s the one with the bright red sash?”

“Indeed he is. He’s inspecting the guard now, and will probably lead them through a short version of the manual of arms. Before frostbite sets in, he will give them the new password and the guard will take positions inside the guardhouse. Done for another morning. What comes next, Stanley, my man?”

“Fatigue call,” the little boy piped up, making the same sounds as the bugler, his fist to his mouth. He looked at Susanna for approval, and she kissed the top of his head.

“That means work detail,” the post surgeon explained, as he helped Stanley down from his perch. “They’ll work at various duties until the bugler blows recall, and then it’ll be mess call, Stanley’s other favorite call. There are other calls. You’ll learn them, because this is how we tell time at a fort. Now let us visit Major Townsend.”

“But it was Colonel Bradley who wrote to me about the teaching position. Is he not here?”

“He’s back East and Major Ed Townsend is commanding officer until he returns in a few weeks. Your credentials, madam?”

Susanna retrieved her credentials. Major Randolph waited in the parlor for her.

“Are you ready to sign a contract?”

She was, but Susanna only nodded, not trusting herself with words, because she wanted that contract so much. This will be a fresh start, she told herself as they walked along the row.

Major Randolph interpreted her silence correctly. “All the major wants is a schoolteacher,” the surgeon said. “He has a garrison to run, and more important concerns than your cousin’s lie.”

“I don’t relish pretending I am someone I am not, but Emily has already baked my cake for me, hasn’t she?” Susanna asked.

“Yes, sad to say,” he agreed. He stopped. “Should we say something to the major about Emily’s lie? It makes me uneasy, but would talking about something that might never happen make it worse?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s … let’s not.”

They went to the adjutant’s office, a small building located between two double houses. A corporal seated at a high desk stood and saluted, then knocked on an interior door and went inside.

“Major Townsend is second in command of the Ninth Infantry,” Major Randolph explained. “Because there are more companies of the Ninth Infantry here than of the Second Cavalry, Major Townsend also commands this garrison. That’s the army way.”

When the corporal came out, he ushered them into Townsend’s office. Her former husband would have described Townsend as someone built like a fireplug, and so he was, Susanna decided. His hair was white and his smile genuine. He gestured to a chair in front of his desk and she sat. With what she thought was real impertinence, Major Randolph perched on the edge of the desk.

“We are friends of long acquaintance, Mrs. Hopkins,” Townsend said, correctly interpreting her expression. “It took only a brief stay in Joe Randolph’s aid station during the siege of Atlanta to form a friendship.”

Townsend nodded to his corporal, who brought another chair into the small space, so Major Randolph could sit.

Susanna took out her teaching certificates. “You’re a busy man. I won’t take up much of your time.”

“That makes you more efficient than most of my company officers,” he said, taking the papers from her. “Let us see here. Hmm, a second grade certificate, and you attended Oberlin College for three years.” He put down the paper and looked at her over his glasses. “This already makes you more intelligent than most of my officers. All they did was go to West Point and accumulate demerits.”

Susanna laughed. “Major Townsend, I doubt that!”

“I exaggerate only slightly,” he admitted. “Most served with distinction in our late war. You will teach a four-month school, ending in mid-May, for which the officers with schoolchildren have contracted to pay you forty dollars a month?”

“That is my understanding,” she replied. “My certificate is valid only in Pennsylvania, but the closest examination site here is Denver.”

“No matter. Pennsylvania’s loss is our gain.”

“Thank you, Major Townsend,” she said. “I believe there is a contract …”

“… which I have right here.” The major took a paper from his corporal. “Women and children in garrison come and go, but right now, you have ten students ranging in age from seven to fifteen. Each classroom day will begin following guard mount. Mess call will be observed, and then you will resume teaching until an hour before stable call.”

The major correctly interpreted her perplexed expression. “Let’s make that from nine-thirty to noon, and then one to three o’clock. Four and a half hours to educate a collection of children not used to school.” He leaned back in his chair. “My children are being educated in the East, with my dear wife. Army life often means separation. Your being here means officers’ children will be able to stay with their families. I doubt the children will be grateful, but I am. Sign, Mrs. Hopkins.”

She signed. He took the contract from her and stood up, ending their brief interview. “Joe can show you our idea for a classroom. Good day.”

She nodded to Major Townsend and was almost through the door when he stopped her.

“Mrs. Hopkins, I am sorry for your loss,” he said simply. “It always seems that war is hardest on those who don’t wage it.”

Red-faced, Susanna nodded and let Major Randolph usher her out. “I hate deception,” she whispered, when they were outside in the cold again. “Maybe I should have said something. You know him well. Should I?”

The surgeon remained silent for a long moment, then shook his head slowly. “I think the moment for that passed when Emily told her lie,” he whispered back. “I confess I am not certain what to do. What do you think, Mrs. Hopkins?”

I think this will not end well, she told herself.

Chapter Six

She let him take her arm on the icy steps outside. The cold air felt good on her face; too bad it could not calm her conscience.

“I think this the best place for school,” the major was saying as they continued around the parade ground until they stood in front of Old Bedlam, with its bizarre red paint. “The front room used to be headquarters, during the late war,” he said, careful with her on the steps. “It’ll be a good classroom. As you will see, we’ve been accumulating desks.”

He opened the door and it swung on creaky hinges. He went to the window and pulled back the draperies, which made her cough.

“God, what a firetrap,” the surgeon said mildly. “What do you think?”

When the dust settled, Susanna walked around the room, admiring the mismatched but suitable desks. She looked at a connecting door.

“Bachelor officer’s quarters,” he said. “Some overworked second lieutenant with no family lives there. We call them orphans. This building is referred to as the orphanage.”

He walked to a small desk with delicately turned legs, the best desk in the room. “This will be yours. Well?”

“This will do,” she said, feeling her spirits rise as she began to see a classroom in the dust, mouse nests and cobwebs. “I’d like to start school on Monday. Is there time for a miracle?”

“That’s barely a challenge for the U.S. Army,” Major Randolph said. “I probably have half a dozen stools in the hospital for the desks, and we can find more. The officer of the day is always looking for work projects for his guardhouse jailbirds, who can clean this room.”

He must have interpreted her dubious look correctly. “Mrs. Hopkins, you are in no danger! When I finish organizing this little work party, I’ll introduce you to Nick Martin. There is no prisoner who will do anything other than what he is told, once Nick fixes the stink eye on them.”

She looked in the post surgeon’s eyes. “You’re going to keep me safe, aren’t you?” she asked.

“To quote your cousin, the profane Stanley, ‘Damn straight,’” he told her. “I doubt we’ll ever have another teacher with three years’ matriculation at Oberlin College. You’re valuable.”

With a nod, Major Randolph left her in the dusty room. She watched his jaunty stride to the adjutant’s office, and then across the parade ground to the guardhouse, a man on a mission. The room was cold, but she took off her coat anyway, and her bonnet. Standing on the stool, she unhooked the draperies from the metal rods and sent them to the floor in a cloud of dust. “‘You’re valuable,’” she repeated out loud. “Major Randolph says so.”

By the time the corporal of the guard quick-marched a half dozen soldiers dressed in coats with a large P on the back into her classroom, three privates from the quartermaster department clattered up with brooms, buckets, mops and scrub brushes. The corporal found a keg somewhere and sat on it, as she handed each prisoner a broom and issued her own orders for the removal of the draperies.

No one had anything to say—Susanna didn’t know what was proper with prisoners—so they worked in silence until the bugler blew what must have been recall from fatigue, because the men put down their brooms and mops. The corporal stood up and spoke for the first time.

“We’ll be back here in one hour, ma’am,” he told her, as his prisoners lined up and marched out.

“Amazing,” she said, looking around at the bare room, which smelled strongly of pine soap now. She knew it was time for luncheon; the bugle said so.

Her stomach growled, but she sat on the stool, reluctant to return to her cousin’s quarters because she felt no welcome there. Probably Major Randolph had returned to his hospital.

Funny she should think of him. A moment later, she heard a man clear his throat and then tap on the open door. “Meditating? Nurturing second thoughts? Hungry?” the major asked, standing there.

“Two out of three,” she replied. “I quit second thoughts somewhere around Chicago.”

“Excellent!” He turned around. “She’ll be pleased to see you, Katie.”

As Susanna watched, the surgeon ushered in the woman who’d been on the porch yesterday. She was in an advanced stage of pregnancy, and possessed of lively green eyes and red hair.

Susanna stood up and gestured to the stool. “Please have a seat.”

The lady glanced at the surgeon. “Should I sit before I actually admit who I am?” she asked him, humor evident in her lovely brogue.

“I suspect she knows who you are,” Randolph replied. “Let me introduce Katie O’Leary, your neighbor through the wall.”

Susanna offered her hand, and Katie shook it before sitting down. She handed Susanna a sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. “It’s only bread and butter with a lump of government beef that I mangled with my food grinder to make it less intimidating. That is, if you’re hungry.”

“I am. Did you bring a sandwich for yourself, Mrs. O’Leary?”

Katie nodded and pulled a second sandwich out of a cloth bag. “I have carrots for later.” She frowned. “Major, I didn’t prepare a morsel for you.”

Randolph held up his hand. “No worries. I think there is some kind of mystery chowder lurking in my quarters. I wanted you two to meet. I’ll be back later.”

He turned to leave. “Major …” Susanna began.

He looked back, with a kind expression. “Mrs. Hopkins, make no bones about this—I respond better to Joe.”

“I couldn’t possibly,” Susanna said automatically.

“Try it sometime,” he told her. “Until then, yes, what can I do for you?”

“I doubt this fireplace draws well.”

“I’ll have the quartermaster clerk send over our nearest approximation to a chimney sweep.”

“And that would be …”

He shrugged. “I have no idea, but I doctored two of the clerk’s children through a fearful round of diarrhea, and he will help me, by God. Good day, ladies.”