Crescent City Courtship

Scowling at her presumption, John climbed onto the narrow bench at the front of the cart and flapped the reins. With a snort the mule jerked into motion. As the cart bumped over the uneven bricks of Tchapitoulas Street, John could hear an occasional groan from his patient, accompanied by hisses of sympathy from Abigail.

“Can’t you be more careful?” she shouted over the clop of the mule’s hooves and the rattle of the cart.

He stopped, letting another wagon and several pedestrians pass, and stared at her over his shoulder. “Would you care to drive, Miss—?”

“Neal.” Darkness had nearly overtaken the waterfront, but John detected a hint of amusement in her tone. “My papa often asked my mother the same thing when I was a little girl.” All traces of levity vanished as she sighed. “Forgive me. I know we have to hurry.”

“Yes. We do.” Surprised by the apology and puzzled by an occasional odd, sing-song lilt in the girl’s cultured voice, John stared a moment longer, then turned and clicked his tongue at the mule. He would question Abigail later—after the baby was buried.

A grueling ten minutes later, the cart turned a corner onto St. Joseph Street, leaving behind the waterfront’s crowded rail depots, dilapidated shanties, cotton presses and towering warehouses. Inside the business district, two-and three-story brick buildings hovered on either side of the narrow street like overprotective mammies. Streams of green-slimed water, the result of a recent rain, rushed in the open gutters beside the undulating sidewalks. Businessmen intent on getting home after the day’s work hurried along, ignoring the stench of decayed vegetation, sewage and shellfish that permeated everything.

John frowned, unable to overlook the city squalor. He had tried to convince his father that a platform of sanitation reform would solidify his mayoral campaign. The senior Braddock preferred more socially palatable topics of debate. If all went well, John’s father would be elected in November.

If all did not go well, the pressure would be on John to quit medical school, go into the family shipping business and try for political office himself. Phillip Braddock often opined that power was a tool for good; he meant to grab as much as possible, even if it had to come through his son.

Because John had no intention of becoming anyone’s puppet, he was concentrating on getting his medical diploma and staying out of the old man’s way. As much as John admired him, his father had a great deal in common with the new steam-powered road rollers.

As he guided the cart onto Rue Baronne, he wondered what his father would have to say about these two passengers. Probably shake his leonine head and expound at length on the wages of sin.

He glanced over his shoulder again. Abigail had rested her elbow on the side of the cart and propped her head against her hand. She seemed, incredibly, to be asleep, with Tess dozing in her lap.

What set of circumstances had brought the two of them to such a pass? He saw women like them often, when he and his friends did rounds in the waterfront, but he’d never before had such a personal confrontation with a patient. Or a patient’s caregiver.

“You just passed the hospital,” Abigail said suddenly.

“I thought you were asleep.” Annoyed to have been caught daydreaming, John flipped the reins to make the mule pick up his pace. “We’re not stopping at the hospital. Dr. Laniere has a clinic and a few beds at his home. Tess will be better cared for there.”

“I see.” Abigail was quiet for the remainder of the trip.

The professor’s residence on Rue Gironde was a lovely three-story brick Greek revival, with soaring columns supporting a balcony and flanking a grand front entrance at the head of a flight of six broad, shallow brick steps. Wrought iron graced the balcony and the steps, lending a charming whimsy to the formal design of the house.

John bypassed the curve of the drive circling in front of the house and took a narrower path that passed alongside and led around to the back entrance into the kitchen and clinic. The house and grounds were as familiar to him as the home he’d grown up in. The Braddocks and the Lanieres had maintained social ties since John was a boy, despite the fact that the Lanieres’ loyalties to the Confederacy during the “late upheaval” had been in serious doubt. It was even rumored that Gabriel Laniere had been a Union spy and had fled prosecution as a traitor, leaving Mobile with his wife and a couple of body servants in tow. Phillip Braddock chose to discount such nonsense; ten years ago he had been appointed to the board of directors of the medical college, and remained one of its main financial contributors and fund-raisers.

John drew up under a white-painted portico designed more for function than elegance, which opened into a tiny waiting room off the clinic. He got out and tied the mule, then went around to reach for Tess and the baby. As he slid his arms under her back and knees, Abigail stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. An oil lantern hanging beside the door illuminated a surprising sprinkle of freckles across her formidable nose.

“Thank you for bringing us here,” she said. “You didn’t have to.”

And why had he? John studied the anxious pucker between her level brows. He frowned and straightened. “Hope Willie’s still here,” he muttered to himself. “We’ll need to send the baby to the hospital for burial preparation while we get Tess settled.” He shifted his burden and stepped back. “She needs a clean gown and I want to check her sutures after that ride.”

Abigail struggled to her feet, apparently numb from having sat in one position so long. “Who’s Willie?”

“House servant. Butler, coachman, a bit of everything.” John moved aside as Abigail swung over the side of the cart to the ground. When she appeared to be steady on her feet, he jerked his chin at the door. “Ring the bell and somebody will let us in.”

Abigail pulled the tasseled bell cord and moments later the door opened with a jerk.

“Winona.” For the hundredth time John shook his head at the waste of such exotic loveliness cooped up in a kitchen and doctor’s clinic. “Is there an empty bed in the ward?”

The Lanieres’ young housekeeper’s smooth dark brow folded in instant lines of concern. “Mr. John! What you doin’ here so late?” Clucking her tongue, Winona moved back to let him enter with his slight burden. “Of course there’s a bed. Nobody else here, in fact. Who’s this poor lady?”

She led the way out of the waiting room into the well-stocked dispensary, then into a third room. She lit a gas lamp on a plain side table. Bathed as it was in quiet shadows and antiseptic odors, the room looked inviting enough. John was glad he’d elected to come here, rather than the hospital.

“A maternity call I made late this afternoon. Breech delivery.” As Winona turned down one of the four beds with movements unhurried but efficient, John kept an eye on Abigail. She stood just inside the room, hands clenched in the folds of her skirt. She looked more than out of place. She kept looking out the window as if expecting to be followed. “This is Abigail Neal,” he said.

Winona, in her unassuming way, exchanged nods with the other woman.

“We lost the baby,” John said as he laid his burden on the smooth, clean sheet.

“Bless her heart,” Winona breathed, touching Tess’s wan face and pulling up the top sheet.

“She’ll be fine, but we need to arrange a burial in the morning.” John took the baby out of Tess’s arms. “Where’s Dr. Laniere?”

“Gone to deliver another baby.”

John winced. “Gone how long?”

“Maybe an hour. He’d just come back from the hospital and sat down to supper. Miss Camilla’s upstairs puttin’ the children to bed.”

“All right. I’ll stay until he comes back.” John glanced at Abigail, who looked like she might topple over, if not for the wall behind her. “Winona, could you fix Miss Neal a cup of tea and a biscuit or two? Maybe find her a clean dress and a nightgown for the patient?”

Winona nodded. “Was just goin’ to suggest that. Be back in a bit.” She paused in the kitchen doorway and gave Abigail a kind glance over her shoulder. “Ma’am, there’s a chair over there in the corner if you want to sit down.”

“Thank you—” But Winona had already disappeared. “What a lovely young woman.” Abigail moved the wooden straight chair close to the bed.

“Yes, and she’s a wonderful cook, too.” John had been moving about the room, but when the silence became prolonged, he looked around to find Abigail, head bent, folding pleats in her ugly skirt. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.”

John shrugged and moved to the window, where he stared at his reflection in the dark window. He hoped the professor would be back soon.

Chapter Three

Abigail straightened the lye-scented sheet across Tess’s shoulders and brushed the lank hair away from her face. The chair beside the cot had become most uncomfortable in the last hour, despite the pleasure of the tea and biscuits Winona had provided.

Tess, now clothed in a plain white nightgown Winona pulled from a supply closet, was finally asleep. Abigail herself had been given a faded dark blue cotton dress with elegant jet buttons marching up the front and ending at a neat white stand-up collar. She couldn’t remember ever having worn such a lovely garment.

She looked up at John Braddock. He had ceased prowling the room and now towered at the foot of the bed, holding Tess’s nameless little one close to his sharp-planed face. He had not put the baby down once since he’d picked her up. Expression somber, he brushed the waxen cheek with his knuckle, then examined her minute fingers one by one.

Abigail wondered what drove the emotions that crossed his expressive face. Was it remorse for the loss of his little patient? Did he regret his earlier condescension?

She could hardly believe some of the things she’d done and said to him in the past few hours. Up to this point, her anger at him and fear for Tess had given Abigail strength beyond herself, but something about the young doctor’s tearless grief flayed her emotions. She bent to lay her forehead beside Tess’s shoulder and let hot tears soak the sheet. She was empty. She didn’t know what to do, where to turn.

“Birth and death, all at once.”

Abigail turned her head. “What?”

“I never realized how closely tied they are. Some of us get a lot of time and some get none at all.” John lifted his gaze from the baby’s face and Abigail saw stark confusion in the heavy-lidded hazel eyes. “Do you think it’s all predetermined? Am I wasting my time?”

“I don’t know.” She sat up and scrubbed away her tears with both hands. “The baby might have been dead before you got there.” It was hard to admit that. “Tess would’ve died, too, if you hadn’t come. I was thinking—I’m not sure I could’ve carried on if she had.”

John’s face was a study in consternation. “Is she your sister?”

“No.” Abigail adjusted the sheet again and checked to make sure Tess’s breathing was still regular. “Six months ago I arrived in New Orleans with nowhere to go, no family and no friends. Tess took me in and helped me find a job.”

He stared at her and she felt her face heat. What must she look like to this educated, expensively dressed young high-brow? Even in stained and wrinkled clothing, with his thick hair falling into his eyes from a deep widow’s peak, he looked like he belonged in somebody’s parlor.

“Where did you come from?” His elegantly marked brows drew together. “You don’t look like the usual fare from the District.”

Abigail came out of her chair. “Give me that baby right now—” she tugged at the infant corpse—” and get out of here.” When he resisted, looking down at her as if she were crazy, she glared up into his multicolored eyes. “If you don’t like the way I look, go put on your smoking jacket and settle down for a beer with the fellows. Then you can laugh over us slum wenches to your heart’s content and not think about us one more second.”

The fellow refused to behave in any predictable way. He hooked his free arm around Abigail’s shoulders and yanked her close, the baby between them. “Abigail, I’m sorry.” His voice was husky, almost inaudible.

Abigail stood with her face buried in the fine, still-damp wool of John’s coat, the soft, bulky shell of a baby pressing against her bosom. Her world shifted.

How long? How long since she’d been held in the hard strength of a man’s embrace? Not since she was a small girl, before her mother left and her father became the Voice of God.

She ought to pull away from this improper embrace. Humiliating to need it so much. No more crying, though. She stood stiff, wondering what he was thinking.

“Braddock, what’s going on here?” The deep, resonant voice came from the doorway.

John Braddock let Abigail go and stepped back. “S-Sir! I’m so sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Looked to me like you knew exactly what you were doing.”

Abigail turned, straightening her hair and smoothing her skirt in the presence of the tall, distinguished man who strode into the clinic carrying a black medical bag. His thick black hair, gray-shot on the sides, and the lines fanning out from intelligent black eyes put his age somewhere in the mid-forties, but the trim, athletic figure would have rivaled many a younger man.

Abigail glanced at John, waiting for an introduction. The younger doctor seemed to be struck dumb with mortification. She dropped a curtsy toward the professor, whose mouth had quirked with disarming humor. “Thank you for coming, Dr. Laniere. I’m Abigail Neal. I’m the one who came for you on behalf of my friend Tess.”

“Ah, yes.” Dr. Laniere’s expression sobered. “The difficult labor.” He approached Tess and bent to lay a gentle hand against her forehead, then lifted her wrist to check her pulse.

Abigail met John’s gaze. She started to speak, but he shook his head once, hard, his lips clamped together. “Prof, the baby didn’t make it.” At the professor’s inquiring look John continued doggedly. “Breech presentation kept the baby too long without oxygen. The mother was losing blood quickly, so I made the decision to save her.” His tone was firm, almost clinical, but Abigail heard the note of distress in the elegant drawl.

The young doctor’s contained anguish inexplicably drew Abigail’s sympathy. She had a crazy urge to comfort him.

Dr. Laniere steepled his fingers together, propping his forehead against their tips. For a moment the only sound in the room was Tess’s harsh breathing, then the professor dropped his hands and looked up with a sigh. He approached John to clasp his shoulder. “We’ll talk about your procedures later, Braddock.” He laid his other hand on the baby’s head, as if in benediction. “Why did you bring him here?”

Although he’d missed his guess at the swaddled infant’s sex, Abigail noted with gratitude that he didn’t call the baby “it.”

“They wanted a burial and didn’t have any place to go,” said John. “I told them you’d help us find a minister and a gravesite.”

“Did you?” Dr. Laniere sounded amused.

“Please, sir,” Abigail intervened before John’s defensiveness could spoil their advantage. “We’d be grateful if you could help us. All we can afford is the charity catacombs and I just can’t see that poor little one abandoned there.”

Dr. Laniere stood with his hand resting on Braddock’s shoulder, but he fixed Abigail with a look so full of compassion that she nearly broke down in tears again. “I understand your distress. But you know the baby is in the arms of the Father now.” He smiled slightly. “Perhaps, of all of us, the least abandoned.”

Abigail wished she could believe that.

Hope lifted the discouraged droop of John Braddock’s mouth. “That’s so, isn’t it, sir?”

“As I live and breathe in Christ.” Dr. Laniere squeezed his student’s shoulder. “Now let’s see what we can do to make your patient more comfortable and take care of the baby’s resting place.”

“You will not give her that beastly powder.” Abigail stood in the kitchen doorway, effectively preventing John’s entrance into the clinic. The professor had gone to take care of the burial arrangements, leaving the two of them to watch over Tess. “I’ve known women who never rid themselves of the craving, once they taste it.”

John showed her the harmless-looking brown bottle of morphine. “But it would ease her pain and help her sleep.”

“Yes, but if you slow her heart enough, she may not wake up at all.”

“What do you know about it?” John stiffened. “We’ll ask Dr. Laniere.”

She’d studied on her own, but hadn’t known enough to help her mother. “I know what I’ve seen—”

“John, at the risk of sounding uncivil, what are you doing here so late?”

Abigail turned.

A pretty, curly-haired young matron entered the clinic with a baby of about six months propped on her hip. She tipped her head to smile at Abigail around John’s shoulder. “I’m Camilla Laniere. Meggins, say ‘How do you do.’” She picked up the baby’s hand to wave.

John looked guilty. “I’m sorry if we disturbed you.”

“Nonsense. I was just surprised to see anyone here, that’s all.”

When the baby stuck her chubby fist in her mouth, Abigail smiled. “How do you do, young lady?”

“Afflicted by swollen gums, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Laniere, brushing her knuckles gently across the baby’s flushed cheek. “We came down for a sliver of ice.” She paused, a question in her soft voice. “I didn’t know we had a patient in the clinic.”

Abigail brushed past John. “I’m not the patient, ma’am. My name is Abigail Neal, and my friend Tess is in the ward here. Your husband sent Mr. Braddock to us. He brought us here when—” She faltered. “Tess is very ill. She lost her baby.”

“I’m so very sorry.” Mrs. Laniere reached to clasp Abigail’s hand. She glanced at John, heading off his clear intention to continue the opium debate. “You did well to bring them here, John. What have you done with my husband?”

John blinked, reverting to some instinctive standard of manners. “He’s taking care of laying out the—the body. He sent Willie to find a couple of grave diggers.”

“Ah. Then I assume we’ll have the burial in the morning.”

“Yes, ma’am, before church.” He hesitated. “Because the professor will be back soon, I believe I’ll leave the patient in his hands. She’s resting fairly comfortably now. I’ve a pharmacy test to study for.” He pressed the vial of morphine into Abigail’s hand. “You can trust Dr. Laniere to do the right thing.”

“I’m sure I can.” Pocketing the opiate, Abigail gave him a dismissive nod. “Good evening, Mr. Braddock.”

“Good evening, Miss Neal.”

When he closed the door behind him with a distinct thump, Meg flinched and snuggled her face into her mother’s neck.

Shaking her head, Mrs. Laniere hugged the baby. “Please overlook John’s abruptness. He’s…a bit tense these days.”

“I suppose I should have thanked him.” Abigail leaned against the table, rubbing her aching temple. “Does he think he knows everything?”

“I’m afraid it’s rather characteristic of the genus homo.” Mrs. Laniere smiled. “But John in particular, being considered brilliant in his field, tends to be a bit…insistent in expressing his opinions.”

Abigail laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”

“You must be worried about your friend.” Mrs. Laniere hesitated, swaying with the baby. “My dear, would you care to sit down with me for a cup of tea?”

“I couldn’t impose. Tess—”

“—is resting. We’ll be near enough to hear her if she calls. And I’d like a bit of intelligent female conversation while I nurse the baby.”

Abigail studied Camilla Laniere’s frank, friendly face. There seemed to be no ulterior motive. She smiled faintly. “I’d adore a cup of tea, Mrs. Laniere.”

“Please. Camilla. I’m not that much older than you.”

The doctor’s wife led the way into the kitchen, then unceremoniously handed the baby over to Abigail and began tea preparations. Despite her itchy gums, Meg seemed remarkably placid. Giving a contented sigh, she popped her thumb in her mouth and laid her head on Abigail’s shoulder.

After a startled downward glance, Abigail smiled and patted her charge’s cushioned bottom. Leaning against the dough box, she watched Camilla’s familiar movements around the roomy, well-equipped kitchen. “Where did the servants go?”

“Winona and Willie are our only house servants.” Camilla measured tea into a lovely floral china teapot. “They both go home on Saturday evenings to be with their families on the Lord’s Day.”

“I suppose we interrupted your family time tonight, but I was so grateful when your husband arrived—”

“My dear, you mustn’t apologize.” Camilla set the kettle on the stove to boil and smiled over her shoulder. “Gabriel is always glad to be of service. I would have been down here myself if I hadn’t been putting the children to bed.”

As Abigail stared into Camilla’s golden-brown eyes, something flashed between them—an intuition of friendship, an offer of human connection. Abigail looked away, hardly able to bear this sudden kindness.

After a moment Camilla quietly took the baby, leaving Abigail empty-handed and feeling foolish. “I think you need a place to stay tonight. To be with your friend.” She laughed as Abigail shook her head. “I’m being utterly selfish, you know. Winona and Willie won’t be back until tomorrow evening. If our patient needs something, you’d be here for her.”

“All right.” Abigail returned the smile. “I’ll stay. And of course you must call me Abigail. ‘Miss Neal’ ran away many years ago and hasn’t been heard from since.” Touching the baby’s pink foot, she looked up from under her lashes. “Besides, I have to make sure the Barbarian doesn’t try to feed opium to Tess.”

Feeling a soft little hand patting her cheek, Abigail struggled out of deep sleep into utter darkness.

“Winona! Winona, wake up, I’m thirsty!” lisped the small, invisible person behind the hand. “It’s hot and Mama’s rocking the baby and I can’t sleep.”

Abigail suddenly remembered where she was. Winona’s little room off the clinic, just a few steps from Tess’s bed in the ward. This must be one of the Laniere children.

She sat up. “I’m not Winona, I’m Abigail. But I’ll get you a drink of water—just a minute, let me light a candle.”

“Ooh! Just like Goldilocks! What’re you doing in Winona’s bed?”

Abigail laughed. “Winona will be back tomorrow.” Swinging her legs off the side of the bed, she lit the candle and held it up so she could see the wide, bespectacled eyes of a little boy who looked like his mother—probably around seven years old, judging by the missing front teeth. His hair curled in every direction but down and his nightgown was buttoned two buttons off, so that the hem hitched crookedly around his knees.

He poked his spectacles up on his button nose with one finger. “You ain’t Goldilocks. Your hair’s brown.”

Abigail tugged the braid hanging over her shoulder, wishing for a proper nightcap. “It is indeed. What’s your name?”

“Diron. Are you gonna get me a drink or not?”

Since Camilla had thoughtfully provided a pitcher of clean water and a cup for her guest before retiring, Abigail smiled and poured a drink for the boy. Diron downed it quickly and held out the cup for more. It was then that she noted the small red blister on the child’s forehead.

“Just a minute.” She reached out to push back the bright curls. His forehead was warm.

Enduring her touch with a long-suffering frown, Diron scratched his stomach.

“How long have you been itching?” she asked.

“I dunno. I must’ve got a bunch of mosquito bites. Can I please have some more water?”

“Certainly. But I want to see your tummy.”

She poured the water, then while he drank it, matter-of-factly unbuttoned his nightgown. His chest and upper abdomen were covered with the tiny red blisters. Chicken pox.

No wonder the poor child was so hot and thirsty. Camilla was busy with the baby, but she would want to know.