"Hopkins! We are agreed then? That you shall ask him to play, not I?" Jed demanded.
He was lively today, Henry thought, his dark eyes bright and he had had a joke or cheerful remark for each man as he made his rounds. The patients had basked in his levity and Jed was quite good at adjusting his comments to suit the boy before him without condescending; Hale could do neither and his patients had a harder time with their recoveries from his surgical interventions though they left the table more quickly, The overall survival rate was nearly the same for both surgeons though Henry had noted that Nurse Hastings paid extra attention to Hale's patients, which might have accounted for it; she had a wicked tongue and clearly more than just a taste for hard liquor, but she was a finer physician than Hale could aspire to be and Henry tried to weigh that in the balance when she was particularly unpleasant or snide. Their common goal was to return these soldiers to the front to fight, or barring that, to their homes to heal. Any that escaped the coffin's final cradle were a victory to be celebrated.
Henry had learned that Jed Foster was the weathervane of Mansion House, an easy way to read the eddies and currents within the place. He had thought the Executive Officer must be the compass or the sturdy foundation for the hospital's staff and patients and that Jed would take that role on, perhaps without even realizing it, but the promotion couldn't accomplish such a dramatic alteration in the man's character. He was still brilliant and insightful but volatile, given to excess and needed a curb from without to reinforce what was within. No, the guiding, sustaining force of Mansion House, since her arrival in her smart blue bonnet and traveling coat, had been Nurse Mary. No teasing, mild or cruel, had dissuaded her, no ignominy or calamity could derail her. Truly, the hospital had been more hospitable, in every way, since she had taken charge. If Jed was playful and bright today, yet calm enough to skillfully modulate his tone for the boy whom he could not save but could still provide a consolation that escaped Henry, the source must be the New Hampshire Baroness, all modesty and righteousness, the gentlest termagant Henry had ever met.
Nurse Mary still tried to conceal her affection for Jedediah Foster in a way the man did not; Henry wasn't sure if Jed was unaware of how he changed around Mary or if he just didn't care. Perhaps neither was true and his tender devotion overwhelmed any ability or effort to master it. In any case, Mary saw that Mansion House ran properly in every dimension, to the best of her formidable ability, making the job much easier for Captain McBurney. He, at least, had seen her for who she was, how she wished to be perceived, from his first day and never failed to praise her in the most acceptable terms. And so, of course, she'd also been the one to discover the chess board and suggest he and Jed meet across a black and white field of battle. She said she didn't care much for the game herself, but he noticed she watched with a keen eye when she brought them coffee and cakes and he'd once seen her run a careful finger down the carved, fluted skirt of the queen, just as Jed so often did.
He and Foster made a regular habit of the games, as regular as anything could be during the War. They met after dinner and it had been quite difficult the first few times for Henry to shake the memory of poor Tom Fairfax. The longer he was dead, the younger Tom seemed to Henry and the chaplain regretted the tumblers of whiskey he'd poured them both, even though it had seemed the Virginian could hold his liquor as well as any man. He'd so wanted to help the boy, he'd convinced himself he had but the truth will out and Tom was dead, by his own hand. The third night he'd matched wits with Foster, Jed had confronted Henry, asking what occupied his mind, a sermon or something else, since his gambits were abysmal. When he'd confessed, an inversion of the traditional relationship, Jed had been quiet for some time, not glibly dismissive or brusque with Henry's guilt which Foster did not mistake for sentimentality. He'd offered not reassurance, but commiseration, telling the story of a patient Jed had been sure he could heal and how the man had wept, begged him to stop, "I couldn't imagine there was something worse than death, maybe that is the physician's flaw, maybe it's only mine… but now I see, there can be, there can be a life unlivable, intolerable. I cannot believe a compassionate God would judge Tom or you, me or Private Thornton, only men judge so harshly, Henry."
Henry Hopkins found he remembered that, those words in that room as much as he remembered telling Tom about his own failings, the cruelty once and still within him. Henry's aggression was restricted now to carrying off pawns and rooks, absconding with Jed's queen. Foster would take the loss equably if he was playing the jet pieces but not the ivory; then he scowled and Nurse Mary would laugh a little behind her hand and push another sweet cake towards him. Henry would always look to see whether Mary was about to ruffle Jed's already tousled hair with a fond hand, always taken aback not to see that wifely gesture so in keeping with the rest of the scene.
Now, Foster sought to expand their camraderie, to invite Captain McBurney to join them of an evening. Matron had gotten wind of it and chuckled, a little merry, a little harsh, as was her way. She'd been known to stroll by the table, either during play or other times when neither man was present, to observe the board and had been free with her assertion that "neither of you can play worth a damn, pardon me, sirs, but 'tis God's honest truth" and that there was hardly any use in either of them trying to employ a more sophisticated strategy, "for ye would only muck it up—best stick to yer surgery, Dr. Foster, and you, Chaplain, to your sermonizing, don't waste yer time trying the Danish gambit, eh?"
Jed hoped to McBurney would be a happy addition but was reluctant to ask him directly; he'd been explaining and wheedling and insisting in turns and Henry meant to agree but was enjoying the demonstration. He thought Jed must miss the operating theaters in Paris and Baltimore very much from his impromptu performance today. He stood back to enjoy Jed's final soliloquy:
"For McBurney's so polite, if I ask, he might say yes from a sense of obligation to his Executive Officer—we've far too much of that these days already, duty and obligation. This is only a bit of entertainment and nothing would sink it faster than making it a chore. Or he may agree and prove such a poor player, he and I must sit and regard the board as a debacle, and the Greek could hardly console the Trojan, or blithely take an order the next morning from the conquered." Jed looked pleased with himself, quite confident but Henry knew he was also saying how much he valued his relationship with McBurney in a way he had not valued Summers and was touched that Jed, older and ostensibly wiser, would turn to him for assistance. It didn't seem he'd much practice in that regard, seeking aid or friendship, and as always, he sought to mask his unease with his wit.
"No, you must suss him out, Henry, assess his skill and whether it will prove congenial to become a trio. It must be worth the risk of Hale finding out, though perhaps Nurse Mary may find a way to divert that lout. I've heard he has a decent singing voice, I can imagine she might arrange musical evenings to leave our chess matches undisturbed by Hale's juvenile commentary."
Foster tossed his final remark over as lightly as a boy playing catch. He strode out of the ward, walking to the surgery where Nurse Mary would assist him, Henry guessed, based on his cheerful disregard of the public setting for disparagements he made towards Hale. He'd been so exuberant and compelling Henry had not noticed Emma right away, not until she stood beside him; she was soberly dressed in a dark green dress and her fair face reminded him of a pearl.
"Dr. Foster is much enamored of chess, isn't he? I wouldn't have thought it, it seems such a sedate occupation," she offered.
"It appears to be the field of battle upon which he's most comfortable—he needn't concern himself over the pawn's mangled legs or whether the knight will ride again," Henry replied.
"Mmm," she only murmured, considering; she must be imagining them in her family's former hotel, velvet curtains drawn, playing with an old set that might have been her great-uncle's or her lame brother's.
"Is he very loud when he calls out 'Checkmate?'"
Henry laughed. How clever she was and how she concealed the needle within the silk! Jed had thought he had Emma's measure from the first when he called her "the hoopskirt assassin" to get her attention, but he underestimated her. She was not his black queen, nor his favored ivory Lady with her dainty scalloped crown. Henry looked and saw Emma's pale face and the smooth, dark wings of her hair, and thought there was no sovereign on the board to match her. She had him in mate with the last glance she bestowed upon him every day; the game with Jed was a blissful respite, a game Henry might win.