Mary sat in the hard-backed chair in the corner of her small room. It was uncomfortable and most likely placed there to obscure the crack in the plaster that ran from the ceiling to the floor, but she could not stand and she did not wish to lie down on the narrow bed. She felt ill and she had only her own prying, her own pride and conceit to blame. She had walked to her room as briskly as she could, trying to present her usual calm visage and demeanor; she had only seen orderlies and the nuns as she made her way through the halls and up the stairs. Samuel Diggs would have seen her distress in an instant, but she could not confess its cause to him, though he would have respected her enough to accept the weak excuse she would have concocted. At least she had this, this solitude in which to try to regain her equanimity. She did not see how she would do it, so she sat in the chair and concentrated on the way the slats of its back pressed against her spine, how the unprepossessing chair held her up from the heap she might make on the floor, and tried not to think of the letter. She failed.
She'd found it near the entry to the main surgical room; the room had been a parlor once or a ladies' sitting room. She had asked Emma about it and had been told there was a sofa in peacock blue silk and a rosewood sewing table with a scalloped edge. The light was quite good, brilliant in the morning and steady in the afternoon, though the southern exposure made it an oven in the Virginia summer; it would have been easy to work on fine embroidery, a baby's christening gown with intricate silk white-work, and Jedediah chose the table right beside the window when a boy needed surgery on an eye or gaping neck wound. He had been in the room since midday and had operated on three soldiers successively. She had stepped out quickly between the second and third to fetch him a mug of coffee and he had drained it with a grin and a grimace. The supply of coffee beans was being augmented with chicory and she'd tried to cover the uneasy taste with sorghum. How much the drink refreshed him she couldn't say, but he'd finished the last case and told her,
"I think he has a chance, there's that."
She had replied, "That's all there ever is, Jedediah. Shouldn't you rest now? It's been such a day and I think we can muddle through without you for a few hours."
He was tired enough there had been no witty rejoinder about Mary in a muddle, nor even one of the obliquely tender remarks he was prone to when they found themselves alone or with only a chloroformed boy for chaperone. He'd shrugged his coat back on, having taken it off after the second boy's procedure had started to go awry, and nodded at her at he walked out of the room. She had wished she might bring him his meal on a tray, to settle him in his room or in the library, if she could promise he might not be disturbed by anyone, only some Keats or Shelley to fill his eyes and mind with something beautiful. Her face must have shown something of it, for he had given her a crooked little smile and a shrug, knowing he must brave the officers' dining room for his mutton and hash, risk Hale's drone or Hastings's prating while hoping for Henry's easy talk or McBurney's entertaining tales of New York.
She'd finished cleaning the room herself after the orderlies moved third boy back to the ward. There was a peace in the work she often found, setting the room to rights, leaving it a space they would not frown to return to the next day. Also, to be alone in Mansion House was a relative rarity, and if she bought that state with menial labor, so be it. She had been at the hospital long enough that wiping down the walls and floors from the blood or other surgical detritus hardly bothered her. She'd been nearly done when she'd spied the letter, the upper corner spattered with red, like a sycamore with canker. The page had not been in an envelope but had only been folded, the creases a little darker, as if he had carried it with him a while; she'd recognized his handwriting, an elegant copperplate that spoke of his wealthy upbringing.
She told herself at least, at least she hadn't meant to read it. It had been splayed open and her eyes ran along the words without her control, the way her lungs sought air. Could she stop her heart from beating? She was not being entirely honest with herself, she thought; what had stopped her from folding the letter, from shutting her eyes as soon as she'd read the address, "My dearest girl?" It had been natural curiosity but not only that—she was fascinated by Jedediah, drawn to him, and cared for him, care the word she permitted herself to use. The opportunity to understand something more of him was irresistible. Now, she sat in a high-backed chair, rocking a little, and wished the letter unread.
She had a good memory but she hadn't thought it was remarkable; she knew a great many poems and songs by heart, remembered recipes and family stories, the way Gustav had laughed when they'd slipped in the new snow, the smell of rain in Boston. The image of Jedediah's letter was unique, engraved within her as if on granite or marble, a gravestone. Even now, she could not escape his words…
"My dearest girl,
I have been sitting at my desk, a table they have given me to use in this cobbled-together place, sitting for so many nights, staring at this page and wondering what I can write that will take the place of what I wish for, to sit beside you and hold your hand in mine as I speak to you of how much I love you. How much more could I convey with my arm around you, your fair face turned toward mine? It seems it is all I long for, everything that fills my vision between interminable surgeries, the drudgery of paperwork, staff who seem to hound me at every turn. I have dreamt it, dreamt of you so many nights and to wake without you is cruel and cold—but I would not give up my dreams. Perhaps you would take me to task for writing so bluntly, this letter lacking proper decorum, but I cannot seem to find any other way to tell you how much I care for you, how I love your dear, sweet face and your tender heart, your grace and your determination. What distances us is vast, but my heart, my very soul yearns for yours, even more than my desire to hold you and caress you. I imagine you, with your steady, clear gaze, reminding me of my own choices, how they must divide us and I wish to throw it all away- everything, anything that keeps me from you, you from my arms, my bed, all the ways I wish to love you. But you want an honorable man, that has never been a question, and you would not have me if I broke my word once I gave it, if I shirked my duty; I do not think you would even offer your cheek, more lovely than any rose petal, for me to kiss goodbye if I behaved dishonorably in the midst of strife and valor. What shall I do? Some days, it seems my love for you will devour me, leave me a surgical automaton, only good for cutting away what cannot survive, including my own heart. Yet other times, so many, I recall how you tilt your head, that sudden, slow smile that starts in your eyes, the delight that I feel simply to be in a room with you, across a table, when you've handed me my evening coffee, and my affection, my devotion to you is sustenance I cannot do without, even as little as I may have of it. I feel you would tell me I should not send this letter, so I have not, but I shall carry it with me and consider… To feel it pressed against my heart is relief and goad at once and I would not risk any other's eyes regarding this most intimate expression of my affection for you. I will dream of you and wish for you and pray on my knees to God, though you will not believe it of the Jedediah you know, pray that there will soon be a way for me to come to you and let you understand how much, how deeply, how long and how wonderfully I love you, oh my dearest, dearest one.
Only and ever yours,
Jedediah
The words had started as knives, but now they were dull, heavy stones to the softest, most delicate aspect of herself and she was buried in them; she had been mistaken, utterly, thoroughly, almost willfully misunderstanding the man to serve her own interests and desires. Jedediah was entirely in love with his wife. She, Mary, was at best a friendly comrade, though possibly one of the myriad staff hounding him- another unpleasant feature of Mansion House where he was trapped by his promise to the Union and his Hippocratic oath, when his heart longed for the woman he'd married and let go from him. How much he regretted her departure, her distance! Mary felt herself the greatest fool, even more than when she had admitted the truth to herself in a dark, sleepless night when she hadn't even the moon for company: she had fallen in love with Jedediah, a married Union officer. For she had thought that her affections, which had no viable resolution, were at least requited and to discover how wrong she had been!
When Gustav had died, she had been a little prepared by the length of his illness and supported by the love he'd had for her since they'd met and married; she had felt the wave crash over her, but she had not worried she would drown. All around her respected her grief and her mourning; there was a form to contain her despair and by-and-by, she could manage it. This was a grief she couldn't acknowledge, her heartbreak a shame that only God could know, and knowing, forgive. To think that earlier this day, she had sung to herself as she wound bandages, allowing herself to look forward to assisting Jedediah in the surgery; there was an ease when they worked together and if his hand held hers, just a little, as she offered the scalpel he requested, there were only his dark eyes to see it, to observe how she was still an extra moment rather than permit herself to tremble. She could not imagine what he thought of her behavior then or all the other times she had done more for him than she would for Hale or McBurney or Summers, the nights she lingered in the hall to make sure he left the ward and went to bed. She had thought she could channel her love for him into these innocent gestures, but now she saw them for what they were: unwanted, unwomanly, immodest. There was only one woman whose hand Jedediah longed to hold, one woman he wanted waiting to take him to bed, and she lived in California and wore his ring. He was more honorable than Mary had given him credit for and she could not even apologize for it.
She must return the letter and quickly. Discretion was crucial as she did not want another to misconstrue the delivery as exchange of billet-doux, nor could she bear to see Jedediah's face when she handed it to him. He would look at her with a question in his eyes—had she read it? She was a poor liar but perhaps the risk of his understanding her shame would be enough to help her brazen it out. It would be best if she could simply replace the letter in the inner pocket of his coat where he kept it and hope that he would not notice it was missing in the interim. To regain her own equanimity, she would need to be as distant as Mansion House allowed; to act towards him only as Head Nurse to the Executive Officer, never again Mary imposing on Jedediah. She would need to starve her love for him, let it wither or at least keep the tenacious vine from clambering back.
Jedediah did not love her and she, having been a cherished wife, respected the passionate affection he held for Eliza Foster even as she envied the woman such a letter from such a man. She'd never had a love letter from Gustav, but if she had, she could not imagine him pouring out such fervent longing, the words leaping from the page. She heard Jedediah's voice so clearly in his writing, his intensity and desire; she could hear how he would murmur "how I love you" in his wife's ear, his hands drawing her close and it was more bitter than gall to know that as she had longed to be the one beside him, he longed for his wife. To give him the letter back would be just as hard as having read it; she could not trace her fingertips along the loops and strokes of the pen, she could not deceive herself that she was the object instead of another petty obstacle.
Somehow, she would need to sleep though she couldn't see how she could do it. The narrow white bed in the narrow white room was all she had, a nun's quarters, with the daguerreotype of her dead Baron and the letter of another woman's husband the only signs Mary Phinney von Olnhausen was anyone more worldly than Sister Isabella. She would need to lie in the bed and pray for sleep, for relief, to feel only that which did Jedediah and herself honor. The night seemed very long and every night that would follow promised to be the same.
She knew she had slept for she woke with the dawn, but she felt tired and low. Her bed offered no sanctuary; indeed, there was no place she might go to escape what lived within her, so she must do what she could and work. Mansion House would accept whatever she gave and there was always a boy who needed something. She dressed quickly, arranging her hair as practically as she could, forgoing the more elaborate and becoming style she had favored when she thought it might please Jedediah. The letter she folded carefully after a last glance and a stern reminder to herself of whose fair face he longed for under the brim of a bonnet and she slipped it into her apron pocket. She would make sure Nurse Hastings assisted him today, but she might, she must find a moment to return the letter before the day was through.
Replacing the letter was the easiest task she faced. She took some time to re-arrange the staffing so that either Nurse Hastings or an orderly was by Jedediah's side at his scheduled surgeries and made plans to be elsewhere when he was doing his morning and afternoon rounds. She would fill her every moment with service and hope she might exhaust herself enough to sleep. The days passed, a week, and she was diligent in her avoidance. She caught only a glimpse of him for several days, his dark head bent over a patient, the neat line of his coat a background for his gesturing hands, his quick laugh at supper, sitting next to Henry Hopkins. Samuel Diggs had some idea of her distress and found ways to be available; he made her sit down for a cup of tea but he did not ask her any questions. She tried to be numb but failed, so she tried instead to be even gentler and more patient with the sick boys. She felt she could go on that way after the corporal from Vermont, almost a neighbor, familiar with Manchester, pulled at the bit of her apron he could reach as she rose and said,
"I hope you don't mind me saying, but you are the kindest nurse, Nurse Mary, it reminds a man why he's fought so hard. No matter what, I won't forget it, all you've done for me."
Work would need to be her cure, her anchor, her tether and her balm. She stayed up later and woke earlier; the days were longer but she thought she had managed to pull herself away from Jed. Seeing him very little hurt in its own way, equivalent to being near him. She was growing more tired but still she went every evening to the supply closet to reorder the medicines, prepare the next day's doses, wind bandages. There was no place to sit and she left when she felt the exhaustion threatening to drag her to the ground.
The clock in the hall had just chimed nine o'clock when he came in, ten days since she had found the letter. He walked in without knocking, but quietly, as if he didn't want to disturb her. She set the glass vial in her hand down on the shelf and turned a little; she was not facing him, but her body was angled toward him to suggest she was ready to answer his questions.
"Mary, I want to talk to you," he said. His voice was soft, the way she spoke to sick, scared boys when night was falling.
"What do you need, Dr. Foster?" she asked. She had decided to return to a more formal address to remind herself of who he was to her and because she should never have called him anything else. She should never had said, Jedediah, she never should have let herself think what it would sound like if it were a sigh she breathed out as he touched her hand, her waist, her loosened hair.
"Is something ailing you? I haven't seen you very much, in fact, I've seen you very little, but you look… different, not the Nurse Mary we have all grown accustomed to."
"Have there been complaints? I will endeavor to do better," she replied briefly. She did not feel she could chance saying anything else.
"No, no complaints, no one could complain about you. Chaplain Hopkins said, he noticed you have been so quiet, so busy but so silent, and even Hale remarked when you assist him, he said it's like he operates with a ghost. I hadn't anything to add, I've barely seen you in over a week, only Nurse Hastings assists me. Why? What has happened? Is it someone in Boston—your sister, perhaps? Is something ailing you? Only, we cannot go on like this," Jed said.
"No, my family is fine, I am fine, it's nothing."
"Come now, Mary, that can't be true. This isn't you, this quiet wraith, the Head Nurse as scullery maid, your hands… you're ruining them with work. Something is troubling you, I can see it in your face, what little you show me anymore," he paused, listening to what he had said. "That's it, isn't it, it's me, I've done something. You must tell me Mary, tell me what I've done…I will apologize, I do apologize, whatever it is, tell me so I can fix it."
He sounded convinced he understood now and she recognized the tone of guilty anguish from the days when he struggled with the morphine, but now there was no self-pity, no willfulness, only a hurt man. She hazarded a glance at him and saw his dark eyes, so worried, warm and eager for her response. She could not let him blame himself for her failing, her error.
"You've done nothing, Dr. Foster. But I, I have done something, I am ashamed, but I will tell you," she began.
"Jedediah, not Dr. Foster. I'm sure you exaggerate, Mary, I can't imagine what you think you could have done," he interrupted.
"I read your letter. I am so sorry, so deeply sorry," she said but he broke in.
"My letter, what do you mean?"
"Your letter, I found it on the floor after a surgery, where your coat had been, and I should have just followed you and given it to you without looking at it, but—I didn't. I read it, I read your letter to your wife, to Mrs. Foster that is. I violated your trust and I have behaved so badly, I have presumed…"
"My letter to Eliza?" She saw the moment he realized what she meant, what she knew
"Christ! You read it, you read that, all of it?" She nodded miserably and he rubbed his hand across his face, covering his eyes a minute before he let it drop down to his side.
"Dr. Foster, I am so sorry, I should never," she tried again.
"Mary. Stop. It's—you're wrong," Jed said and now she did not wait for him.
"I know, I know how wrong I was to read it, and how wrongly, how immodestly I have behaved, how untoward, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed. He took a step closer to her, then stopped.
"Jesus, no, Mary. The letter, that letter you read, I was not writing to my wife. That's not who," he said, then trailed off, waiting for her. He hadn't written that letter, that passionate, tender, heartbreaking letter to his wife but to another woman, someone else he longed for…
"Mary, you must know, you must know who I was writing to," he said and reached his hand up to touch her cheek, to stroke across her cheekbone beneath her eye, beneath the shadows of sleepless nights. She wanted to turn her face into his palm, a heliotrope seeking the sun, but she was too slow, struggling to accept what he said.
"But," she began but she could not go on when she looked into his eyes, the small wry smile he gave her, an encouragement. Was she too tired, did she misunderstand him? She reached to steady herself with a hand against the cabinet but he took her hand in his, pressed her palm to his larger one, and curled his fingers around lightly; she might withdraw if she chose with barely any effort.
"Mary, shall I tell you then? Will only that convince you?"
She hardly dared to take a breath and she was dizzy. She did not nod or smile, she only looked at him and let her answer show plainly in her gaze.
"You, you, my dearest, my loveliest girl, oh Mary, I wrote all that to you, I never thought you'd see it, but you have, you know…you mustn't doubt me, but you have done, that's why you never thought it was your letter, when that was all it could ever be—you're the only one, my sweet Mary, the only one I would write such a letter to."
"I have never been sure…" she replied. Jed stepped closer then, not touching her beyond his hand in hers, but it would take only the slightest movement to change that.
"May I make you sure?" he asked and though she heard how much he wanted her to say yes, she knew he would step back if she said no.
"Yes," she replied.
"Yes, Jedediah?" he prompted her, seeking another confirmation.
"Yes, Jedediah, oh yes," she murmured. Then he moved, the hand that had held hers was around her waist, pulling her to him, and his mouth was on hers, in a very soft kiss. Finding herself in his arms, held so close, when she had been certain he didn't want her at all just a quarter hour earlier, was overwhelming; the dizziness of the moment before grew to the shiver before a faint and she would have fallen if he had not caught her and held her more tightly against him. He broke the kiss, just a little, so he could ask,
"Are you all right? You've been working too hard, I've worried about you. Or is it this, tell me if you want me to stop and I will, I will."
She answered with the arm she put around his neck to draw him back to her, his lips against hers until she parted hers, let him taste her relief and apprehension and desire. She could hardly think, he felt so good there was no War, no Eliza Foster, no Gustav under a granite slab, only Jedediah, warm and beloved and so eager for her. He kept kissing her and with each touch, she wished to unbind her hair, to unbutton her bodice, to have his hands move to her hips, to feel him pressed against her while he raised her skirts. She was wanton and reckless and she would let him love her however he chose.
He moved, kissed her neck, his other hand steady at her waist, then shifted and whispered in her ear,
"Dearest, oh sweet Mary, I love you, I have to know… I need you to tell me, to hear it—do you care for me?"
She breathed and had the scent of him within her. Thought came back to join emotion, both to command the animal creature his touch had revealed in her. She felt the cabinet's hinge crammed against her lower back and the silky roughness of his beard against her face, the wool of his blue officer's coat under her palm.
"No," she said and felt the ice in him, the way it could shatter. Before his next heartbeat, she added, "I don't care for you, I love you, Jedediah, I love you so… I have broken my heart over it and now it is mended, it is yours-" She might have gone on, but he gave her no chance, embracing her with a ferocity that should have scared her but did not. She felt tears on her cheek and could not tell whose they were but she brushed them away and smiled a little. He was suddenly gentle, tracing her lips with his fingers, the tearstains, a loose curl and so she was the one who was fierce; this too could have frightened her, but did not.
Nothing about him scared her. Though she could scarcely see how they could ever be together, she had a conviction that they must, they would, and she was content to be in his arms and know she would be praying again in her bed. But though she would be alone, must be, she would not be lonely and she would be asking God a different question, for a different blessing. The letter Jed had written her would be tucked in the small chest where she kept her most precious things safe because she could not bear to wrinkle it beneath her pillow. She would sleep a little later, finally soothed enough to rest well, and she would re-read her letter in the morning, wearing just her chemise, before she put on her dark challis dress and walked down the stairs where he waited. She could not risk giving him a letter, so he would need to learn to read what she had written in her dark eyes, what it meant when she wore a yellow ribbon at her throat.