Chapter 10; Somethin' Bloomin'
Hope, for Arthur, usually laid low. Like a doe abed in the tall dewy grass, all quiet in the hush of morning. He would not see until he almost rode on top of her. She busted forth, abruptly obvious, and disappeared before he hoped to find his aim.
A gentle rain visited Blackwater that morning, and they started in the stable proper. From the great opened doors, the soft murmur and clean scent of the rain drifted in on the breeze.
"I cannot tell you how much this has come to mean to me, Mr. Morgan," Emelia said, soft and sincere. She brushed Belladonna with smooth, confident strokes, proving to be tenderhearted and intuitive and so very eager to learn.
"How, exactly," he asked, bitten with that lovestruck sort of curiosity that made everything fascinating and significant. He knew himself for a fool, without doubt. Tracking game he had no business pursuing a second time.
"Having these quiet little moments with these girls. And…" Emelia's dark eyes flicked up, their gazes meeting over the backs of their horses. The top half of her hair was drawn back, leaving soft strands to fall against her forehead and around her lovely face. She lost track of her thought and returned her gaze to the brush and the pile of Bella's silvery coat. "I haven't been this content since…well, for years. Before my father passed, for certain."
"You and your daddy close?" Arthur asked, watching her carefully. Like reading a compass for which way to go.
"Yes, very," Emelia replied. "He always believed in me, encouraged me. My brother thinks perhaps that he overindulged me, but…" she shrugged a slim shoulder. "I wonder, sometimes, what he'd have thought of all this."
"Why's that?"
"I want to think that he may have indulged my desire to remain unmarried," she said.
"Ah."
"But…" Emelia began and she faltered, uncertain. Something changed in her voice, a tone of disappointment or, perhaps resignation. "Then I remember that Sydney – my abandoned fiancé - had been father's pick. Regardless of how pedantic. In the end, he still wanted me to marry and to marry well."
"Daddies always do," Arthur drawled.
"I suppose," she said, unphased by his caustic tone. The rain had stopped and Emelia untied Bella's lead and started for the doors. "I just want the choice to be mine. I am not marrying that man. Maybe I am selfish. I won't give up my practice to sooth his ego."
Arthur untethered Boadicea and, with a whistle, followed Emma and thinking how different his life might have been if Mary had an ounce of Emelia's brand of selfishness.
The rain revitalized the foliage. Late spring buds popped, white and yellow and verdant green. They climbed the slope of the north road, toward the finer houses. All fresh painted with their fancy, carved trims and neat fences.
"What about you, Mr. Morgan?"
"Me?"
"Were you close to your father?" Emelia asked.
"No," Arthur said, bluntly. He fought the temptation to chase her off the damning topic and more softly he added, "you don't wanna hear this, Emma."
"Of course, I do," Emelia declared. "You're my friend, Mr. Morgan."
"So?"
"I want to know who you are."
It already came to this, the weighing and measuring. He had been so young and stupid when last he wanted a woman for himself and Mary, innocent and naïve, had invited him to a family dinner. To meet her daddy.
They lived in a fine part of town. With cobbled streets and sidewalks and fences around each tree. With large Victorian homes and sprawling yards more finely manicured then he ever hoped to be. Arthur, in love and trusting, walked into the ambush.
"I don't mind listening," Emelia insisted, pulling him back. "My work is as much art as science."
"Meanin'?"
"That depending on the case a little warmth and understanding may outweigh scalpels and opiates." She had drifted closer, walking almost shoulder to shoulder with him, and offered a smile. He slowed his stride, instinctively, to keep pace with her. "Sometimes I just listen."
"It ain't a happy story," he warned.
"I've made house calls to Mulberry Street," she said, breezily. "I doubt you can tell me anything that I have not seen there."
He did not know what significance Mulberry street held to this New York City princess, but he knew enough about civilization and found it uncivilized in its own ways. People were wolves, for the most part, and did savage things when pressed tight.
"My daddy… well, he was a nasty sonovagun," Arthur said. His voice grew tighter with humiliation, and speaking did not come easy. "Would disappear fer weeks at a time… an' when he finally did grace us with his presence… well, it weren't pleasant."
"So… your father… what did he do? To support the family, I mean."
"You're a terrible liar and an even worse actor," Hosea always told him. "But you're not stupid. Omit what you can and, failing that, tell a version of the truth to ease that impediment of yours."
At the head of the table in the great chair, Mr. Gillis held dominion over his family. Wearing a red vest, his chest seemed as round and puffed as that of a robin. The tweed suit did not help. His meek wife sat opposite from her husband. Proper, for certain, but Arthur could not help but note it was also as far as physically possible. Jaime, the timid little heir had already been bundled off to the nursery. Mary sat opposite Arthur, too far away, but a safe focal point.
"Who are your relations?" the older man queried, as if interviewing a clerk for one of his shops and some keen instinctual sense of self-preservation had Arthur keeping his answers short and vague. "I know there are Morgans in Connecticut. Your stature is impressive, I'll grant, but I still doubt you are of any relation."
"Don't know, sir," he replied. "My parents passed before I right knew anything about any relations."
"What a shame," Mr. Gillis remarked, disingenuous. "What was the family business?"
"Small farm, sir."
"A farm?" Mr Gillis repeated, swirling the scotch in his glass. Arthur remembered the ratcheting dissatisfaction in the man. "How… quaint. And where is it?"
"Lost, sir," Arthur replied, and that was the truth. "When my mother died. I was young."
"Hm," the greying man huffed. His tone just shy of patronizing and Arthur struggled not to bristle. "Where did you go to school?"
"I haven't sir," Arthur answered and when Mr. Gillis smiled that curdling smile Arthur could not help it no more and added, "at least, not the sort that comes with a fancy piece of paper." He could shoot a buck through both lungs and field-dress it on the spot. Could read a map and find his way in the wilderness with the wheel of the sun and the stars in the sky. If a man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness.
Mr. Gillis looked at his daughter then and she blanched, and Arthur knew. Oh, he knew, though their romance was slow in its dying.
"Mr. Morgan?" Emelia prompted gently.
"He drank it away," Arthur said dismissively. "Does it really matter how he came by it?"
After a quiet moment Emelia said, "Does it matter to you?"
Omission had done him no favors with Mary's father. Arthur looked at Emma. So young and fresh. Lacking in any edges. Soft and gentle and constant in her kindness. He felt all the same wild, hopeful things he had not felt since that brief courtship and wanted. Oh, he wanted.
"Thieving 'n robbin'," Arthur said, flinching but unable to lie to her. "Horses, homesteads, stages… I don't think it much mattered. Only legit thing he ever done was win at cards."
"Oh…" Emelia said, crestfallen. "I admit, I am astonished."
"What did you expect?" Arthur demanded. "I told you it weren't pleasant."
"No, you misunderstand," she said, genuinely embarrassed. "I am impressed. I expected you came from something… well, quaint. Like, some little farm in southern Montana. Given your gift with horses and…" she faltered, blushing. "Well, your temperament."
"My temperament?" Arthur huffed, surprised. "I assure you, Doc, I'm far from… quaint."
Emelia blinked. "You've been nothing but kind to me, Mr. Morgan," she said.
"Yeah, well… maybe you just have that effect on me."
"Be serious, Mr. Morgan," Emelia said, blushing again. "All the men in town talk about how 'horse sense' is a gift. Now, I admit, I am a dreadful novice on the subject but you certainly have a way. I thought, maybe it was inherited."
"This," Arthur said, tipping his hat, "is all the bastard left me. After I got to see him hang for larceny."
"Mr. Morgan… I am so sorry."
He grimaced. "It weren't soon enough."
"Oh my," she said, eyes going wide and sad and he regret his unpolished candor on the subject. "I… I cannot begin to fathom the sort of abuse that could harden your heart so. How old were you?"
Arthur shrugged. "It don't matter. Back in 74, I think."
"74… and you were born in 63?"
"I reckon."
That little frown puckered her brow. "And your mother?"
Arthur felt his throat grow tight. "A good woman," he managed to say with a firm nod. "Finer than my daddy deserved."
"What was she like?"
Arthur rubbed the back of his neck, remembering. When had he last spoken of her? Or even thought of her. Really thought of her.
"She died when I was very young. But I remember her goin' into town and cleanin' for folk for a few bucks," Arthur said. He looked to the ground and watched his steps and tried to focus on the good. "She'd salvage scraps of paper and nubs of pencils and bits of chalk when she could. All so's I could amuse myself when it rained.
"And when my daddy came home. Jesus… Tough an' tenacious as thistles, that woman. I can't tell you how much she shielded me…"
Arthur could not stop his mind from wandering back. Feeling weak and useless, unable to protect the most important person in his young world.
He could throw a punch now, for all the good it did her.
A sudden warm pressure to Arthur's hand jolted him out of it. Emelia's delicate fingers clasped his own and squeezed, so genuine and comforting. He looked at her and felt a surge of embarrassment, feeling unfolded and bare beneath her soft gaze.
"I… I don't know why I'm tellin' you all this…"
"I am glad you are," she said, smiling and releasing his hand. "I meant it when I said I want to know you. You've been so kind."
He chuffed at that. "You need to meet more folk, Doc."
She looked at him askance, with a hesitant little smile.
"Your self-deprecation is starting to border on heartbreaking, Mr. Morgan," she decided. "Nor am I some sheltered princess if that's what you are implying."
"No, never…" he drawled, and she swatted his arm.
"Honestly, Mr. Morgan," she admonished with a smile. "You have been nothing short of wonderful. And I've met just about enough of Blackwater to know. The reception, at least from what passes for society here, has been not quite what I imagined."
"How you mean," Arthur asked, seizing on the change in subject.
"Well, for one, the social set is trying to corner me into joining their ranks."
"Social set?"
"It's… well, a club of sorts. Young ladies, mostly married, who meet for camaraderie and charitable works. Miss McCourt thinks I would be quite the addition."
"Dreadful."
Emelia laughed and rolled her eyes. "I know… my trials are trivial compared to your own… but I simply do not have time for luncheons or quilting or throwing money at the poor."
"You sure the poor won't appreciate it?"
"More than my time and my skill, Mr. Morgan?"
He smiled. "I suppose you got a point there. My momma coulda used a doc like you."
"Oh?"
"Yeah… you know how it goes sometimes. Ended up in my father's care, whatever that was worth."
"I am sorry," Emelia said, stopping. Again, she reached for him, clasping his hand for another brief, heartening instant. "Thank the Lord you are still here."
He stared at her a moment, uncertain what to say in the face of such bald, sincere thankfulness. "Ain't nothing," he said, a little embarrassed.
"No. It is something," she said. "I'm glad you're here."
Arthur smiled. They walked on a several minutes in silence. Boots scuffing the earth. The sun already cooked off the moisture, baking it brown and dusty.
"I… I think Dr. Thompson is perhaps gouging me," she said.
"Is that so?"
"Well…" she hesitated a second. Then; "He tells me that delivery to Blackwater is already at a premium, being the 'edge of civilization'. Now, with all the robberies, he has steadily increased the costs. He insists there is nothing to be done about it."
"I see," Arthur said. Micah. He lacked in basic patience or satisfaction and Arthurcursed under his breath. Davey and Sean. So brash and arrogant. Annoying and frustrating and his brothers all the same.
"Most families," Emelia continued. "Well the homesteaders and the laborers, at any rate, struggle to pay as is."
"I know."
"I can't, in good conscious, refuse treatment."
"Oh, Emma," he said. Emelia kept her eyes downcast, long lashes brushing her rosy cheeks. She chewed her lower lip, worrying. "Want me to talk to him?"
Emelia flicked her gaze up, all wide-eyed innocence. "Talk to him?"
"Doc Thompson," Arthur elucidated. "Make 'im see some sense."
"I certainly don't wish to drag you into this."
"You sure, darlin'?" he asked, wheedling. "I can be mighty persuasive."
Emelia blushed furiously. "Oh, I… I'm not certain…" she stammered. "I really should handle this matter myself if I wish to be taken seriously."
"Then why tell me?"
"Well… I just wanted a second opinion, I suppose," she said. She looked away a moment. Then she met his gaze again and added, in a voice so true. "You're my dearest friend, Mr. Morgan. I… I trust you. Absolutely."
That fool, Thompson, would get a social call, no doubt. The gang too, for that matter. Going whole hog like they were and leaving the pressure to fall on desperate folk. Dutch must not know.
"You could try to make yer own," Arthur offered. "I mean… maybe not all this stuff yer talkin' about, sure. But there's a whole lotta plants that grow, in the wilderness…"
"I'm not sure about herbal remedies…" she said. "In my experience it all amounts to snake oil and love potions."
"The Indians pass this stuff down," he continued. "And my mother…"
"Was your mother a botanist?"
"Naw, nothin' so fancy as that," he explained. "She just grew a few. Butterfly weeds, chamomile, pennyroyal, lavender… she liked 'em. Her garden. It, uh, made her happy. I don't remember too much, but I remember that. Anyway. Might be some ailments don't need a big bullet to fix. Could save you some. Free up your money for… well, the stuff Thompson is sellin'."
"I do not believe in administering anything to a patient if it has not been put to the test of scientific method…"
"Well, I dunno about that," Arthur said, rubbing the back of his neck. "But… well, just 'cause you ain't seen it in one o' yer fancy journals, yet, don't mean there ain't something to it. Why don't you test it yerself?"
For a fraction of a second, Emelia's delicate brows pinched in a frown before that pretty mouth turned up in a little secret smile. "I will think on it," she decided. She cast her dark eyes to the sky and giggled. "Oh, the irony. My brother used to tease that flower picking was for children." She flicked her eyes to meet his gaze. "Why is it that work feels… well, less like work out here, Mr. Morgan?"
"I dunno," Arthur tried. He shrugged. "Freedom is funny that way. Yer doin' what you wanna do. Bein' of use. On yer terms. So yer worryin' less and enjoyin' the ride more. I suppose that's got somethin' to do with it."
Emelia stared at him a moment. "Yes," she agreed, smiling bright. "That has something to do with it."