The Angel In Hell

Kathleen Flannery was exhausted. She looked at the large man in the bed and felt like she had been fighting with him for a solid day rather than just eleven hours. She had sent for the doctor, but he had been away on a call, so she had done the best she could stitching up the knife wound.

She had seen countless medical procedures done during her time as a battlefield nurse before the end of the War Between the States six years earlier and wasn't surprised that fever had set in, what with the knife wound and the state of the man's health otherwise. He appeared to have been quite sick before the beating, for he was gaunt, unclean, and smelled vile.

Kathleen had no idea what terrors he'd seen in his delirium, but he'd fought her gentle efforts to help him at every turn. She finally resorted to tying him to the bed. While fever raged in his body, demons seemed to rage in his deformed, proud head. In profile on the pillow, the left side looked thin but handsome, even aristocratic, but the right side of his face had startled her when she unbound it. Ridges and scars marred that side of his face and his lower eye lid was pulled down hideously. She discovered he wore a wig when his black hair shifted, causing her to jump back in shock. His clothing had been of good quality, so she had to wonder where this stranger had come from and perhaps from what noble family.

Parts of what Kathleen supposed was his past came out in his demented groaning and raging in French. From what she could gather from her rusty understanding of this language she hadn't used since her school days, he had been in a fire and a woman called Christine must have perished in it, for he continually wailed for her. Kathleen wept with him when he brokenly cried out, begging to die for not saving her life.

Five days after his rescue, his fever at last burned itself out and his body began to heal. He slept peacefully and took the liquid nourishment Kathleen forced down him. Now she needed sleep as well, for all through his illness she had never left his side. She had slept in a chair in his room and kept the troubled man's many difficulties to herself.

"Katie Girl, how's the patient?" Zeke asked a week after leaving the beaten man in her care.

Kathleen sighed, feeling much older than her twenty-nine years. Pushing stray black curls from her forehead, she gratefully took a chair across the kitchen table from her friend.

"He's eating in a way and sleeping peacefully at last, but he hasn't come awake yet." Her Irish lilt became more pronounced when she was tired.

Mrs. Maloney, the cook, was preparing the elder gentleman a hot cup of tea to warm him after a day driving his cab through the city streets, for a Spring drizzle had made the day gloomy and damp.

Zeke noticed the shadows under Kathleen's silvery-blue eyes. "Don't you get yourself sick, lass. You have a lot of people depending on you, me included," He cackled and winked at her.

Kathleen counted on this gentle man's help very much and often, and he gave it unselfishly. He had no family close by so he delighted in entertaining the eighteen orphans who called the Samuel Price Orphanage home and helping around the big house and grounds.

Samuel Price had left instructions in his will that his estate on a fashionable Manhattan street be turned into an orphanage. If his affluent neighbors didn't like it, they could move, Kathleen often remembered him saying.

The stately red brick mansion with its white columns and many rooms made a perfect home and school, and in the four years since its opening, the orphanage had become known for its well-educated, mannerly children, and these qualities were much sought after by prospective parents.

Kathleen's mother had worked here in Samuel Price's home before his death, and while some reviled the Irish, he had lived by a firm resolve to judge one by what they did, not by their race or nationality. In his will, Mr. Price had stipulated that Kathleen was to be headmistress of the orphanage, and his substantial fortune was to fund the home. A trustee at his bank saw to the financial side of things, leaving Kathleen free to teach the children.

She was given a generous salary, most of which she spent on the children. She had a home and few wants or needs and it pleased her to bring joy to the children who had lost so much in their young lives. But the children were not the only ones who benefited from her generosity. They home any number of abandoned and injured dogs, cats, and birds and each thrived from her tender care, so much so that Kathleen came to be known for taking in "strays" of all sorts.

Zeke eased stiffly from his chair, slapped his flat cap on his head and said to the portly, rosy-cheeked cook, "Fine cup of tea, Mrs. Maloney." Kathleen walked him to the back door.

Zeke kissed her soft cheek. "Night lassie." He then lowered his shaggy grey brows sternly. "Get some sleep, Katie. Let one of the other ladies care for that man tonight."

Kathleen just nodded and kissed his grizzled cheek. She couldn't tell him that she wouldn't subject anyone else to the ravaged face and hellish nightmares of the stranger upstairs, for they would surely flee in terror. As it was, Kathleen was sure they had already heard the cries and screams coming from the room at the end of the hall.

Just as she closed the door behind Zeke, loud banging from above commanded her attention. She told the cook she was free to go home for the night and threw an excuse over her shoulder about seeing what the boys were making all the racket about, though she strongly suspected the banging had nothing whatsoever to do with the boys. As she climbed the graceful staircase to the second floor, she became sure of it. The masculine roar coming from behind her patient's locked door started her heart jumping.