Virginia City had returned to normality after the barn dance. The town should become even more silent as the spring round up was due and most of the men were occupied with it. Before it could start there was however a peak of activities because of the preparations. One part of the preparations was that Charlie had been invited again for a Sunday lunch and a ride at the Ponderosa, also to ensure Ben again that there were no objections for Little Joe to take part in the round-up. Charlie confirmed that Joe was fully capable of enduring the strains arising in connection with the round-up, whereby it would be wise to remain careful.
"Of course it would be wise Charlie, but it is my youngest, we are speaking about." Ben sighed.
"Please do not worry Ben, Hop Sing and I will go through his medical kit in order to be able to prepare him for as many emergencies as possible!"
Before Charlie left that evening for Virginia City, Adam asked her to come with him to his room. "Nothing to worry or to giggle about!" he mentioned towards his father and his brothers, "we will leave the door open!"
Upstairs he drew Charlie before the bookshelf. "I want you to take home with you as much of them as you can carry."
"Oh thank you very much, but why?"
"By this we will have endless topics for conversations when I will be back and I can look forward to that during the round-up."
"Well this is what I call a temptation!"
"I hoped you would see it that way!"
Charlie noticed the mocking undertone but ignored it. Which books should she take? What was she interested to discuss with him? Suddenly she heard herself ask:
"What are your favorites?"
"Mine? What an interesting question! Do you intend to choose or to avoid them?"
"Get yourself surprised! Now, will you tell me, or is your taste too trivial for sharing it with me?" Now she was apparently on the mocking side and it worked:
"I usually favor lyric to prose and these are two of my favorites." With these wordy he gave her Miltons "Paradise Lost" as well as a volume with Donnes poems.
Charlie looked delighted at the volumes in her hands: "If you allow it and can spare them for the time of the round-up, I would very much appreciate borrowing these two and the 'Three Musketeers'."
"It is my pleasure! I am already looking forward to hearing your opinions about 'Donnes Elegies'!" he smiled.
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One morning, a couple of days later, Charlie sat in the practice waiting for patients. 'Strange how quiet it is without most of the guys around.' she thought amused, when the door was torn open and a young woman rushed into the room: "Please, we need a doctor, quickly! It is Peggy, she just collapsed."
"Of course, let me fetch my bag, I ll be ready in a minute."
"Is Doc Martin not around?"
"No, he is looking for patients outside of Virginia City; but I am his partner here in the practice, I should be able to help you as well."
This did not seem to please the girl completely: "Yes sure, but I don't know, well ... if you really want to come along with me..."
"Why should I not?"
"Well, I come from ... you know ... Miss Bulette's place. Of course it is run by Miss DuVall now, but most people still call it Miss Bullette's or Julia's."
Charlotte looked rather bewildered at the girl, whose words made no sense to her, but then, having heard the full name of Julia Bulette, the pieces fell into place: "You mean the patient, Peggy I think you said, is working in a brothel and this is were I had to follow you to?" The girl nodded relieved.
"Of course I come with you, why not?"
The girl knew at least a thousand reasons why a fine lady would not set a foot into a brothel, but if that lady doctor did not care, why should she? So Charlie followed the girl to the notorious house in Virginia Citys entertainment district.
The girl took her to a room at the second floor of the building, where a young woman lay on her bed. Two other girls where sitting at her side and tapped her forehead with some washcloth. When Charlie entered, they raised visibly surprised: "Where is Doc Martin?"
"On a visit outside of Virginia City, but do not worry I am a qualified doctor myself."
One of the girls went on: "But I mean ... you know where you are?"
"I am at the bedside of a patient, yes! Please, let me just do my job."
Charlie palpated the forehead of the young woman as well as her cheeks and the upper neck, which both seemed swollen. "Peggy? Peggy can you hear me?"
The patient opened her eyes and nodded slightly. "Very good Peggy! You do not need to speak, I will ask you some questions and you answer me. Raise one finger for 'yes' and two for 'no', can you do that for me?"
Peggy raised the index finger of her right hand. "Very good! I suppose your head is aching, is that correct?"
One finger.
"And your neck does ache too, doesn't it?"
One finger.
"Is the pain deep in your throat?"
Two fingers.
"I see, then I suppose the pain is sitting sidewise on your neck, here below the ears, is that correct?"
One finger.
"Very good! Can you please open your mouth and say a long 'A'?"
Peggy did as she had been told and Charlie looked into the girls throat, which was red and sore.
"Now I have to listen to your lungs. I need to open your gown for that." Charlie did carefully so and applied her ear trumpet on the young woman's chest.
"Now her back, can you please help me to raise her?" The viewers came by and with their assistance the patient could lift the upper part of her body and Charlie could listen to her lungs.
"Thank you Peggy, that has been all, you can rest now."
Charlie turned around and addressed to the women that had carefully watched her.
"The lungs are free; I very much suppose your colleague has a contagious disease named mumps, which causes fever and a swelling of the sides of the neck below the ears. Most people go through it during childhood. Everybody who has overcome it, will not be infected again. As it is contagious, please think which of you has already had this disease. The others should stay away from her and if you are not sure, take good care to have your hands washed very carefully after being in here. Take a good amount of soap and hot water and after that a decent splash of alcohol if you can spare some. This will help to prevent spreading the disease any further."
The girls nodded and asked: "What can we do to help her?"
"Unfortunately not much at the moment. I will send over some willow bark, which should be applied as tea. She needs liquids anyway, so give her as much as she can stand. The taste is awful, but it helps to fight the fever. You can put sugar or honey in it to cover the bad taste. Besides this you can use wet sheets to bring the fever down. Wet them with lukewarm water and wrap them around her lower legs. Then tug her in very warm and carefully. She must not become cold and use this only if she is warm and swatting, not when she has chills. Besides this give her broth or tea and call me if her condition becomes worse or if another woman shows similar symptoms fever and or a sore throat - during the next days."
"Thank you very much Miss", one of the women said "we will surely do as you told us."
"Fine!" Charlie smiled "so I can leave. If one of you would accompany me, you can take the willow bark right along with you."
"But we would be seen together."
"Most probably, yes. If you prefer I could send someone over with the tea."
Charlie packed her belongings into her bag and turned to leave. Shortly before she had reached the front door, she heard someone calling behind her:
"Doctor Mathews? I wonder if I might ask you to have a word with me?"
Charlie turned around and saw that these words had been spoken by a woman of probably forty years, who stood in the hallway. She had dark brown hair and wore a golden yellow dress, which was absolutely stunning and tasteful. Despite the striking color and the deep neckline it did not look purely "saloon-style" at all, it was just a bit daring, at least for the time of the day. With a dark voice she introduced herself:
"My name is Suzanne DuVall and I would very much appreciate whether you could spend a little of your time for a short talk."
"Sure Miss DuVall, I am pleased to meet you." Charlie approached her and reached out her hand. Miss DuVall took it with a smile and showed Charlie into a little parlor.
"Would you like some tea?"
"Yes please!"
While she poured the tea, Miss DuVall continued slowly: "I have to confess, that you actually surprised me Doctor Mathews, a rather rare ability among people. I had not expected a reputable woman like you would enter a brothel like mine in bright daylight."
"Well Miss DuVall, I consider the Hippocratic oath to be valid for all houses, for all human beings. I do not care very much for the reputation of a person; such things can be destroyed in an instant, without any fault of the person in question. I usually rely on what I see for myself. And here I have seen a patient - not more and not less."
"These are really remarkable words for a young woman; does your family approve of your opinions or your behavior?"
"As I have no family at all, I am in the lucky position to be the only person judging about my opinions and my behavior."
Miss DuVall smiled a bit before she continued: "You do know that this is not true, don't you? A female doctor is still a sensation, not only in these rural parts, but also in more civilized regions. So your behavior, your steps, your statements will be watched and registered with special attention. You should not provoke the good people of this little town by such actions."
"What do you mean; do you actually want me not to take care for the women in here? Do they not deserve some professional medical treatment?"
"No Doctor Mathews, this is not what I wanted to say. I very much appreciate your courage and your impartiality towards my place! But as I do appreciate you, I do not want you to get in trouble on our behalf. If you have been seen on the way here you will be presented the bill sooner or later, that much is for sure."
"I do not care for what some good people think about me; usually such good people are much worse than the targets of their venom!"
Miss DuVall chuckled a little. "I could not agree more Doctor, but I suppose you want to live among these good people, at least for a while. It is risky to ignore the moral standards of ones fellow men with ostentation, especially for a young, beautiful and stand-alone woman like you. There is more than one of my girls here, who had to experience that!"
"I have made a very important experience myself Miss DuVall: Once my life had been saved by women of your profession, I am not going to pretend to the world I was despising you and what you are doing!"
"You are getting more interesting by the minute Doctor Mathews! I am glad to see that there are still people around, making it worth to keep up some faith in mankind!" To her own surprise Suzanne DuVall was impressed. "All I ask of you Doctor Mathews is that you behave careful in front of the townsfolk. Send us prescriptions and further instructions by messenger and I will send you a messenger in return in case we should need anything from you. If you will constantly ignore the moral standards of the townsfolk even your friendship with the Cartwrights will not be able to protect you from being barred from the town's community."
Charlie blushed. Mentioning the Cartwrights in this house made her a little uneasy: "What have the Cartwrights to do with that and how could they help me at all? Are their moral standards considered to be beyond all criticism because they are the local squires here? Don't tell me they would not be regulars here at your place."
When Miss DuVall looked puzzled at her and Charlie explained: "Healthy, unmarried men in the prime of their lives? Please Miss DuVall - I am neither stupid nor a hypocrite!"
Again Miss DuVall had to chuckle: "Being as smart as you are Doctor, I take your question to be a rhetorical one."
Charlie left the house a short while later, not without repeating the hygienic advises in connection with Peggys infection for the girls as well as for the patrons. When she made her way back to the practice, she was watched by two pairs of eyes:
Suzanne DuVall thought: 'What kind of story is it you have to hide, except having fallen for one of the Cartwrights, judging from how you blushed when I mentioned them? Which one is it? Well this is rather easy, most probably the one who did not show up here, since you have been in town. Good choice, Doctor!' Miss DuVall turned towards her doorman, a big former boxer named Michael Kelly and instructed him: "This Doctor Mathews is a good one Kelly, if you should ever see someone molesting her, you have my permission to step in!"
The other pair of eyes belonged to Miss Patricia Calston who just returned from a short ride in her new carriage. She was that exited about her discovery that she had to fight not to shout hrr thoughts: 'Well this is priceless! That intolerable, stuck-up 'Uuuuuuhhhhh-I-am-a-doctor-look-how-great-I-am'-wench spends her time in a whorehouse, well if that doesn't fit! Let me see, how this information can be used best.' And very much satisfied with her ride as well as with herself, Miss Calston drove her carriage home.
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The next couple of days went by rather uneventful, also for Paul Martin and Charlie in their practice. As most ranches were empty due to the round-up, there happened much less accidents than usual. As Peggy seemed not to have spread her infection any further, there was actually some time for Charlie to get lost in the borrowed books in addition to the time she usually spend reading in the late evening hours. She very much enjoyed the special kind of lyric language of John Miton, the beauty of John Donne's love poetry and the adventurous story of the three Musketeers and their new entrant D'Artagnan, which she had read for the first time some years ago.
During the lecture of each of the books she found herself imagining again and again how she would discuss a special passage with the owner of the books. Every time when she felt pleasure in anticipation of that talks, she upbraided herself not to look forward too much for that. When reading the 'Three Musketeers' she had over and over again the strange feeling as if she had skipped something important. Although she always reread a few pages, whenever that feeling occurred, she could not get to the bottom of what actually was nagging at her mind.
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The round-up had been going comparatively uneventful so far and made quite good progress. In general Adam did not look forward to round-ups; he preferred a warm bath and clean sheets every evening. This time he appreciated however being that torn out after a days work that he slept dreamless like a log until the next morning or one of his shifts. However the nearer the round-up came to its final destination the more he found himself lying awake at nights and contemplating about how to proceed with Charlotte.
In his mind there was no doubt that she had something nasty in her past to hide. Basically he tended to let bygones be bygones, he had done one or the other foolishness in the past as well, but she was apparently still upset because of something. Why couldn't she trust him? Did he demand too much? After the disaster with Laura he had often asked himself whether something like true love was meant for him at all. Maybe any further longing for it would mean he had finally become old and silly? Was Charlotte the answer to all those musings? How could she be that answer on the other hand at all - she did not trust him yet! Should he intensify his efforts with her or rather make himself scarce? There were still quite some women in Virginia City eyeing him, to his genuine astonishment even more since that Laura-incident, should he make Charlotte jealous? No, really! Such ideas sounded as if they were coming from Little Joe! Well - at least Joe was already sleeping and did not toss and turn around half the night!
A few days later the round up had reached its destination after the usual inconveniences, spent in the saddle or sleeping on the ground. The cowboys were happy to be in a town again; the more as there was some fresh money to spend. Joe Cartwright was the first, ready to dive into the fun of the town and waited impatiently for his brother to get ready.
"Come on Hoss, at night all cats are black, you are beautiful enough for any saloon girl!"
"Can't you go and get on Adams nerves; he is probably still in the bathtub."
"No Hoss, completely off-target! He was literally hurrying into the saloon in order to get over with it."
"What, get over with the celebration after a successful round-up? Is he finally becoming old or does he reject the company of pretty girls all at once?"
"Quite the contrary I presume, he wants to get up early and go back to Virginia City as soon as possible. It took Pa's best efforts even to talk him into staying at least one night here, he had liked it best to return at once."
"What? Does he want to bring the money to the bank or what? That would be much safer with the rest of us!"
"The money!" Joe snorted in disdain. "That s probably the least interest of our Yankee brother at the moment. No, I think he feels awfully sick and the only cure for him is in Virginia City."
"You mean Charlie? Do you think he has fallen for her?"
"You bet he has! I mean why not - as I am not longer interested, he might really be the best catch for her!"
"You would not be interested - my foot! Do you really pretend the two of you would have made a match if you only wanted? So gracious of you to leave her for elder brother! Your eyes are still falling out of your head when she is around!"
"What's wrong with that? She is quite a looker, which you also have noticed for yourself my friend, rather watch your own eyes!"
"I always watch my eyes; you should watch your hands tonight! I am tired of saving you from a brawl again!"
"Saving me? I've never needed any saving except from being saved from my brothers."
Continuing such kind of often-heard bantering the brothers made their way into the saloon.
As Joe had predicted, Adam left the saloon very early that evening. Of course he could not completely skip the celebration of the successful end of the round-up and had to share at least one beer with the men, but soon he felt that spending the night in a loud and overcrowded saloon had no attraction for him at all, the prospect of an early return to Virginia City seemed by far more tempting.
Before he had finished his beer, a pretty dark-haired girl placed herself on his lap: "Hi handsome, all alone tonight?" and started nuzzling his ear and neck. Adam's body reacted at once, but to his own surprise he had to suppress the strong desire just to shove her away, despite the physical response. He did not want just some girl, he wanted Charlotte. So he bought her a drink and ran out of the saloon, just to continue musing in his bed again.
He had not realized so far how much he longed for Charlottes company and that she apparently had spoiled him encounters with other women. He wanted to see how the strawberry-blonde curls fell out off the combs that tried to tame them in vain and really desired to grab his hands into that hair and quite some more parts of her anatomy. But there was more, after these days, filled just with cattle and horses and talks about that, he felt how much he missed talking to her, hearing her precisely and perceptively expressed thoughts or some good natured bickering about a Shakespeare line. Most of all however he wanted to watch how the steadily present alert expression in her beautiful eyes vanished and changed into a genuine smile.
He wanted her - in a carnal sense, as his intellectual companion and he wanted to take care for her. So there he was again: in love and wanting it to be the big true love again, despite all good resolutions. He was an incurable fool for sure, but would it make him wiser to be cured of love? A line from Shakespeare came to his mind and made him smile in the dark: 'If thou remember'st not the slightest folly that ever love did make thee run into, thou hast not lov'd.'*
If only she would let him take care! Jealousy was not the way, maybe he needed an ally to make her trust in him, should he let Jillian try some matchmaking after all? Weighing up the pro and cons of such strategy he dozed off.
*Shakespeare, As you like it, Act II, Scene 4, Silvius
