Carolina Gold (32 page)

“I’m surprised to find you practicing medicine again. The night of Lettice Hadley’s party you seemed set against it.”

“I was, but no physician worth his salt could turn away from such suffering.” He shrugged. “Longstreet once told me that a general chooses his battles, but physicians find that the battles choose them.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“There is simply so much we don’t know about how to prevent and treat illness, and when something new is discovered, we are often too slow to act.” He scooped a fat shrimp from his soup bowl and ate it with apparent relish. “Cholera, for instance. We’ve known for years that it’s transmitted by contaminated water, but so far we’ve done little to eradicate sources of contamination, and people continue to die needlessly. It’s hard to keep going in the face of so little progress.”

“I suppose many doctors must have felt that way during the war.”

He set aside his soup bowl. “If only we’d known about the importance of antiseptics back in sixty-five, so many more soldiers’ lives could have been spared. If Dr. Lister had published his findings on the efficacy of carbolic acid just two years sooner—”

The waiter set another basket of warm bread on the table. Nicholas offered the basket to Charlotte, then took two slices and slathered them with butter. “Ah well. This isn’t exactly an
appropriate topic for dinner with a lady. Tell me, have you been back to the Waccamaw this summer?”

“Yes. Our overseer, Mr. Finch, has quit the Lowcountry and headed back home. Mr. Hadley and Mr. Clifton were looking after my rice fields, but since the Cliftons went west, it’s only Mr. Hadley, a few hired men, and Daniel Graves.”

“The boy who turned up at your house for tutoring?”

“Yes. He has been a godsend this summer. His father sent word for him to come north, but Daniel wants to stay and attend the new county school next term. He’s determined to make a success of his life.”

Pascal arrived with the fish and vegetables and collected their soup bowls.

“I suppose it’s just as well I didn’t plant rice this spring,” Nicholas said, “since Finch has decamped and there are so few to tend it.” He sampled the fish and nodded his approval. “Nobody makes a better poached fish than Pascal.”

It smelled delicious, but his mention of their plantations knotted her stomach. She attempted a small bite and then set down her fork. “So you found your papers regarding the barony.”

“Yes. Or more accurately, they found me. Just after Longstreet left town, Father Sebastian, my wife’s former parish priest, came to see me. He told me his church burned down during the war, leaving nothing standing but the fireplace. When they sorted through the rubble, they discovered the church silver had been buried beneath the bricks in the hearth, most likely to keep it out of the hands of the Federals. My papers were stuffed inside a chalice along with some family letters.”

She drew as deep a breath as possible given her tight corset, willing away the butterflies dancing in her midsection. “How did they get there?”

“He claims not to remember.” Nicholas helped himself to
another slice of bread. “Gabrielle must have given them to him for safekeeping when she fell ill, not realizing what they were. It isn’t so unusual when you stop to think about it. The Polks of Tennessee hid their silver in one of their porch columns.”

“I suppose you’re right. Father hid a few of our things at the home of a friend in Charleston.”

Nicholas nodded. “Anyway, Father Sebastian said he’d been looking for me through my distant cousin, Therese St. Clair. But she died years ago.” Nicholas took another bite of fish. “I was surprised he didn’t know. Her story was fairly well known in her day.”

Despite her apprehension over what this discovery meant for her, Charlotte couldn’t help being intrigued. “Go on.”

“From what I understand, Therese was quite a beauty. She claimed kinship with Lafayette through the Marbourgs, but that may be only a rumor.” He drained his glass. “Sometime in the thirties she came over from Paris and married a Carolina planter, but shortly afterward she was lost at sea. Anyway, Father Sebastian had been looking for me ever since the papers turned up. It wasn’t an easy task since we’ve no family left on this side of the Atlantic. Therese was the only one he had to go on.”

“How did he find you?”

“One of his parishioners, Mrs. Wimberly, looked after the girls for a time just before my wife died. I suppose Gabrielle told her that my ancestors had once been granted some land on the Waccamaw. Anyway, Father Sebastian was preparing to go to Willowood to look for me when we ran into each other down in the Marigny.”

She took a ragged breath. The truth could be postponed no longer. “And?”

“It seems that Willowood and everything south, all the way down to Oak Hill, was part of a barony that John Carteret, one of the lords proprietors, granted to my family. It passed to my grandfather sometime around 1785 and then to my father almost fifty years ago.”

“I see.” Charlotte went numb. If his land extended that far south, then he owned Fairhaven too.

“I intend to have the papers properly recorded as soon as possible, for the sake of my daughters,” Nicholas went on. “One day the land will be theirs, though who knows whether it will have any value by then.”

She sipped water to dissolve the lump in her throat. But what else could she expect? Of course he wanted to protect what was his and secure his children’s future. Any responsible father would do the same. Regardless of the consequences for others.

“This has come as a shock to you.” Nicholas covered her hand with his.

“To say the least. If it’s all yours, I don’t understand why no one ever challenged my father’s claim.”

“According to my lawyer, the original grants weren’t always formally filed. Some of the papers were kept at home and passed from father to son. Sometimes the boundaries were disputed or changed or land was bought and sold and the deeds not officially recorded. It’s possible that’s what happened in your case.” He sipped water from a cut-glass tumbler that caught and splintered the candlelight. “Most of the lords proprietors never even came to Carolina to inspect their property. They simply appointed lawyers to sell it. And during the war, of course, a great many records were destroyed.”

Charlotte thought of the pile of papers the Federals had left torn and wadded on the floor of her father’s study. “But miraculously, your records survived.”

She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. She withdrew her hand from his and felt even more alone. This was the end of her dream of restoring her land and claiming her future. The end of her friendship with Nicholas and his daughters. The end of everything.

Pascal appeared with two slices of torte on thin china plates
and a tray set with coffee cups and a silver pot. “Compliments of my Cecile,” he said. “Enjoy.”

But Charlotte’s appetite had fled. “I’m afraid I can’t eat another bite, Nicholas. And I’m very tired. Please take me home.”

“Listen to me. I know this is upsetting, but you must know that after everything you have done for Marie-Claire and Anne-Louise, I’m not about to displace you. Besides, a bill of sale or a deed to Fairhaven might still come to light.”

She thought again of Papa’s strongbox. The Federals must have taken it years ago. Otherwise she would have stumbled across it by now. But what if somehow it had survived and was waiting to be discovered? What if it contained proof of her right to Fairhaven? It was too much to hope for. She pushed her plate away.

“I’ve been through all my father’s papers, everything that wasn’t destroyed. And I’ve had his lawyer go through all the papers in his possession too. It isn’t there.”

“Please don’t worry. We’ll come to some accommodation—a yearly rental, a long-term lease. There are several ways to—”

“Thank you, but I don’t want to live as a tenant on the very land my father worked so hard to improve.” Tears threatened, and she blinked them away. “Especially not in the house where I grew up. It would be too painful. There must be some—”

The door banged open, and the young German girl from the infirmary burst into the room. Spying Nicholas, she rushed to the table, nearly upsetting Pascal’s dessert tray. “Dr. Betancourt, Sister Beatrice asks that you come at once.”

“What’s the matter?” Nicholas was already rising from his chair, pulling bills from his pocket.

“It’s Miss Josie, Doctor. She’s burning up with the fever and asking for you.”

Nicholas jumped to his feet. “I’ll be there as soon as I see Miss Fraser home.”

Without waiting for him to hold her chair, Charlotte rose as well. “Josie seemed fine this afternoon. Just a headache from all the excitement. But surely that—”

“The fever strikes very quickly. I hoped her distress this afternoon was the result of the heat and her emotional state, but I’d better see to her.”

“I’d like to come with you.”

He looked into her face, one brow raised. “To the infirmary? You’re sure?”

“Yes.” Despite what she had just learned, she felt drawn to Nicholas, compelled to share his burden. Perhaps it made no sense to feel this way, but there it was.

Nicholas caught Pascal’s eye and pointed to the money he’d left on the table. He offered her his arm, and they returned to his carriage. He handed the girl and Charlotte inside and called up to the driver, “Hurry!”

The driver spoke to the horse in its traces, and the carriage lurched along streets enveloped in a thick cloud of acrid smoke. Here and there fires flickered in deserted squares and on street corners. Long shadows danced against shops and cafés already shuttered for the night. Minutes later they drew up at the stone house across from Washington Square, quiet now in the summer darkness save for the trilling of insects. In the middle of the square a tar fire burned, sending up thick smoke that burned Charlotte’s eyes. A single lantern illuminated the adjacent railway station and a horse-drawn hearse standing near the front door.

With instructions to the driver to wait, Nicholas helped Charlotte from the carriage. The girl jumped out and ran for the door.

“Liesl,” Nicholas said, his voice low and commanding. “Please wait.”

The girl’s eyes darted toward the waiting hearse. “But, Doctor, someone has died. I haf to know.”

“We’ll know soon enough. Would you fetch my bag?”

The girl disappeared into the makeshift office in the side yard. Nicholas and Charlotte went inside.

Sister Beatrice glided toward them, a basin of pink-tinged water in one hand, a flickering lamp in the other, and indicated the far side of the room. “She’s over there, Doctor.”

Nicholas nodded. “Who have we lost tonight, Sister?”

“Mr. Becker, just after you left this afternoon, and poor Mrs. Hiller just moments ago. I’m afraid dear Liesl will be heartbroken.”

When the girl came inside with Nicholas’s bag, the nun gathered her into her arms and murmured the news. Liesl gave one loud sob and ran from the room, deliberately kicking over a washstand on her way out. Charlotte understood. When her mother died, she had rampaged through the house in a fury of grief, raking books from their shelves, throwing a crystal vase of wilted roses against the wall, slamming doors so hard they rattled in their wooden frames. As if such destruction could somehow numb her pain and bring her mother back.

“Mrs. Hiller was her teacher from their days in Germany,” Nicholas said, setting the washstand to rights. “They were inseparable.”

“What about Liesl’s parents?”

“Her mother succumbed two weeks ago. Her father is still alive as far as I know. Come. Let’s check on Josie.”

They made their way among the sick and dying to Josie’s side. Nicholas took his stethoscope from his bag and knelt beside her cot. He looked up at Charlotte. “Could you ask Sister Beatrice for a basin and some towels? And a lamp, please.”

Charlotte hurried to comply and returned to his side. He
propped Josie’s shoulders onto a stained pillow and covered her with a thin blue quilt. “How long have you been sick?”

Josie gave a slight shrug and licked her lips. “Two weeks. I felt awfully sick for a few days, but then I got better.”

“And were you jaundiced?”

“I don’t know. A little, I suppose. But you were helping at Dr. Werner’s house, and we were all so busy you didn’t notice.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I . . . wanted to be . . . with you. You would have sent me away.”

“Foolish girl.” Nicholas motioned for Charlotte to kneel beside him. “Roll her sleeves up, please.”

“You aren’t going to bleed her, are you?” In the yellow lamplight, the room spun before Charlotte’s eyes. Bloodletting was an old-fashioned treatment for everything. Years ago her father’s doctors had tried it as a way to restore his failing lungs, but she had never seen the procedure done. Now she regretted her decision to accompany Nicholas here, but it was too late to turn back. She inhaled a deep breath of fetid air, unbuttoned Josie’s cuffs, and rolled up the girl’s sleeves.

“Dr. Werner still believes in phlebotomy,” Nicholas said. “But I’ve no reason to suppose it’s worth the risk.” He took a small tin container from his bag. He washed his hands, scooped a yellow salve with his fingers, and began massaging it firmly into Josie’s fevered skin.

The girl moaned and her head rolled to one side.

“Wring out those towels and bathe her face,” Nicholas instructed. “When one towel gets too warm, change to another. Keep her as cool as possible.”

Charlotte focused on his hands as he bent to his task. She remembered that magical afternoon on the river last spring when he had played the violin for her, his long fingers grasping the bow. It seemed a lifetime ago.

Josie gasped as Charlotte applied the cool compresses that quickly warmed against the girl’s fevered brow. Again and again Charlotte applied the compresses as Nicholas massaged the salve into Josie’s skin. Despite the open windows, the air in the room was warm and still. Charlotte wiped her brow with her sleeve and tried to keep pace with Nicholas’s sure movements.

“Miss?” Sister Beatrice stood behind Charlotte. “I’ve no right to ask, but I wonder whether you would help me with Mrs. Chamblin. She’s wanting to turn onto her side, and I can’t lift her.”