Firefly (12 page)

"I came to see if you and Master Willy were free for that ice cream I promised."

"Oh, I'm sorry, really I am.  Willy's with Clancy McCrory right now, and in a few minutes my father will be home for lunch." She felt like a fool, sending him away like this.  He had gone to a great deal of effort and expense to change from yesterday's derelict to the well-dressed, clean-shaven gentleman at her door this morning.

Despite her words, he seemed undeterred.

"Perhaps this afternoon?" he asked.  "I have some business of my own at McCrory's.  We could meet there at, say, two o'clock?"

He could see her better now that his eyes adjusted to the shade on the porch.  When she briefly smiled, he thought perhaps she was about to agree to meet him, but then anger puckered her brow.

He mumbled, "It's all right, Miss Hollstrom.  I understand."  He felt like a complete ass.  He had just turned to leave when the reason for her scowl clumped up the stairs behind him.

"Off my porch, Morgan," Wilhelm growled, pointing a finger towards the street.  "I will deal with you later."

"Papa, please."

"You go in and leave this to me." Now he shook the finger at his daughter.  "I don't want you--"

"Well, hello, Dr. Morgan!" Katharine sang behind Julie.  She hardly sounded like a woman with a throbbing head and a churning stomach.

"Good morning, Mrs. Hollstrom."

"It isn't morning any more, Dr. Morgan.  It's five minutes after twelve.  Have you had lunch?"

"Katharine, this is not the time--"

"Oh, nonsense.  We have plenty for one more, don't we, Julie?"

Julie felt trapped between her insistent mother and her obstinate father.  Wilhelm shoved his way past Morgan and stood on the threshold, neither in nor out of the house.  And Julie couldn't move out of his way.

Julie could see Morgan clearly now, and he seemed to hide a sympathetic smile when he said, "I don't want to put you to any trouble, Mrs. Hollstrom."

"No trouble at all, Dr. Morgan." Katharine reached past Julie to take her husband's arm.  "Come on in, Wilhelm, and don't block the doorway."

Without bothering to plead her useless arm as an excuse not to offer some assistance in the kitchen, Katharine led the gentlemen into the parlor while Julie gathered lunch.  She found a platter of leftover chicken and discovered it wasn't burnt as badly as Katharine had let on.  Julie took a pint jar of corn from the pantry and dumped the contents into a pan with a lump of butter to heat while she sliced bread.

Though she worked frantically, Julie couldn't keep her mind off that image of Del Morgan as he walked through her front door.  He looked so different that she had trouble recalling the man who had brought her home last night.  Instead of faded denims he wore a pair of black trousers, plain but of good quality.  The tattered plaid shirt was replaced by a clean white linen one, over which he wore a black coat open just enough to reveal a blue waistcoat and a heavy gold watch chain. She wondered if the black boots were new enough to hurt his feet and hoped that they didn't.

Julie had boiled some eggs this morning and now quickly deviled them, then filled a bowl with applesauce.  She carried these to the dining room and then began to set the table.

Katharine talked, but no one listened.  Wilhelm glowered, and Morgan watched the girl in the dining room.  She was quick and efficient and graceful despite her haste.  And so thin.  It was no wonder he had missed the resemblance between mother and daughter.  Katharine was as plump as a spoiled cat.  Julie only had hints of the dimples that sparkled in her mother's cheeks.

When she finally called the others in to eat, Julie felt exhausted.  And out of place.  Katharine, as always, looked as if she had just come from the parlor and the
Saturday Evening Post
.  Papa wore his usual office clothes and Morgan in his new incarnation put her old calico dress and scuffed shoes to shame.  She pushed at a loose strand of hair and resituated her glasses, but that wasn't enough to make her feel comfortable when he came to hold her chair for her. She blushed hotly.

He moved to the chair Katharine had indicated for him and sat down.  As Julie picked up the platter of chicken and passed it to him, he noticed how thin, how fragile her wrists were. He could almost see the bones through the skin.

"I'm afraid I didn't apologize for making you miss your supper last night," he said, letting his eyes draw hers.  He slid the serving fork under a plump breast half and placed it on her plate.  "How about a wing, too?"

"No, no thank you," she stammered.  She knew Wilhelm was glaring at her.

She got up to help her mother, but even that did not save her.  Morgan returned the favor, dishing a healthy spoonful of buttered corn onto Julie's plate, then spreading butter and jam onto a thick slice of bread for her.

"You'll need plenty of strength if you intend to be my nurse," he said without looking at her.  "It isn't easy work, and if you don't put a little meat on those bones, you'll waste away to nothing in no time."

"My daughter is not going to work for you, Morgan," Wilhelm interjected.  "She works here, in her own home, taking care of her own family."

Morgan buttered a slice of bread for himself and bit back the words.  A woman's "own" family is her husband and children, he thought, not her mother and brother.

"But, Wilhelm, think how much more help Julie could be if she learned something about medicine," Katharine suggested.

Julie stared briefly at her mother, unable to believe that, for the second time in as many days, Katharine had sided with her in direct opposition to Wilhelm.

"And who will do the work here?" he asked.  "You are too ill, and until the arm is mended, you can do nothing anyway."

Satisfied that the issue was therefore ended, Wilhelm leaned back in his chair for grace.

"Perhaps Dr. Morgan would like to do the honors," Katharine hinted sweetly.

For the first time since Wilhelm's arrival, Julie saw Morgan's composure slip.  He regained it quickly, however, and murmured a short, simple prayer that, if it didn't measure up to Wilhelm's long-winded standards, it got them eating quickly.  And back to the conversation.

"Did you tell your folks about last night?" Morgan asked Julie.

With her mouth full, she had to shake her head.  That loosened her spectacles, and she pushed them up again.

"Well, let me tell you," he began, taking advantage of her inability to speak for herself.  "She was marvelous, especially when you consider the circumstances.  With formal training, she'd be another Florence Nightingale or Clara Barton.  I know Horace got along without a nurse, and I don't know how he did it, but even ten years ago there was a doctor in Yuma, or maybe it was Prescott, I don't remember which, who offered fifteen dollars a week for a qualified woman."

Julie brought her head up so suddenly the glasses fell completely off.  Luckily, they landed on her lap rather than in her corn.

"Fifteen dollars a week?" she gasped.

"Whoa!  I hope you don't think I could pay that kind of money!  I might be able to manage seven and a half to start, plus free medical care, of course."

He looked at Julie, but he hardly saw her.  His attention was focused on her father.  Had the tactic worked?  Was Wilhelm greedy enough, or did his cruelty outweigh his avarice?

Morgan realized too late that he had underestimated the man's pride.

"I do not send my daughter out to work!" Wilhelm thundered, rising half out of his chair.  "And I take no charity." Again the finger waved sternly, then pointed toward the door.  "Out, drunkard!  You want to trade, all right, I will trade.  You saved my son, so I fed you lunch.  We are even now, no?"

"Wilhelm, please," Katharine begged.  She reached across the table for him, but he was too far away.  "Sit down and eat your lunch.  This shouting gives me a--"

"You always have a headache, whether I shout or not!"

It happened very quickly, but Julie was neither surprised nor angry.  Katharine got shakily to her feet and, before anyone could reach her, softly and silently collapsed in a dead faint on the floor.

Chapter Eight

Katharine Hollstrom managed a tentative smile as she let Julie tie the sash of her dressing gown around her waist.  At Morgan's request, Julie left the bedroom and closed the door.  Curious as she might be, Katharine knew her daughter would never dream of listening.  Plus the fact that Morgan himself, for all his faults, was a man of honor and integrity.  He would never betray a confidence.

Neither would he lie.

"You're perfectly healthy, Mrs. Hollstrom, except for the arm, of course."

"Am I?" she asked while she sat on the edge of the bed and demurely swung her legs up.  "Then how do you account for my dreadful headaches?"

He shrugged.

"Maybe a lack of exercise and fresh air.  Maybe your stays are too tight."

She laughed just a little.  "I suppose that accounts for the stomach trouble, too?" she added.

"It could."

His examination suggested her brief, if dramatic, fainting spell had been contrived to end the escalating argument with her husband.  She had recovered quickly and with only minimal assistance from Julie climbed the stairs to the bedroom she shared with Wilhelm.  Morgan, who had followed at her request and then conducted a more or less cursory examination, withheld any speculation as to other motives.

"And the sleeplessness?"

He looked her straight in the eye and told her, "Maybe you've got a guilty conscience."

"Maybe I do.  And now that you've given me your diagnosis, what's the treatment?"

She sat propped up against a huge fluffy pillow, a rather attractive woman of forty-six years who didn't look her age. Most women lied in the other direction.

"It depends."

"On what?"

"On how much of my advice the patient will follow."

She laughed again.  "Have no fear, Dr. Morgan, I'll follow all your advice.  I am as eager to be cured as you."

"I see."

Morgan leaned against the closed door and studied her, noting the almost cocky hint of a smile, the sparkle in the eyes that were so like Julie's, the tilt to her head.  He wanted desperately to know what was going on inside that head right now, though he doubted he'd like it.

"You have only two children, correct?" he asked.

"Yes.  Julie is twenty-six, and Willy almost nine."

"A long time in between."

She shrugged, but the smile didn't change.

"And none since?"

"I was not a young woman when Willy was born, and I nearly died.  We felt it best not to risk having any more."

"You and your husband do not indulge in marital relations." He stated it without embarrassment and without query.