Ghosts of Graveyards Past (14 page)

The rest of the family labored in the field of crops adjacent to the small yard, as well as tending the livestock that were penned behind the house. Mr. Darrow's smithy work took him away by mid-morning until six o'clock, when he returned for the supper prepared by his wife's hands in between the day's worth of sewing and housework.

As part of the household, Mariah was expected to perform some of these chores. She learned first to clean ash from the hearth then to scrub laundry with the washboard kept on the porch. All the while, she felt as if she were an unwanted guest, her appearance at the dinner table and later, the evening fire, causing most conversations to dwindle to near silence.

An outsider, strange in her habits as well as her beliefs—or rather, her lack of them. Her absence from Sunday worship proved uncomfortable for the blacksmith's family. Mrs. Darrow's jaw was grimly set on Sundays, a familiar sight to Mariah whenever the family piled into the cart for weekly services. Her face wore the same expression whenever she found Mariah reading a scientific book in the parlor or buying a pamphlet on abolitionism from a traveling man, for instance.

“You must hate it here,” Nell observed, her smile one of sympathy across the chicken they plucked for a winter stew. She had wrung the bird's neck herself, a swift motion that spoke of compassion for the creature's life. “I hope you will not always find things so hard with us,” she added, wiping her hands on a soiled apron. “Life can still bring its joys to those of us here, even with just the dirt under our feet.”

A child-like view of things, Mariah told herself, lying in the bed she still expected to be her old one each morning she woke. To share her thoughts with someone as freely as she once did with her father was all the joy she looked for now. Except nothing seemed less likely in these surroundings. She did sometimes speak aloud to the darkness but with no real hope that anyone listened.

In fact, she knew they didn't. If they had, she would never have found herself alone and unloved, with her mother taken to the grave before she was even the same age Mariah was now. That poor woman's faith had done her no good, her final days of pain a startling contrast to her agnostic husband's peaceful slumber.

Mariah would never unburden her worries through prayer, not if she could find any other means of sharing her heart's deepest sentiments. But how she would do this—and who would be her confidant among a group of strangers—remained as much a mystery to her as the spiritual being her mother prayed to all those years ago.

 



 

February 23
rd
, 1862:
S
uffering from inflammation of the bronchi, Mr. Arthur Widlow is a young man of gentle demeanor and pleasant looks. The long duration of his illness has recently prevented Mr. Widlow from enlisting in the regiment, and I very much fear the infection will become chronic or even turn to pneumonia. His strength has been greatly affected, though I believe his spirit is more than equal to the challenge.

 

She had seen him before on the road to town, a tall figure with dark curls tumbled across his forehead. A boyish smile and eyes that looked thoughtful beneath the brim of a straw hat when he tipped it in passing.

Young men were a rare sight following the outbreak of war, the reason Mariah supposed she had noticed him in the first place. They had never spoken, her steps always taking her another direction to some patient's house in the town's scattering of homesteads.

It wasn't until he called at the Darrow's house one frosty morning, his hat crushed nervously between his hands, that she learned the reason Arthur Widlow had stayed home while so many others enlisted. “It never went away, you see. First the coughing, then the fever.”

He was seated across from her in the Darrow's parlor, where the blacksmith's wife and daughter continued their mending by the fire. They pretended not to listen, but Mariah could sense their interest, especially on the part of the daughter.

Nell's gaze was upon the farmer's son more than once during the visit, her ear inclined to his voice instead of Mariah's, curiosity at work instead of the needle.

“I kept to my bed for three weeks,” Arthur continued, “but even now it is difficult to perform my chores without sitting for long moments in between. The coughing makes it impossible to sleep at times, as well.”

He seemed breathless even now, although Mariah suspected this was from nervousness as much as the illness he described. The flush in his cheeks might be for the same reason, his pulse stumbling a little beneath her stethoscope.

If she were to be honest, her heart was racing in anxious beats. This was her first male patient, making her wary of giving offense with every simple touch required for the proper examination. Her patient seemed perfectly trusting, however, his glance open and expectant whenever it happened to meet her own.

They spoke for mere minutes, Mariah pausing here and there to note some important symptom in the daybook she always carried. When she had instructed him on the correct dosage of medicine, she saw him to the door. Lingering on the porch, she spoke to him out of earshot from the women in the parlor.

“These recurring bouts of fever concern me,” she told him, her breath forming clouds in the morning air. “It is unusual for a bronchial infection to linger so long. I'm afraid a more aggressive form of treatment may be necessary to keep further danger at bay.”

This meant visiting his home and possibly sitting up with him on nights when the fever was upon him. Swathing his throat and chest in poultice cloths and even withdrawing blood from his veins as a means of purging the infection. She had done this many times for pneumonia patients, something she feared he might become if the sickness continued much longer.

“I would only do what is necessary,” she explained, aware they had stood in silence while she thought. “The same as any physician properly trained in their work would do, which I can assure you that I am.”

His answer was slow to come, his gaze reflecting the struggle taking place inside.
Eyes the color of coal
, she thought, studying the pools of dark liquid beneath the furrowed brow. A lively mind behind them but one that was also cautious in its decisions.

“I will do whatever you advise,” he said finally, fingers pressing hers briefly in agreement. “My life is in your hands, Miss Moore.” With a smile to show he was only partly serious, he tipped the frayed straw hat and moved down the stairs. He moved out of sight.

Her fingers absently twined a ringlet of hair as she recalled their brief conversation, until goose bumps cropped over her arms, the cold stinging through the thin fabric of her work dress.

She saw him again two days later, his figure clad in the same worn coat and trousers from before as he sat in the family's parlor.

This time only Nell was present for their consultation, quietly knitting a scarf for her brother who was still undergoing his soldier training at a camp in Huntsville.

“Tell Henry in your next letter that I'll be joining his regiment yet,” Arthur told her, the teasing in his voice evidence of a long acquaintance between them.

The girl blushed in response to being noticed, though Arthur seemed not to see it as he continued, “Tell him I'm on the mend already, with the doctor's advice to keep me from a spot in the cemetery we used to fear so as boys.”

To Mariah, hearing herself referred to as a doctor—by a man, no less—was a strange experience after weeks of being ignored or spoken of in disapproving tones behind her back. She couldn't help the faint blush that spread across her features or, worse yet, the smile that twitched the corner of her mouth.

A woman doctor must be careful at all times when overseeing a male patient, with no look or touch unguarded by the strictest sense of propriety. Mariah knew this even without being told, emphatically, in the days when her father's clients had found her presence an unwelcome addition to the exam room.

“Give no one even the whisper of an excuse to slander your name,” Dr. Moore had cautioned, with a look that told her such a thing was not only possible, but inevitable. “If they're determined to hurt you, be certain it's their falsehood that deals the blow and not some misstep on your part.”

She had supposed this advice would be easy enough to follow, given the nature of her father's usual patients. Men well past the prime of their life, with silver hair and sagging skin that bore the marks of age. Such men spoke to her only of weather conditions and common gossip when they chose to speak to her at all.

Arthur, once his initial shyness had passed, spoke to her as a friend might. He talked with enthusiasm of the railroads and other industrial strides that were changing the face of the nation. The battlefield was often in his mind but so were topics of a more personal nature.

Noticing a book that was left among her papers on the desk, he wondered, “You are fond of spiritual writings, Miss Moore? Unless I am mistaken, the author's name is that of a minister whose sermons are printed in the newspaper.”

“It is the same,” she said, glancing up from a poultice she mixed to send home with him. “Although I read it for his political views, rather than spiritual enlightenment. He writes of the slavery institute, and how it might be abolished.”

“I have read before of the abolitionist's cause,” he said. “And find much to agree with. My grandfather earned his way from Scotland through servitude and spoke often of the cruel treatment from his employer. It must be far worse for those with no means of earning their way to freedom.”

“By enlisting, you fight against their cause.” Inwardly, she scolded herself for speaking so boldly to a patient.

He didn't seem to mind. “I wish only to defend my home, and the right to manage this land as we see fit. It is a duty I feel bound to meet, for my family's sake as much as mine.“

She could find no quarrel with the words despite their differences, for his initial statement was more open-minded than any she had expected to hear from a local farmer.

But Arthur had proved soft spoken on most issues, with the exception of one. Having discovered she laid claim to no religion and had not set foot in a church since childhood, he became adamant to know the reasons why. “Medicine relies partly on faith, does it not?” he challenged, barely flinching as a knife's blade flicked his forearm. Blood trickled into a bowl Mariah held in her lap, the patient more concerned with matters of the soul, as he told her, “The simple belief a tonic will work is sometimes enough to help the sick recover, I've heard.”

“There is science involved, too,” she said. “Some things can be proven beyond a doubt with studies conducted in laboratories. There is no such method for testing Divine influence, as I am sure you would agree.”

“Still,” he persisted, “you must have seen miracles in your profession. Recoveries that were not possible, except for the aid of a higher power.”

Pulling a bandage from her supplies, Mariah answered, “I have seen…nothing like what you describe. Only the senseless pain of many who did believe in He you speak of so fondly. Take that, if you will, as proof of a God who hears but does not care for their suffering.” A harsh reply, tempered only by the gentle way she bound his wounded arm.

 



 

Mariah's first taste of romance had come the summer she turned fifteen. A curly-haired youth of lively disposition named Clive, he came to her father's clinic as an apprentice from a family in Louisiana. Clive prided himself on the knowledge of a man twice his age, debating her father for hours on theories dismissed by the larger part of the medical community.

“The spread of disease through insects—it is something I have come back to again and again, while observing the swamps near my home. The concept as a whole makes sense, and I am sure it could account for some of the rare blood diseases you described to me this morning.“ Smoke curled from the pipe he waved for emphasis in her father's direction.

On the settee, Mariah listened with one hand propped beneath her chin, the sewing in her lap all but forgotten. She felt too shy to contribute her opinion to any of these discussions, but her interest did not go unnoticed by the boy who was just three years older than herself.

One afternoon, he approached her as she sat reading on the front porch swing. After standing awkwardly for a moment, he held out a journal that was folded open to an article near the middle. “It is the theory your father and I discussed last night,” he explained. “About the water that was linked to the cholera outbreak. I saw how closely you were listening and thought you might enjoy reading it for yourself.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking the journal with genuine gratitude. She expected him to return to the house, since Sunday afternoons were generally the time when her father required his students to inventory the medical supplies. Instead, he sank into the swing beside her, hands awkwardly clasping his knees. “The doctor who wrote that—he has a very modern way of thinking,” Clive said, with a nod to the journal. “I admire that kind of trait. It is so rare to find, especially in the medical field.” With a cough, he added, “You have some of that in your nature, I think.”

Mariah gave him a brief smile and turned back to the essay whose writer reminded her of a police inspector in his quest to track the source of an illness. Absorbed in the article, she failed to notice how close her companion had grown until the warmth of his breath fanned the ringlets around her face.

“You are very pretty, Mariah,” he said, voice low and earnest. “Has anyone told you that before?”

“I…no, I don't believe so.”

She angled her face further towards the journal to hide the color she knew had risen with this compliment. Staring at words that she barely comprehended, her heart pumped with fear and something she couldn't quite identify.