CHAPTER
29 
I found Mary in the garden with the children, picking strawberries.
“Can I help, Sister?”
Sister Magdalena straightened and put her hand to her back. “You’re a Godsend. My back is killing me.” She wiped her brow with the sleeve of her habit. “In private, you can call me Mary.”
“Mary. I’ve never picked strawberries before. Is there a secret?”
“If it’s red, it’s ready.”
I picked for a while before Mary spoke. “Will you and Billy join us for dinner?”
“Us?”
“Patrick is coming to visit.”
My stomach growled. As much as I appreciated the fruit, cheese, and bread Mary had left, I longed for a proper meal. “We’d love to. Thank you for leaving food and wine for us.”
“You’re welcome. I thought you could use some time alone. Though I wasn’t expecting it to last three days.”
I blushed, thinking of my most recent interlude with Kindle, but was luckily faced away from Mary. I straightened and dropped a large strawberry in her basket. “Nor did I.”
“He walked off toward the stables.”
She nodded as if it was the most natural place for him to go. “He left a trunk here last time he went West. Though, I suppose he could be bringing manure for the garden. Billy is quite the farmer.”
“Is he?”
“I’ve never been able to replicate the size of his fruits and vegetables.”
“He told me he hates farming.”
“He does. But he’s good at it.”
Grasshoppers chirped and jumped as we walked through the strawberry plants. I smelled the pepper plants before I saw them.
“Caroline! Come take this basket and bring me an empty one for the peppers, please,” Mary called. “That one there, see?” She pointed to a large, green pepper hiding beneath its foliage. “That’s what to look for.”
I picked the pepper, straightened, and placed my hands at my back as Mary had. “Not a task I would want to perform every day,” I said.
“You get used to it.” Mary shielded her eyes from the sun. “You don’t seem to know much about my brother.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You have known my brother since May, yet you didn’t know I was a nun?”
“I asked William the very question. We fell in love amid—how should I say this—quite a lot of drama. We have not had the opportunity to have deep conversations about our pasts.”
“What about your future?”
I chuckled. “We’ve talked of the future but little, though I am confident our ideas align.”
A small, smug smile played on Mary’s lips. “What makes you think so?”
I turned to pick another pepper, in hopes Mary wouldn’t see my expression. At Richardson, Kindle had asked me to consider giving up medicine for my and his safety, but we hadn’t spoken of it since. I faced my sister-in-law. “What makes you think our ideas are different?”
“You are nothing like Victoria.”
“I’ve been told I’m remarkably like her.”
“By William?”
“No.”
“John?” Mary laughed. “I suppose he would think so. Victoria was strong-willed about things she cared about, abolition mostly, but she was traditional in every other sense of the word. She was content with her role as a wife and mother, and William was as well. Somehow, I doubt you will be.”
“You think William expects the same of me?”
Mary shrugged. “Most men do. He let Victoria have her cause, but he had clear expectations about her role. Don’t be surprised if he has the same expectations for you.” Mary gazed past me and waved. “Speak of the devil.”
I followed her gaze to see Kindle smiling and striding toward us, hand upraised, happier than I’d ever seen him. I waved back. “He doesn’t look as disreputable when he smiles.”
“He looks like our brother.”
“I know.”
Mary’s gray eyes met mine. “As long as he doesn’t act like him.”
“How are my two favorite women in the entire world?” He kissed his sister on her forehead and leaned down to kiss me. I turned my head so he kissed my cheek. No need to rub our physical affection in the nose of a woman sworn to celibacy. Kindle seemed to understand, and put his arm around my waist. He inspected the garden. “I see you are struggling to grow peppers.”
“My peppers are fine, thank you very much.”
“But, they could be so much better.”
“Why don’t you earn those three days of leisure by rolling up your sleeves and weeding and fertilizing the garden.”
“I thought we were your guests.”
“Not anymore. This orphanage won’t run itself. Laura, you may either help Billy or help in the kitchen.”
“I believe I’ll help my husband.”
Mary nodded. “See you at dinner.”
We watched her walk to the house and didn’t speak until she was inside. “I can’t decide if she likes me or not,” I said. I held my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun and squinted at Kindle. “What were you doing in the barn?”
“Looking for something.”
“Did you find it?”
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you being enigmatic?”
“Yes. Come on. Let’s haul manure.” He held out his hand and I took it.
“You can’t be serious.”
“I am. We have to earn our keep.”
“I think I will go to the kitchen.” I tried to pull away but Kindle held firm and wrapped his arm around my waist.
“Don’t you want to spend time with your husband?”
“We’ve spent three days together.”
“Tired of me so soon?”
“Don’t be absurd. But, this is my only work dress and I don’t want it to smell like manure.”
“It won’t. You’ll watch me while I work.”
The stables were housed on either side of a wide center aisle in a large barn. Kindle opened the tack room, removed a stool, and set it down for me before returning to roll out a wheelbarrow with a shovel and pitchfork sticking from its empty tray. He stopped in front of the first stall, opened the door, ushered out a Jersey cow, and released her into the pen off the back of the barn. He went into the empty stall and shoveled.
I thought of my conversation with Mary, and for ten minutes thought of different ways to broach the subject, until I realized what was keeping me from asking outright was fear of Kindle’s answer.
“How long were you here before?” I asked.
Kindle dumped manure into the wheelbarrow and leaned on his shovel. I thought he was going to deflect the question, but he answered. “Six months.”
“Six months?”
He leaned his shovel against the stall wall, got another stool from the tack room, and sat next to me. “After Washita, I was transferred to Saint Louis. A desk job in the quartermaster’s office. It was easy and dull, which meant I had too much time on my hands, an itch to cause trouble, and every vice available to choose from.”
“Which vice did you choose?”
“All of them.” I knew full well what he meant. I’d treated whores for years and had come to understand it was a profession undertaken as a last resort. It was either sell your body or starve. But, I’d never felt so benign or forgiving toward their customers. The news certainly put a new light on his enjoyment of my actions of the last few days.
I stood and paced the barn aisle. “That explains the watered-down wine.”
“Mary’s always thought drink was my biggest weakness. Patrick was able to keep me in line for the most part. He traveled to New York, and I was left to my own devices for too long. When he returned, I was in the brig.”
“What did you do?”
“I was organizing fights between my men, mostly Irish street toughs who thought the Army’s twelve dollars a month was better than starving on the New York streets. They were only too happy to oblige and make extra cash.”
“Pope was a fighter. Is that how you two met?”
Kindle nodded. “Somehow, Patrick convinced Ranald Mackenzie to get me out with a slap on the wrist, and a six-month leave. Patrick sent me here to my sister to pull myself together.”
I faced him and crossed my arms. “To get you away from the drinking, gambling, and whores?”
He didn’t flinch or move. “Yes.”
“Who did you bring to meet your sister?”
Kindle sighed. “A woman named Rosemond.”
“A whore?”
He nodded.
“That explains Mary’s reaction to me as well as your obvious enjoyment of the last few days. She must have meant a lot to you, this Rosemond, if you brought her to meet your sister who’s a nun.”
“She didn’t.”
“Why would you bring a whore to meet a nun? To rub it in one or the other’s face?”
“Yes. Mary’s. I was drunk and high off a recent win. The last time I’d seen Mary she’d played the pious judgmental nun to the hilt. I was being petty and stupid.”
The man Kindle described with such candor resembled the man I fell in love with not at all.
Kindle rose and took me in his arms. “Laura, I am not that man. He was an aberration born of grief, anger, and loss of purpose. You don’t need to worry about his return.”
I stroked Kindle’s clean-shaven face and broached the real subject I wanted to talk about. “William, what kind of marriage do you want?”
“What?”
“Do you expect me to stay at home and darn your socks?”
“You are good at sewing.”
I hit him on the shoulder. “I’m in earnest.”
“Is this about practicing medicine?”
“Yes.”
Kindle sighed. “You know it won’t be safe for you to practice medicine. Why won’t you let me take care of you?”
“I don’t want to be taken care of. I want to be respected.”
“You know I respect you.”
“Then you wouldn’t ask me to become a housewife. Do you think cleaning and cooking is the best use of my time?”
“What do you want to do? Surgery?”
“Yes. But, I’ve resolved myself to the idea of midwifery.”
He chuckled. “You’ve said you hated the idea of delivering babies all the time.”
“Yes, well, it would be more than that.”
“Of course it would.” He released me, picked up his shovel, and returned to the stall.
I took a few deep breaths before I spoke, to calm my anger and prevent my voice from shaking. When he dumped the manure into the wheelbarrow I said, “I am giving up surgery because it is the safest thing to do, and it is hypocritical of me to pretend to follow my oath when I have killed men, and stood by and let other men die. You told me our first night together you did not care if I practiced medicine. Did you say it to hook me? Did you think once we married I would come around to my traditional role?”
He leaned against his shovel, met my gaze directly, but didn’t speak.
I gasped. “My God. You did.”
“Does this rejection of your traditional role include children?”
“Traditional role? Your sister was right.”
“What did she say?”
“That you let Victoria have her cause, but expected her to toe the line otherwise. And that you would expect the same of me.”
“You didn’t answer the question. Do you want children?”
“Do you?”
“I want to have a family with you. I assumed you did, as well.”
“Why have you never mentioned your child with Victoria?”
“What?”
“At Fort Richardson, your nephew told me you lost a child in the carriage accident. Yet, you’ve never mentioned it to me. So why would I think you would like to have children?”
“Victoria never carried a child to term. She lost two early in her pregnancies and was pregnant when she died. Do you think I would be so callous as to never mention a born child?”
I rubbed my forehead. “No. I apologize.”
“Do you not want children?” His voice was strained, as if it was a difficult question to ask.
“Of course I do.” I clutched my stomach, roiling against voicing my fear for the first time. I inhaled the sweet and dusty scent of manure and straw and met Kindle’s gaze. “I’m not sure I can have children.”
The question of why died on his lips when he saw my expression. He swallowed and pursed his lips, as if fighting the urge to scream or vomit. I turned my head to keep him from reading too much in me. It had been six weeks since the abortion and my menses had not come. Since my courses had never been regular, I didn’t know if this was due to an irrevocable internal injury, if was I pregnant with Kindle’s child, or if my body was rebelling from my poor diet and the physical strain of the last few months. All I could do was wait for pregnancy symptoms to occur, or bleeding to start.
“You should have told me.”
“When? I’m not sure even now.”
“Before we said our vows.”
“What?” The word came out as a gasp. Was he truly implying …? I stepped back and ran into the stall wall. “My God, what are you saying?”
He stepped close, towering over me. “I’m saying I want a real marriage, one that includes a wife who at least occasionally pretends to respect me as a man.”
I felt betrayed, as if everything Kindle had told me in the previous months had been a ruse to trap me into a traditional marriage I did not want or agree to. To believe that version of events I had to believe Kindle was a master manipulator, that his respect of me had been feigned, a complicated ruse, and for what? He didn’t need to marry me to get me into bed. Did his honor and guilt at what his brother had done to me extend so far he would abandon the Army, travel across Indian Territory and into the camps of the Indians who bore him the most ill will, lose an eye, and marry me? No. Love, or at least a deep affection, had to underpin his actions.
“And I want a husband who treats me as an equal, not as a second-class citizen. Or a broodmare.”
“You want a husband who will let you be in charge, in bed and out. There’s a limit, Laura. And I’ve reached it.” He picked up the wheelbarrow and rolled it down the aisle.
“To fertilize the garden.”
“We’re not finished talking about this.”
He stopped, set the wheelbarrow down, and returned. With great control he said, “Are you sure you want to finish this now? Do you think we can have this conversation without irreparably wounding each other?”
I wiped tears from my cheeks. I knew Kindle loved me, as I loved him. What we had was real. Unique. I knew it from the moment I had taken the straight razor to his beard one late night at Fort Richardson. But, was it enduring?
I lifted my chin. “If we cannot, then our marriage is doomed.”
Kindle crossed his arms and waited.
“Did I ever misrepresent myself to you?”
He paused, as if searching for a trap. “Besides lying to me about your name and waiting until I declared myself to you to tell me who you are and what you were running from? No.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “I told you everything at Richardson so you could choose, leave before it turned to more. You chose not to.”
“Because I loved you.”
I hesitated to give him the opportunity to change his verb tense and ignored the jab of fear when he didn’t.
“I’ve given up everything for you. My career, my family, my name,” he said.
“I’ve offered more than once to give it all back, to turn myself in. You refused, every time. So it will do you no good to throw up everything you’ve lost. We’ve both made sacrifices.”
“What have you given up? You lost your medical career when you killed that man in New York.”
I shoved him. “You know I didn’t kill Langton.” We glared at each other, breathing heavy. In that moment, I hated him. “There’s one thing you need to remember, Billy: everything done to me on the Canadian was done in your name by your brother’s allies. Five savages pinned me to the ground and raped me repeatedly because you didn’t kill your brother at Antietam when you had the chance. They violated me with my own gun, loaded and cocked. Can you imagine what that felt like? To wonder if each thrust would be the last, begging it would? Don’t preach to me about what you’ve lost,” I spat. “You’ll get no sympathy from me.”
I was sick with fear I’d gone too far, that Kindle would walk out of the barn never to return. But, there was also a lightness of heart, a relief that came with the unburdening of the very last vestiges of my ordeal.
Kindle turned, screamed, and slammed his fist into the wall.
“William!”
He stopped, resting his forehead against the wood with his fist pressed to the wall as if glued. “I knew you blamed me, and you should. I suspected my brother was out there, waiting for his moment. I knew I should have kept my distance from you, but I couldn’t.” He turned and slid down the wall until he sat on the floor, his injured hand resting on his bent knee. “How could I stay away from the woman I’d been waiting for my entire life?” Kindle stared at his bloody knuckles, flexed his fingers, and grimaced.
“Here, let me see.” I knelt next to him. I felt his knuckles and was surprised they weren’t broken. They would have a healthy bruise and very soon. I lifted his hand and kissed it. “Oh, William.”
He intertwined his good hand in my hair and pulled me forward. His lips rested against my forehead. “Forgive me.”
“For what?”
“For loving you.”
“For being the cause of …” He swallowed and continued, voice hoarse, his one eye searching my face. “We can’t have this between us anymore. I take responsibility, but you can’t throw it up to me in every argument we have.”
I sat back on my heels. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Do you forgive me?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Promise me.”
I opened my mouth to say, I’ll never mention it again, but stopped. I couldn’t promise that. As much as I wanted to move past the events of the Canadian, and had in many ways, it was part of me. There could come a time when I’d need to speak about it, for my own sanity.
“We will never argue about it again.”
Kindle nodded and sighed in relief. He stood, held out his hand to help me rise, and pulled me into a long, strong embrace. His bruised hand moved to my stomach. “Do you want children?”
I covered my hand with his. “I never thought so. But, I’ve been having dreams.”
Kindle’s hand caressed my stomach. “What about?” he whispered.
“You’re playing the piano. Bach.” His eyebrow raised. “Dressed very smartly, I might add. I’m turning the pages for you, and a child runs up to me and hugs my legs.”
“A boy or girl?”
“I never see them. Only hear the laughter.” I smiled. “Yes, I want to have your child.”
“You’re unsure if you can because of what happened?”
I inhaled a shaky breath. “That, and …” Kindle’s brows furrowed, and I continued. “Ezra didn’t know about us, and assumed …”
“You were pregnant?”
“I would have asked him to if he hadn’t. I couldn’t have borne the nine months of uncertainty.”
Kindle shook his head. He knelt in front of me and placed his forehead against my stomach. He kissed my abdomen, letting his lips linger as if saying good-bye. “We have each other. That’s all I need.”
I knelt down and took Kindle’s face in my hands. “And, the rest?” I whispered.
“I want the woman I fell in love with, God help me. Even if that means eating cold cheese and bread for every meal.”
“It won’t be that dire.” I laughed, and kissed his lips, his cheeks, his forehead, and started back to his lips. “I love you, William Kindle.”
He kissed me long and deeply. When he pulled away, I tried to rise but he kept me in place.
“What is it?” I said.
He cleared his throat. “When I left Maryland, I took little. I didn’t want to be reminded of my family or my childhood. With one exception.” He reached into his vest pocket. Between his long fingers he held a thin silver ring. “It was my mother’s. After my father broke her hand, my mother’s slave managed to remove it before her fingers swelled too much. She never wore it again.” Kindle grimaced. “Part of me hates to give you anything associated with my father, but this is the last connection I have to my mother.” He caressed my face. “She would have loved you as much as I do.”
The depth of emotion I saw in him at that moment took my breath away. I knew that no matter what happened in our future, the fights we would have, the disagreements, that William Kindle loved me as much as I loved him.
Kindle slipped his mother’s ring onto my finger and I pulled him into a strong embrace that wasn’t broken until Sophia walked into the barn.
“Mr. William? Sister Magdalena told me to fetch you and your wife for dinner.”
“Thank you. We’ll be up shortly.”
Kindle tucked my hair behind my ear. “I’m a mess, aren’t I?”
Kindle smiled. “Do you expect me to answer that honestly, Slim?”
“No, actually.” Kindle helped me stand. “I’ll go to the cabin and splash water on my eyes.”
Kindle pulled me to him and kissed me gently, letting his lips linger. “Don’t be long.”
He wheeled the manure-filled wheelbarrow toward the garden while I took the path to the groundskeeper’s cabin. Inside I quickly washed my face and was patting my skin dry with a towel when I saw an open book and small jar of greenery on the kitchen table. I half expected a Bible opened to a passage relevant to a woman’s role in marriage courtesy of Sister Magdalena. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times …
I grinned. A more apt description of the last six months, I couldn’t have imagined.
Kindle handed me a newspaper when I arrived for dinner. “Pope’s story made the front page.” Father Ryan and Mary watched for my reaction.
The photo that had haunted me across Texas and Indian Territory was printed above the fold with the dramatic headline: THE MURDERESS AND THE MAJOR DIE IN EACH OTHER’S ARMS.
I folded the paper and set it aside. “Good heavens, Henry.”
“Aren’t you going to read it?” Kindle said.
“Maybe later.”
“The purple prose will be just the thing to rehabilitate your reputation,” Father Ryan said.
“Little good it will do me now that I’m dead.”
Sophia entered the room carrying a large tray with four bowls and a basket of bread. She placed it on the sideboard and served us steaming bowls of vegetable stew.
“From your garden?” I asked Mary.
“Yes.”
I glanced up to thank Sophia and saw her gaze settle on the newspaper next to me, where my picture was clearly visible. Her pause was almost imperceptible. She finished serving, asked Sister Magdalena if there was anything else, and was dismissed.
“Billy, Mary and I were talking …” Father Ryan started.
“Would you call him William, please?” I interrupted. “Or Kindle? Hearing him called Billy reminds me of Cotter Black.”
The three of them looked at me in silent astonishment. Kindle recovered himself first, knowing full well what I had endured at his brother’s hand. “Yes, I agree,” Kindle said.
“It’s a force of habit,” Father Ryan said. “I apologize.”
I waved my hand. “I understand. You were saying?”
“I know your plan is to stay for a couple of weeks to allow the story to die down, but what if you stayed longer?”
“It would be much safer for the two of you if you did,” Mary said. “Very few people visit us out here, so you would be perfectly safe.”
“What of the nuns and students who were here before? They know William is your brother.”
“We are a retired community,” Mary said, “and don’t concern ourselves with the news. The only people who know of your story are the four people in this room.”
“And, Sophia,” I said. “She saw the headline and my picture.”
Mary smiled. “Do not take this the wrong way, but that picture resembles you very little. Besides, Sophia will be leaving us within the week to take up a position with a family in Chicago.”
“Chicago?” Father Ryan said.
“Her reputation as a troublemaker has prevented me from being able to place her with a respectable family in Saint Louis. She leaves on Monday. Back to the original subject, Patrick and I think you should stay on here through the winter. Remain until the spring and the story of the Murderess and the Major will be completely forgotten. You will be able to travel much safer then.”
“We cannot live off of you for six months, Mary,” Kindle said. “And, we don’t have the money to pay.”
“William, as you probably noticed, the building and grounds haven’t been maintained as well as the diocese would like since you left. We were going to hire the work out, but since you’ve returned you can manage it. Repair what you can and hire out workers for the rest,” Patrick said.
“And, plant the fall garden,” Mary said.
“What about me?” I asked.
Patrick smiled. “You would earn your keep by teaching our girls about midwifery.”
“You do not teach it?”
“We do, but being a trained doctor, I’m sure you would have a depth of knowledge we do not. One of the sisters would assist you and learn from you, so she can continue when you leave,” Mary said.
I could tell the idea appealed to Kindle, and staying in one place, setting down roots, even if they were shallow, appealed to me as well. But, it wasn’t the kind of decision that needed to be made by silent eye contact and assumptions.
“We will surely consider it,” I said.
Father Ryan’s brow furrowed in consternation at the wife speaking up for the husband.
“Yes, let us talk about it,” Kindle said. “I’m eager to meet Laura’s Aunt Emily.”
Mary took the answer in stride. “Are you staying the night, Father Ryan?”
“No, I must return. I leave for Rome in a fortnight.”
“Rome?” I said.
“Yes. I will be gone for a year.”
Mary’s serene smile tightened, but she remained silent.
“What an opportunity, Father,” I said. “Congratulations. I guess the winter storms in the Atlantic aren’t obstacle enough for the work of God,” I said.
Patrick laughed. “You’ve caught me out. I came to bid Mary good-bye. I doubt I’ll have the opportunity to visit again before I leave.”
Mary smiled at Patrick and dipped her head, a blush creeping across her complexion. There was no denying the undercurrents of tension and affection running between the nun and the priest. I had a similar relationship once; one borne of years of familiarity with a good dose of sexual attraction. Once we consummated our attraction the relationship had fallen apart. Patrick and Mary obviously hadn’t—couldn’t—but it was obvious one of the two wanted to.