Daniel found Miss Landway carrying a load of clean white examination table covers down the hallway toward her office. Her hair, wild as usual, was striving mightily to release itself from the knot she’d wound it in at the back of her neck. Her auburn locks continually struck him as on the verge of escape—which might explain the three different-colored pencils currently sticking out of her bun. Colored pencils. It seems the woman could not even conduct basic correspondence in black and white.
He’d stopped in her office the other day and, finding her gone, allowed himself a moment to take in the scattered collection of sketches and tiny drawings that decorated her papers and notes. He’d also noticed the bright yellow matting with which she’d framed her profession’s oath. Daniel couldn’t quite decide if he found the bits of color she always left in her wake enjoyable or ridiculous. Perhaps they were both.
He caught up to her and took the laundry load from her hands before she could utter a syllable of protest. “Allow me.”
She stopped, sitting back on one hip with—and there was no other way to describe her expression—an annoyed smile. “I’m able to fetch my own linens from the laundry room.”
“Oh, I’m sure of that. Still—” he continued walking toward her office “—what kind of example for gentlemanly behavior would I be setting for the boys if I were to be found walking next to you while you carried such a load?”
Nurse Landway darted ahead of him, reaching the infirmary door before he did and standing in front of it. “There are no gentlemen in training to be found here. So I’ll be fine and dandy.” She reached out her hands for the pile of folded cloths.
“I can at least place them in the cabinet for you.” He reached for the doorknob.
She angled in front of him. “I’ll be fine, really.” With her chin tipped up at him—for he had perhaps half a foot on even her statuesque figure—she looked defiant.
Daniel had the distinct impression she was hiding something. Her eyes darted back and forth and he watched her hand tighten on the office doorknob. He stole a glance over her shoulder to notice faint shapes of color through the thin curtains she had strung over the door’s glass window. Rather a lot of color.
“Miss Landway, allow me to enter.”
Were she a child, he would call her stance squirming. Given that she was a fully grown woman, Daniel didn’t know quite how to describe it. She winced. “You don’t want to do that.”
Ida Lee Landway was most certainly hiding something. “I’m quite sure I do.”
She hesitated again, this time giving a pitiful tug on the table covers, which Daniel was now sure he would not surrender even at gunpoint.
“Kindly open your office door, Miss Landway.” He kept his words polite but his tone firm.
She gave a small whine, ducked her head like a guilty child and pushed the door open.
A riot of color greeted his eyes. Boxes and baskets of yarn in a kaleidoscope of bright hues filled every available surface of the office. It was as if the circus Mrs. Smiley was just bemoaning had arrived and subsequently exploded in the infirmary. His infirmary.
Miss Landway cut in front of him. “I can explain.”
Knowing he had come to deliver his approval for her little project, he found the entire situation amusing. Still, the sight before him only proved Mrs. Smiley’s point: someone needed to mind Miss Landway’s limits. And that someone was him. “I expect you shall.”
She began rearranging the boxes, as if that would somehow render them invisible. “My dear friend Leanne—Mrs. John Gallows, that is—had the most extraordinary luck when she went looking for donated yarn.” She turned to him and laid a hand on her chest in a theatrical gesture. “We had no idea she’d get such enormous and immediate replies when she went asking. It’s a blessing, really.”
“You sought donations?” He looked around to find someplace to deposit the linens, and couldn’t see a single empty surface.
She moved a box to the floor, gesturing for him to put down the stack of cloths, which he did. “Well, not exactly. I was telling Leanne about the whole business with Meredith’s booties and the idea I had. I was asking her if she’d help me. There are twenty-six girls after all, and we’d want each of them to have more than one pair of socks, so—”
“We?” he cut in.
Miss Landway planted a hand on one hip. “You did say I could go ahead if I could guarantee each girl received equal gifts.” Sparks of defiance lit her eyes—she’d become much more invested in this than he’d realized.
Part of him liked that. Another part of him felt as if he was watching the year’s greatest headache form right in front of his eyes. “I did. And I told you I’d think about approving your recruitment of a core of volunteers to assist.” He put his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I see you didn’t find waiting for such approval necessary.”
She spun about the room, her hands flung wide. “Well, my stars, I didn’t think it’d all happen this fast!”
When he didn’t reply, she turned to face him with pleading eyes. It was obvious it would rip her heart out if he told her to send back the yarn. He wasn’t going to do that, of course, but in many ways this was the baby booties all over again. Charity may be the heart of the Parker Home for Orphans, but procedure gave it the bones to endure. He had to make her understand that if she was going to last, and Daniel found he wanted this nurse to last.
He pinched his nose and pushed out a breath. “I’m pleased at your initiative, truly I am.”
She looked as if she were holding her breath. “And?”
“And I am not going to ask you to send all this back, but—”
“Thank You, Jesus!” She put her hand to her forehead in relief.
“But,” he continued firmly, “I would have liked for you to wait until I gave you permission to solicit donations. That was, in fact, why I was coming to see you.”
“Well, I would have, but—”
“But?” Daniel crossed his hands over his chest and gave his word all the disciplinary strength he could muster.
Her shoulders fell. “But nothing. You’re right. I charged right ahead when I should have waited. I let my excitement run away with my good sense.” She folded her hands in front of her. “It’s a problem of mine.”
“Miss Landway, however did you manage in the army of all places?”
She put one hand up to her hair in a sort of overwhelmed gesture, her eyes popping in surprise when she found a pencil there. She removed it and stared at it as if she had no idea how it had ended up in her chignon. Daniel pointed to her hair and raised two fingers, cueing her to find the two other pencils. Her cheeks flushed pink as she pulled those, as well. “You must think me a ninny,” she said with a sigh.
“Actually, I find you rather clever, if a bit...impulsive.”
“A bit?” Her eyes lit up at the compliment, and Daniel realized he had yet to tell her he was glad she had come to the Home. He was, mostly. She brought an energy he’d once had, even if it came without all the caution life at the Home had driven into him.
“Perhaps a great deal impulsive. In this case, it has worked out for the best. But I hope Meredith’s booties have shown you it doesn’t always end that way.”
“You’re right. You’re absolutely right.”
Daniel picked up a ball of yarn, one in a light green that reminded him of spring leaves, and held it up. “So you will come to me with any new ideas and wait for my approval in the future?”
“Absolutely.” She took the ball from him as if it represented their agreement. “Oh, in that case I should start right this minute. Do you know Mrs. Smiley’s shoe size?”
Daniel couldn’t quite follow that train of thought. “I beg your pardon?”
“Mrs. Smiley. I think she ought to get a lovely pair of socks, as well. I’ll need her shoe size.” Catching herself, she corrected, “Provided, of course, you approve of my making her some. I was chatting with her about all the math in knitting and she didn’t seem very taken with the idea, but perhaps some lovely socks could change her mind.”
That was an understatement. “Mrs. Smiley is very particular about her methods. She felt your ‘chatting’ was an attempt to insert knitting into her mathematics curriculum.”
Miss Landway’s face fell. “She complained to you?”
“She came to me with her concerns.” Then, against his better judgment, Daniel leaned in and said, “Mrs. Smiley’s life is continually filled with concerns. I wouldn’t take it personally.”
“Oh, a grouser, hmm?”
While he found the term a bit dramatic, it did fit in this case. “She’s an excellent teacher.” After a second, he added, “But perhaps even an excellent teacher can use a pair of pretty socks.”
“Or slippers.” Miss Landway pointed at Daniel, suddenly taken with the brilliance of her improved idea. “I reckon she’d love a cozy pair of bright blue slippers. Who wouldn’t?”
Daniel did not dare to venture a guess as to Jane Smiley’s choice in private footwear. He simply smiled, nodded his goodbye and wondered how long it would be before Miss Landway’s next outrageous idea.
* * *
Ida was carrying a box of medical records down from the attic Thursday morning when she heard it: what sounded like a herd of buffalo stomping at once, and one voice shouting...numbers? It sounded oddly like the military exercises that would wake her up at the crack of dawn back at Camp Jackson, but then there were also grunts and various cracking sounds.
It had to be some sort of calisthenics—she knew the Home had to have some form of physical exercise program, but she couldn’t for the life of her guess what would make the sounds she heard. The girls took basic dance and posture, so this ruckus had to be the boys. A crash and a yelp—along with a rumble of laughter—piqued her curiosity and she tiptoed down the hall to take a look.
A dozen or so boys in trousers and white undershirts toed up to a series of lines taped along what was once the big old house’s third-floor ballroom. Their foreheads and white undershirts were soaked in sweat—it was broiling up here despite the shutters being thrown wide open—but they looked enthralled as they thrust long sticks at one another. Ida was so shocked by the sight that it took a minute for her to work out that they weren’t pummeling each other, they were fencing. Or at least, something like it, as they seemed to be using broomsticks rather than foils.
Their teacher stood at the far end of the room, his face momentarily buried in a towel, for he was as sweat-drenched as the boys. Ida’s jaw nearly dropped to discover the man to be Dr. Parker. Shirt open several buttons, glasses off, sleeves rolled up, hair pushed up off his face by the towel and sticking up in all directions, Ida barely recognized him. It was as if someone had taken formal Dr. Parker and dropped him in the center of a wet hurricane for five minutes, then deposited him in the third-floor exercise room.
“No, no, Jerome,” he said, walking over to one of the boys. Even his walk was different up here, with longer strides and a freer swing of the shoulders. “Use your knees to advance on your opponent. That way you keep your balance. Like this.” And with that, he took a stance and worked his way across the room in a series of very dashing-looking sword-fighting moves. The boys were transfixed, not only because Dr. Parker was very good, but because Dr. Parker used an actual fencing foil. Boys and swords, Ida thought. I’ll be seeing the end result of this in the infirmary one of these days.
Bookish Dr. Parker suddenly didn’t seem so bookish. Lengthen out the hair, add boots and a sash, and Ida could very well imagine the doctor alongside the Three Musketeers. Not quite a pirate, but certainly someone with a bit of swashbuckle in his blood. The image before her was so at odds with her notion of Daniel Parker that she had to catch herself before she laughed.
“A lady!”
Evidently she hadn’t caught herself at all, for one of the boys—George, if she remembered right—had noticed her and currently pointed his broomstick broadsword at her as if she were an invading enemy.
Dr. Parker’s demeanor stiffened up so fast, Ida could have sworn it made an actual sound. “Nurse Landway. You’ve discovered our Thursday fencing lessons.”
“I’m impressed,” she said, meaning it. “Looks like fun.”
“Girls don’t like swords,” George proclaimed with all the manly bravado a second-grade swordsman could muster.
“I grew up in West Virginia. I can ride a horse bareback and I can shoot a gun. Why not use a sword?”
George’s jaw dropped. “You can shoot a gun?”
“Girls in West Virginia need to learn to hunt, same as boys.”
When Dr. Parker raised a “you are not helping the matter” eyebrow, Ida backpedaled to, “Only we confine ourselves to small game like squirrel and possum.” She looked squarely at Dr. Parker when she added, “We leave the hungry bears and wild ferocious elephants to the big, strong menfolk.”
The doctor checked his pocket watch, conveniently deciding that three-twenty was an excellent time to end fencing lessons for the day. “That’s it for today, boys. Rods in the canister in the corner. Use the extra time to wash up before science class—it was hot today.”
The older boys, smart enough to realize their lesson had been ended by her intrusion, shot Ida one or two foul looks as they filed out of the room.
“There was no reason to stop early on my account, Dr. Parker. I have four older brothers. I understand the idea of ‘no girls allowed.’”
“Quite frankly, I was getting a bit winded in this heat. Some days the boys’ enthusiasm outpaces my stamina. They enjoy it so much, though, even if I do hurt the next day. Or days.” He made quick work of buttoning up his shirt and cuffs.
“Fencing?” Ida couldn’t help but ask.
He put his glasses back on. “Why not fencing?”
“It seems so...” She searched for the kindest word. “...impractical. When are these boys ever likely to use such a skill?”
Dr. Parker picked up the last of the wooden rods and tossed it into a barrel that stood in the corner of the room. “I’ll admit, it is a gentleman’s sport. But learning to command their bodies, to strategize, to keep a cool head in a fight, to outsmart an opponent rather than outbrawl them? I think those are highly practical skills.” For just a moment, a rakish grin filled his face. “But I would be lying if I said it isn’t occasionally useful for me to put a few of the older ones in their place. They always think they can best me in a duel.” He slid his foil into its case with a defiant air. “And they are always wrong.”
Ida crossed her hands over her chest. “I underestimated you, Dr. Parker.”
He laughed. “It is, of course, just plain fun, as well. One day I hope to be using more than broomsticks, but from a nurse’s standpoint, perhaps that is an advantage.”
“Oh,” she said with a laugh, “you’d be surprised how much damage a blunt object can do.”
“Perhaps to a wild, ferocious West Virginia elephant?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You deserved that.”
“I’d prefer the boys not picture you as a gunslinger nurse from a Western novel. Children’s imaginations tend to run wild with the tiniest bits of information we give them. I like us to be deliberate in the role models we present here at the Home.”
“Oh, and you are nothing if not deliberate. A deliberate man hands a dozen boys sticks and sets them loose to whack at each other.”
“A deliberate man trains a dozen young men how to use those sticks and channels their considerable energies someplace positive so they don’t whack at each other. Surely the army taught you boys must burn it off somewhere.”
Hadn’t she had that very thought upon hearing about Mr. Grimshaw’s chess lessons? “I heard an officer back at Camp Jackson once say that’s why God gave us push-ups.” Dr. Parker gestured through the door and she exited the room ahead of him. “Musketeering aside, they do need practical skills, too, don’t they? Apprenticeships and such?”
“Yes.” Dr. Parker turned, fished a set of keys from his pocket and locked the door behind them. “Most of the older ones take posts at trades around the city, when they can be made to fit around their lessons. I’m careful where we send them, though. Some of the ‘apprenticeships’ out there aren’t much more than indentured servitude. I’m sorry to say the war’s left enough orphans that some don’t think twice about taking advantage of them. My father had an excellent record for looking out for the children’s welfare here, and I aim to keep it that way.”
Ida decided it was time to ask the question that had been sitting on her tongue all week. “May I ask you something, Dr. Parker?”
He clasped his hands behind his back. “Well, I’ve not seen you hesitate yet.”
She stopped for a moment, wanting to get the question out before they descended the staircase from the third floor. “Why do you think y’all haven’t been able to keep someone in the nurse’s position here?”
He paused for just a moment, and Ida wanted to stomp on her own toes. When will I ever learn to keep my mouth shut?
“Miss Landway, I can’t decide if I find your directness refreshing or startling.”
“A little of both?” she offered meekly, wondering if her tongue would soon place her at the end of the long line of former Parker Home for Orphans nurses. She’d spent a hundred nights on her knees repenting outbursts of an unguarded tongue—she dearly hoped this post wasn’t about to become the casualty of yet another.
Dr. Parker leaned against the banister, which promptly gave a worrisome groan and popped a screw to bounce along the top stair. “I would say,” he said wearily as he bent to pick up the wayward hardware, “that it is because it is a big, endless job for which we don’t pay nearly as well as we should. We’re forever making do and patching up.” He rocked the banister back and forth, testing to see if it would hold without the screw. “I spend much of my time beholden to donors, but the money we receive is never enough. Quite frankly, it’s my hope the army is better training for what we face here.”
The answer satisfied her. Ida was used to uphill battles and making do, and she’d met plenty of nurses who weren’t. “Smart thinking.”
“I do hope so.” He started down the stairs, then stopped. “Oh, but one thing.”
“Yes?”
“I must ask you to steer clear of the boys’ fencing lessons from now on. We’re up here every Thursday from three to four. It really is a ‘no girls allowed’ thing.”
Ida blinked at him. “You’re serious.”
“Silly, I know, but there are so few things we can give them, and they seem to take to the exclusivity of it. I indulge them.”
“So if a female student asked to learn fencing, you’d deny her?”
“Nonsense. It would never come up.”
Ida thought of her friend Leanne’s husband, Captain John Gallows, and how fiercely he prickled at being forced to learn to knit as a promotional stunt for the Red Cross. Some gender-based “traditions” really begged to be knocked down. “You’re sure of that?” Lady Gwendolyn seemed a perfect candidate for Pirate Queen if she wanted to raise a little trouble...
...which she did not. This was neither the time nor the place. Guard my brain and my tongue, Lord, please!
“Well, yes, I expect I am,” Dr. Parker was saying as he continued down the stairs.
“Of course,” she said, following him. You’ve got your yarn, why on earth would you go stirring up more trouble? Ida applied her most congenial tone. “Whatever was I thinking?”