Chapter 31
Gideon stepped inside his house and came face-to-face with his father.
“I assume the attorney didn’t have good news?” Father said.
“How did you know about the meeting?”
Father smiled briefly. “Paisley told me. I mean to send a telegram to Ian and see what he thinks. Perhaps he’s aware of some legal precedent your local attorney is not.”
“Perhaps.” But Gideon didn’t imagine that was the case. Mr. Larsen lived in the middle of nowhere, but he was as dedicated to his profession as Gideon was to his own.
“Miriam has taken possession of your recovery room below the stairs. She wouldn’t allow Hawk in, or Paisley. Even I received nothing more than a request that she be left in peace.” Father glanced toward the closed door.
“I doubt I’ll have any more luck than you did,” Gideon said. “She doesn’t trust easily, and all her defenses are up right now. I don’t know how to bridge that gap.”
“When your mother is angry with me, flowers and a tin of Booth’s butterscotches are the only thing that saves me from her black books.”
Gideon had so desperately wanted to avoid the anxiety he’d seen his own father carry around all his life, but there he was in the same situation: trying to prove himself to a woman he cared for deeply. There was, however, a key difference. Mother often grew upset with her husband over petty, unimportant things, and Miriam had turned away from Gideon for a real, legitimate reason.
“What does Miriam like in particular?” Father asked. “Perhaps you could approach her with a token of your affection.”
“I can’t recall her ever longing for anything in particular.”
Except that wasn’t exactly true. She had wanted to hear him play his cello. He’d meant to oblige her once the house was empty again. He had lived in Savage Wells for nearly four years and hadn’t once played it within anyone’s hearing. He’d told her his reasons were to prevent the townspeople from thinking him too odd or refined to be considered one of them. But it was more than that. Music was a personal experience, a deeply vulnerable part of himself. Opening that up to possible ridicule unnerved him.
What else has she ever asked of me?
She had called his playing “heavenly.” The very antithesis of what she must be feeling. She needed it. His discomfort, his privacy all paled in comparison to that simple truth: she needed the music.
He started up the stairs.
“Where are you headed, son?” Father asked from the entryway.
“To fetch flowers and butterscotches.”
“You keep those in your bedroom?”
“The equivalent.” A moment later, he stood in the corner of his room, staring at his cello case. The house was filled with the town’s children, as well as Miss Dunkle, Paisley, Hawk, Tansy. Word of this would spread far and wide.
As the doctor, his life was open to everyone. His patients came by at all hours. They interrupted meals, pulled him from Sunday services, interrupted every social event he attended. Nothing in his life was his and his alone, other than this. Playing with so many people in the house meant losing the last shred of himself that he’d managed to keep private.
But Miriam was suffering, and she’d told him exactly what she needed. “The most peaceful sound on earth.”
She deserves a measure of peace.
He grabbed the handle of his cello case and quickly returned downstairs. If he didn’t give himself time to think, he wouldn’t change his mind.
Father hadn’t left the entryway. “I thought you said you don’t play when other people are around.”
“I don’t. But Miriam finds comfort in it.”
“Ah.” Father nodded. “Your ‘flowers and butterscotches.’”
Gideon propped the case up against the wall beside the recovery room door. He pulled a chair from the dining room and set it in place. He hesitated. “Do your offerings ever do what you hope they will?”
“Yes.” Father’s tone was empathetic. “At least, temporarily.”
Gideon carefully lifted out the cello. He sat in the chair and rested the instrument against his legs and shoulder. He pulled his bow from the case and tightened its hairs. One deep breath proved insufficient, so he took another.
He pulled the bow across the strings. A few curious heads peered around the parlor doorframe. He paused to quickly tune the instrument, then drew the bow across the strings again. Tansy and Paisley both stepped out of the kitchen. Some children stepped into the entryway.
Please let this be worth it. He slowly, carefully, played “Gentle Annie,” the song Miriam had specifically requested. Though he played it to offer her peace and reassurance, he found it worked its magic on him as well. He could almost forget his growing audience, his concerns over his parents, the uncertainty of Miriam’s situation. The music soothed him.
He had finished his second Stephen Foster tune when the recovery room door inched open—not enough to see Miriam on the other side, but enough to know she was listening.
Quick as that, his enthusiasm grew.
A small hand tugged on the leg of his pants. Ginny Cooper looked up at him with wide, hopeful eyes. “Can you play ‘Dan Tucker’ on your giant fiddle?”
Giant fiddle. Wouldn’t Mother be horrified by that? She had approved of the cello because it was dignified. How quickly this six-year-old girl had found something familiar and safe in something so new and unknown.
“I’m afraid I don’t play that tune well, Ginny.”
Her gap-toothed smile only grew. “It don’t have to be pretty. We just want to dance.”
Eagerness spread over all the children’s faces. They had been stuck indoors too long, unable to run and jump and release their pent-up energy.
He bumbled his way through the requested tune and a great many others suitable for spinning and hopping and whatever dance steps the children chose to concoct. Father even joined in the revelry, spinning children up in the air to great squeals and pleadings for another turn.
The entryway and the doorways of the dining room and kitchen were filled with children’s laughter and enthusiastic singing along as more adults joined in.
He’d tucked this instrument away for years, thinking it a liability, but it was quickly proving one of the most useful tools at his disposal. In a mere thirty minutes, his houseful of dreary, frustrated patients had transformed into smiling, laughing children again.
But had it helped Miriam? She hadn’t emerged from the room, but neither had she closed the door again. He wanted to ask her how she was holding up, but it was not something he dare do with so many little ears listening in.
He let his cello rest against his shoulder and his arms hang down at his sides. “You have worn me out, children.”
A general moan of disappointment rippled through the room.
“Perhaps if you are good and do what Miss Dunkle asks, I’ll play some quieter tunes for you before bed tonight.”
Miss Dunkle called their attention to her. “You heard Dr. MacNamara. Everyone back into the room you’ve been assigned, whether that is the parlor or the dining room.”
The children dragged their feet back to their rooms.
Ginny stepped up to him, smiling brightly. She clasped her hands together and spun in a circle. “I love your giant fiddle, Doc.”
“I’ve always been fond of it myself.”
“Will you really play it for us again?”
“I promise.”
She skipped back to the parlor, energy and happiness in her every step.
“I love your giant fiddle as well.” Miriam’s quiet voice tiptoed across the short distance between her door and his chair. “I thought you didn’t play for the town.”
“I don’t.” He set the cello carefully in its case.
“Then why the concert?”
He loosened the hairs of his bow. “I was playing for you. They happened to overhear.”
“But you didn’t want anyone to know about your cello. You swore me to secrecy.”
“You needed the music today, Miriam.” He set the bow in the case. “There was no other means of giving it to you.”
The door opened further, enough for him to see her silhouette. He still couldn’t see her face, couldn’t gauge her feelings.
He latched the cello case, then turned to face her.
She took a small step past the door. “Everyone will know about your music now.”
“I know.” He moved closer to her. The thread between them felt so fragile, he feared it would snap and she would slip away again. “I had no idea my telegram to Dr. Parnell would cause all of this. I swear I didn’t.”
Her gaze dropped, as did her voice. “I know.”
They stood near enough for him to reach out and brush his fingers along her cheek. The moisture he found there made his heart ache. “I don’t know that I can make any of this right again.”
“I don’t think it can be made right.
He let his hand drop to hers. “I can play again if you would like.”
She shook her head.
“Are you hungry? I’ll get something for you to eat. Or tired? I’ll make certain you’re left in peace so you can rest.”
Again, she shook her head.
“What can I do? Please, Miriam. I cannot bear to see you so unhappy without doing something to help you.”
She leaned against the doorframe. “Everything rests on convincing my father to care what happens to me, something I’ve never managed.”
“We’ll all help.” He rested his shoulder against the wall next to her. “You aren’t alone in this.”
“Dr. Blackburn said he isn’t either. I haven’t sorted that bit out.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “It worries me, though.”
Gideon slid his arm around her waist. She leaned into the one-armed embrace.
“He has this way of making me wonder if . . . I know I’m not mad. I know I’m not. But, somehow, he makes me question myself.”
“I have medical training too, Miriam, and I know he’s wrong. The man I worked for at St. Elizabeth’s, whose specialty lay in this area, would have denounced his diagnosis as well. Every other doctor who worked with him would too. We all would. I will remind you of that any time you find yourself doubting.”
“Do you promise?”
He kissed her forehead just above the eyebrow, then on the bridge of her nose. She turned into his embrace and pressed her open hand directly over his heart. She’d done it before, and it never failed to send his pulse racing. He placed his other hand over hers, keeping the connection between them.
Their lips hovered not even a breath apart. It was a torturous, wonderful sort of agony. An uncertain promise. A fragile hope.
Then she—she—closed the minuscule distance. She kissed him.
He wrapped his arms fully around her, reveling in her warmth and the feel of her in his embrace. He returned her kiss with fervor, and she melted against him. He rained kisses along her cheek and her jaw, before returning once more to her lips.
But something changed in the next instant. She stiffened. She backed the tiniest bit away.
“Miriam?”
She shook her head and slipped further back. “This will only make things more difficult if my father doesn’t side with us—with me.” Tears filled her eyes.
He wished he could promise her everything would be well in the end, but there was only one reassurance he could fully offer. “I won’t give up, Miriam.”
He raised her hand to his lips and gently kissed her fingers.
Outside the recovery room, the front door opened. Gideon knew the squeak of those hinges. “Who wants notes from their families?” Father’s voice called out.
Chaos erupted. Dozens of little voices cheered and shouted.
Miriam’s eyes turned away, and a gentle smile tugged at her lips.
“That was a bit of genius, you know,” he said to her.
“I hoped it would lift their spirits. They’ve been tucked in here for so long.”
“Most of them can probably leave tomorrow,” he said. “These notes will help see them through the night.”
“I hope there’s one for Rupert.”
“I’m certain the Fletchers would not have passed up the opportunity.”
Father appeared in the doorway. He grinned at Miriam. “You have one as well, sweetheart.”
“Really?” Her suddenly excited gaze jumped from Father to him and back. “Who would be sending me a note?”
“It appears that you have, during this epidemic, won the hearts of this entire town,” Gideon said. “I have no doubt any number of families would happily send you all the notes you could possibly read.”
Father handed her the note. “Miriam” was written across the front of the folded piece of paper.
“It really is for me.” She bit back a smile, but her eyes danced.
“Read it,” Gideon said with a laugh.
Father met his eye. A quick nod of understanding passed between them. He stepped out to distribute the rest of the notes.
Gideon returned his attention to Miriam. Rather than the joy he expected, she was pale and shaking. Her eyes registered shock. Fear.
“Miriam?”
The paper trembled in her hand. “It’s from my father.”
“Your father?” How was that even possible?
“He is here.” She took a quavering breath. “He came with Dr. Blackburn.”
Blackburn’s unidentified companion.
“We’re too late,” she whispered. “We’re too late.”