Harp on the Willow Read online

  He wasn’t exactly handsome—at least not like the adventurer in the novel she’d read. For one thing, his nose was a bit too high-bridged and sharp, but in spite of his almost rakish appearance, he had a kind of stillness and a steadiness about him that was hard to ignore.

  Abruptly, he turned to look at her, and Addie Rose felt like a guilty child caught in some mischief. She found it difficult to look directly at him, but the force of his stare drew her in.

  He motioned for her to follow him across the room. “Have you had this disease?” he said when they reached the door.

  “Years ago, aye.”

  “Good. So, then, how long can you stay with her?” He went on without waiting for her to answer. “The girl’s mother clearly has her hands full with the younger children. Besides, she seems the nervous type. I’ll talk to her, but I’m not sure she’ll remember what has to be done. The child needs to be sponged all over her body with cool water repeatedly. I want to get her temperature down as quickly as possible. And she needs to be watched for any breathing problems. No food—understand? Nothing but fluids. Lime water or rice water, all right, but no solid food.” He stopped long enough to again ask, “How long can you stay with her?”

  “As long as need be, I suppose, but I’ll have to send word home.”

  “All right. I’ll leave you some belladonna. I’ll show you how much to give her. And I’ll also leave something to put in your cleaning water along with the soap and vinegar.” He paused. “Keep the other family members out of here. I’ll talk to Mrs. Clery about that before I leave.”

  Addie Rose continued to nod, her mind racing to take in everything he told her. For Nainsi’s sake, she needed to remember it all.

  “Listen, now—” He had a stern, blunt way about him as he spoke, and yet his eyes hinted of kindness. “This is crucial. You can spread the fever simply by taking care of someone who has it, so you need to scrub yourself before making contact with anyone else. And your clothes—” he hesitated as if uncertain whether to go on, but finally he did. “If you can’t afford to burn them, then they need to be washed in a strong disinfectant. You absolutely must take care not to infect anyone else.”

  Addie Rose almost felt as if he were accusing her, and she resented it. “I know what to do,” she said sharply.

  One eyebrow lifted. “And how is it that you know what to do, Miss Murphy?”

  “My mother is a wise woman. She used to tend the sick in her village.”

  “In Ireland, was it?”

  “Aye, in Ireland. She taught me what she knows.”

  His gaze continued to go over her face. Then he smiled a little, and what a difference that made in the man! With the hard set to his mouth suddenly eased, and his eyes, so stern only a moment before, now bright with a glint that bordered on humor, he seemed warmer, even friendly.

  “And it seems she taught you well. All right, then. I’ll jot a few things down for you and Nainsi’s mother and leave some other things you’ll need. And I’ll do my best to come again by day after tomorrow, but I can’t make any promises. It’s a difficult time. I can’t seem to stay ahead…”

  His words drifted off unfinished as he crossed the room again and started drawing things out of his medical case.

  Addie Rose watched him, wondering how long ago he had come from Ireland, if he’d grown up here in the States or was a more recent transplant. Even though he spoke with an educated tongue, an underlying current marked him as distinctly Irish. And there was his name, of course: Kavanagh. Even so, he might not have come across.

  No. He had. She was sure of it.

  He closed his medical case and then turned back to the bed and bent low, listening to Nainsi’s breathing for a moment before chucking the girl under the chin, straightening, and starting for the door.

  And then he was gone, leaving Addie Rose to stare after him, confused by the flurry of emotions he left behind.

  TWELVE

  WHEN THE WORK IS EVERYTHING

  Who is so poor that I should not take notice?

  Who is so low that I should help deny?

  Who should call in need for healing mercy

  And I pretend I did not hear the cry?

  ANONYMOUS

  The road between Owenduffy and Mount Laurel was tedious, even in the best of weather. It was pocked and pitted, with deep ditches on either side. During a dry spell, the horse and buggy turned up enough dust that Daniel sometimes wore a bandanna over his mouth to keep from choking. But during a rainy season, things could get downright treacherous. Every ridge became a slick gully, every rut became a puddle, and the ditches quickly filled with mud and stones that could tip a buggy completely over, injuring a horse and driver if they should go off the road.

  It had rained every day that week, so by late Thursday afternoon the road was a danger to both man and beast. The way over from Mount Laurel had been bad, with ruts and enough bumps to make Daniel feel as though jumping beans had taken up residence in his stomach.

  The way back was a nightmare. A hard, wind-driven rain had been coming down for hours, and by the time he left Owenduffy, the road was little more than a mud-slicked creek. The river, swollen almost to its banks, was running hard and fast. The bridge swayed slightly in the strong wind, spooking the usually calm-natured Ginger, who took up a faster trot than usual in her eagerness to leave behind the rushing water.

  Daniel wasn’t immune from a twinge of uneasiness as they clattered across the wooden planks. While the horse probably couldn’t hear him in the din from the river and the wind, he talked to her all the way across, keeping his voice low and calm, though in truth he was just as anxious to get to the other side as she was.

  They were just over the bridge when Ginger stumbled in a particularly deep rut. The buggy teetered and then lurched, throwing Daniel hard across the bench as they slid into a ditch, the right front wheel crashing into an enormous rock before jamming against the hillside.

  Ginger shrieked but almost immediately found purchase, remaining steady while Daniel jumped down from the buggy to assess their situation. Sarge leaped directly into the ditch, his feet instantly sinking into the thick mud. He shot Daniel an accusatory glance while slugging out of the ditch onto the road, the mud making a sucking noise as he freed himself.

  One look told Daniel they were stuck fast. Both right wheels of the buggy were sunk into the mud, the back skewed at an angle. He stood, rapidly getting soaked, looking from the wheels to the horse, trying to think what to do. There was no way he could pry free of that much mud by himself. Still, he had to try. He didn’t welcome the idea of leaving the buggy and riding horseback in this downpour. He had a hunch that a buggy left by the side of the road for any length of time in Owenduffy might end up being “unstuck” by someone other than the rightful owner.

  He was still standing, getting soaked, calculating his options, when he spotted what looked to be a coal wagon coming up behind him. Relief swept through him, but when the wagon pulled up close enough that he could recognize the driver, he wondered if his relief might be premature.

  The driver appeared nearly as drenched as Daniel, water running off his cap and down his face, his coat dripping like a waterfall.

  Dominic Murphy.

  The miner looked from the buggy to Daniel. He finally gave a short nod. “Looks as if you have a bit of a problem.”

  Daniel choked back a sarcastic reply. “We hit a rut. Do you think you could help me get back on the road?”

  Murphy jumped down from the wagon and, tossing water off his cap before replacing it, walked around the buggy to inspect the embedded rear wheel. “I’d say the axle’s broke.”

  Daniel groaned.

  Murphy took one more look before straightening. “I’m making a delivery over to the bank manager’s house at Mount Laurel. Hitch your horse to the back of my wagon if you want, and I’ll get you home.”

  Daniel hesitated, but not too long. There seemed nothing for it but to take the miner up on his offer, grudg
ing though it appeared to be. “I hate to trouble you. There’s my dog as well.”

  Murphy cast a sour look at Sarge. “There’s room for the both of you. As I said, I’m on my way.”

  As he went to unhitch Ginger from the buggy, Daniel found himself wondering if Murphy would have offered the ride if he’d not been “on the way.”

  “Will my buggy be safe, do you think?” he said climbing onto the bench and waiting for Sarge to leap up behind him.

  “You’ve little choice in the matter in any event, I expect.”

  Clearly, Dominic Murphy was a man of few words. They would have passed the first minutes of the drive in total silence had Daniel not repeated his thanks for the miner’s help more than once, just as a way of trying to make conversation.

  Finally, Murphy waved a hand of dismissal. “It’s no trouble.” His tone was impatient, his expression annoyed.

  Daniel let out a long breath and decided to try a different tack. “So—you also make deliveries.”

  “Man who usually delivers to Mount Laurel broke his arm. This team is a handful, so I took the delivery for him.”

  “Tom O’Riordan?”

  Murphy glanced over at him, pulling his cap down a little more snugly against the rain. “How would you know that?”

  “Just a guess. I set his arm earlier today.”

  The miner said nothing for a time. Then, “You’ve been over to Owenduffy a lot lately, I hear tell.”

  The man had a way of making every statement sound like an accusation.

  Daniel nodded. “I suppose I have.”

  “Would that be mostly because of the fever, then?”

  Daniel wondered how long ago Murphy had left Ireland. His accent was still thick. Again he nodded. “Your daughter—Addie Rose—is a good nurse. She was at the Clerys’ house today when I was there. She helped a lot.”

  The miner shot him another look. “Who’s down there? Is it the fever?”

  “Nainsi. And yes, she has the fever.”

  Murphy pulled a face. “And her not strong to begin with.”

  “Your daughter was going to stay with her, at least for a while. She seems to have a way in the sickroom.”

  “I’d as soon she stay away from those sickrooms,” Murphy said sourly. “But she’s like her mother that way. Jana—that’s her mother—was the same back home. Folks always sending for her when there was a need. Still do, but the girl goes more often in her place now.”

  Daniel felt strangely pleased that the big miner actually seemed willing to finally carry on a conversation with him. “How many children do you have, Mr. Murphy?”

  “You needn’t ‘Mister’ me. The name’s Dominic. There’s five—three girls and two boys.” He paused. “Addie Rose and her next sister are the oldest.”

  The “next sister” would be Elly, Daniel concluded. The source of contention between Stephen and Clay Holliday. “How long have you been in the States Mr.—Dominic?”

  Murphy’s answer was slow in coming, as if he had to calculate the time. “Ten years or so now.” He clicked his teeth, and the team struck up a quicker pace in spite of the mud-pitted road. “County Clare is where we’re from. Near the Shannon. And yourself? I figure the West.”

  Daniel looked at him.

  “Well, your name, man,” Murphy supplied in a dry tone. “And there’s still a trace on your tongue.”

  “You figured right. I grew up in Killala. We came over when I was sixteen—nearly eighteen years ago.”

  Again Murphy glanced at him. “That would have been when the Hunger was at its worst.”

  “It was.”

  Silence settled between them for another moment or two before Murphy broke it. “I hear you’re a city fella.”

  “We settled in New York when we first came over. But I don’t fancy myself much of a…city fella…no.” Daniel waited. “So how did you end up here?”

  “Well, wouldn’t that be my good fortune now?” Murphy said with a twist of his mouth. “An uncle came over before us, found me a job in one of the Pennsylvania mines. We moved here after a couple of years because the conditions were said to be better.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “I’m still lookin’ for those golden streets of Amerikay, though.”

  Daniel nodded, not knowing quite what to say. Reality was that things had been better for him and his mother when they arrived. He’d had a family and two patrons—his Uncle Mike and Lewis Farmington, a New York shipbuilder—who had helped him get through medical college. He might not have found the streets of America to be made of gold, but they’d turned out to be a sight smoother for him than the starving roads of County Mayo.

  Somehow, though, he didn’t think Dominic Murphy would care much one way or the other, so he kept his feelings to himself.

  Indeed, Murphy lapsed into another silence at that point, and they spent the rest of the drive to Mount Laurel without speaking.

  By the time Daniel got Ginger, the Newfoundland, and himself dried off and warmed up some soup for supper, he was so tired he could scarcely eat. Later, in front of the fire, he attempted to read the papers, but he was too exhausted to focus, so he gave up.

  How many hours of sleep had he managed so far this week? He prayed there would be no emergencies tonight, for he wasn’t sure he had it in him to take care of anyone other than himself.

  In front of the fireplace, Sarge was wherever dogs went when they dreamed, and he looked so content that Daniel decided to join him. Yet when he put his feet up and tried to nap, sleep wouldn’t come. His thoughts seemed to be stuck in Owenduffy.

  After the year he’d spent at Bellevue in New York, and especially after his battlefield experiences during the war, he had almost convinced himself that the thing to do would be to set up a practice where most of his patients would be clean, reasonably well educated, and afflicted with less hideous injuries and fewer malodorous diseases than he’d encountered up until then. He had grown bone weary of the putrid, ugly side of medicine, not to mention the accompanying exhaustion and discouragement that came from never seeing real progress or improvement, much less actual cures.

  A visit to return his friend Ben’s effects to the Holliday family had sent that resolve flying. Not only had Stephen and Esther taken him into their home and their hearts in a matter of hours, treating him like another son, but he’d fallen in love with Mount Laurel and its surroundings.

  Of course, he hadn’t known much about Owenduffy when he decided to settle in the area. Even if he had, there was no way he could have known that he’d end up taking on what amounted to a second practice in the neighboring mining community. But it seemed that he had done just that, and when he took the time to give his situation any measure of thought and realized what he’d brought on himself, he couldn’t help but question his own common sense. Even so, here he was, and it was no one’s doing but his own. Well, maybe the Hollidays’ encouragement had entered into his decision more than he’d realized at the time, but certainly they weren’t altogether responsible.

  In any event, his days had turned into a numbing cycle of not enough rest, not enough regular meals, and not enough free time to spare for any real personal life. To make matters worse, the woman who only weeks before had occupied far too many of his waking thoughts and more than a few of his recurring dreams might just as well be living in another state for all the time and attention he had been able to give her.

  But did she even mind? Did his absence really make any difference to her?

  Naturally, he’d like to think so. But he was never sure of anything with Serena. Sometimes he thought she shared his feelings but was too reserved to express them.

  Other times he thought he just might be the worst kind of fool.

  Until lately, he’d given his pride the boot and taken whatever crumbs of attention she offered. He didn’t much like himself at those times, but the truth was he had never been very good with women. He had been far too busy in medical college and later with his work at Bellevue, followed by the w
ar, to get involved in a serious relationship. At least that’s what he’d told himself. If he were altogether honest, however, he had isolated himself from women for so long he was as awkward as a callow schoolboy when it came to knowing how to treat them. What did it say about a man when midway into his thirties he was more comfortable with his dog than with a pretty girl, even one he fancied?

  Especially with one he fancied.

  He was supposed to be reasonably intelligent. He had made it through medical college after all. But his life had become so absorbed in his work that he now found it difficult to come out of the fog of his days, much less function as the kind of man a woman might find a proper suitor.

  Yet he wanted what most other men seemed to want: a home and a life with a family. In fact, he had always envisioned himself with a fairly large family. Well, he was about to turn thirty-five, and so far the only woman he had ever even thought of marrying hadn’t exactly encouraged his attentions. And instead of doing whatever he could to remedy the situation, he was digging himself deeper and deeper into a way of life that would only make matters worse.

  But what was he supposed to do? The miners and their families needed a doctor too—deserved a doctor—just as much as the folks in Mount Laurel did. With the high number of injuries common to a coal miner—and with the scarlet fever raging even more viciously in Owenduffy than in Mount Laurel—he couldn’t ignore the needs of either community, could he? And it wasn’t as if there were a supply of other physicians lining up to take his place.

  The thing was, he was a good doctor. That much he knew about himself. He’d had the benefit of some excellent medical training and experience. As a boy in his teens, he had made rounds with Nicholas Grafton, one of the finest doctors he’d ever known. He had studied under him, assisted him, and learned all he could from him.