The Forgotten Room(20)
Afraid he might still be suffering from delirium, I opened my mouth to ask him to explain, but froze as I stared at the wall behind his bed.
I could debride an infected wound, amputate a limb, and wipe up bloody vomit without batting an eye. I could even flatten a rodent with an iron skillet and not blink. But the one thing I could not abide was a cockroach, most likely stemming from a childhood incident involving one of the six-legged bugs that had fallen into my bathtub while I was in it. And at the moment one of the mahogany-colored insects was currently crawling up the wall behind the captain, its long antennas casting grotesque shadows onto the white wall.
Before I could think, I screamed.
Captain Ravenel sat up suddenly, his face paling from the sudden movement of his still-injured leg, then looked at the wall behind him. He snagged a square of gauze from his bedside table, then reached out his hand and cupped it over the cockroach, effectively imprisoning him within his long-fingered fist.
Utterly humiliated, I wanted to whip out my diploma and tell him that I’d graduated from medical school with honors, that I had replaced my own shoulder in its socket without passing out, and that I thought that people who fainted at the sight of blood shouldn’t be allowed to have children.
His voice belied the smile behind his words. “Don’t worry, Doctor. The only reason why I didn’t scream is because I’m used to them in Charleston. Except there they’re so big you could saddle them. And they fly.”
Completely annoyed now with him and myself, I yanked up the wastebasket and brought it to him, hoping the bug was at least dead before he discarded it. He kept his hand by his side so that I had to lean over to give him a better aim.
“Closer,” he said, his voice weak.
I turned my head to see him better. “Are you all right?” I asked with concern. Our noses were almost touching.
“I am now,” he said, lifting his head slightly, then touched his lips to mine.
I told myself later that it was the surprise of it, the shock of his lips against mine that created a warm light exploding behind my eyes. Or more likely it was from the anger I remembered to feel a split second afterward when I realized what was happening.
The door flew open and Dr. Greeley stood in the threshold, his balding forehead glistening with sweat, his cold eyes quickly assessing the scenario in front of him.
“Dr. Schuyler,” he said, his voice full of pompous righteousness. “I’ll see you in my office.”
Waves of anger and humiliation wafted through me, most of it directed at myself. All of those years of focus and determination possibly erased in one moment of stupid recklessness. I didn’t try to defend myself or explain anything, knowing it wouldn’t make any difference.
“Dr. Schuyler is entirely innocent, I assure you,” Captain Ravenel said, his soft consonants deceptively sweet. “I’m afraid in my delirium I’ve mistaken her for someone else.”
Without saying anything or looking at either one of them, I carefully put down the chart on the bedside table, hoping Nurse Hathaway would take the sketch before anybody else could see it, then replaced the wastebasket before leaving the room. Slowly, I walked down the steps, ignoring the elevator so I could delay the inevitable as long as I could. My shoes tapped quietly on the marble circular staircase as I slowly descended to the fifth floor, pausing briefly to view the bas-relief of Saint George slaying the dragon.
I stared at the frozen pair, wishing for the first time since my father died that I had a knight who would slay my dragons for me. But I’d given up those childish fantasies the day we buried him, along with hair bows and pinafores. I turned on my heel and headed toward Dr. Greeley’s office, Captain Ravenel’s words still echoing in my head. I’ve been drawing your likeness since I was old enough to pick up a pen.
I paused outside the office door, then took a deep breath before going inside, wondering if my mother had been right and that I should have become an artist after all.
Eight
DECEMBER 1892
Olive
The greengrocer’s name was Mr. Jungmann, and his face always brightened when Olive walked into his shop on Lexington Avenue and Sixty-fourth Street to place the order for the next day’s vegetables. She liked that. How nice it was, to escape from the House of Disapproval—frowning housekeepers, frowning cooks, frowning Prunella and her frowning mother—and have someone’s face actually brighten when you entered a room.
Ironic, wasn’t it? All of New York society longed to be invited inside the Pratt mansion, and Olive wanted only to escape from it. And her own father had built the place! Didn’t it belong to her just a little bit, not in a material way but in the way a house always belonged to all those who had lived and loved and suffered in it? As if it had kept behind a small part of your soul.
“Miss Jones! I was beginning to lose the hope of you.”
Olive realized she had already entered the shop and was staring at a pyramid of apples. She looked up and tried to return Mr. Jungmann’s wide smile, but failed by at least half an inch. “Good morning, Mr. Jungmann. I had a late start today, I’m afraid. I have Cook’s list right here.” She pulled the paper from her coat pocket and held it out in her mittened hand.
“Ah, there we are.” He was so hearty and jovial, such a nice big bear of a man, loyal to the consonants of his homeland: each w rendered lovingly as a v, each j softened into a y. (Yovial, she thought.) She always imagined him with a wife and ten red-cheeked children who crawled all over him when he returned home at night (did he live above the shop, or somewhere else?) and checked his pockets for sweets, though of course she never asked him such familiar questions.