Ashes in the Wind (6 page)

The blood and gore soon forced Alaina to retire from the crowded hallways, and the last she saw of Captain Latimer that morning, he was sorting out the wounded and determining which could afford to wait a few hours, or even a few days. The latter cases were rare, for only the more seriously injured were sent back to the hospital for treatment. The rest were treated in field hospitals nearer the action.

Though the morning progressed, Alaina refused to venture near the surgeon’s wing and the persistent odor of chloroform grew stronger by the hour. How the captain could manage to be the sparkling guest Roberta expected that evening, Alaina could not begin to guess, and since she had determined not to be present at dinner, she would have to wait and hear the results at some later date.

In the late afternoon, it became difficult to carry out her chores, for she could no longer avoid the wards where the newly arrived wounded were being treated unless she totally disregarded her duties. As she worked, she often had to glance away as a running or gaping wound was uncovered, and her stomach heaved at the stench of putrid, rotting flesh. But when an oozing stub of a limb was brought into view, the sight proved too much, and she fled outside through the nearest door with a hand clutched over her mouth, helplessly retching. Her exit was badly timed, for Cole had taken a moment of rest outside and was there to witness her humiliation as she discarded her lunch behind a convenient bush. Too mortified to meet his amused gaze, she accepted the handkerchief he dunked in the watering trough. With trembling hand she dabbed the cool, wet cloth to her brow and face, then after a moment found the courage to peer up at the captain.

“Feel better now?” he asked solicitously.

Alaina’s pride had been pricked, and she was hardly in the mood to forgive the captain for being at hand to watch her abasement. “You owe me three dollars, Yankee.”

“Of course.” Unable to stop grinning, Cole counted out the bills and handed them over with a teasing gambit. “I would say you take to cleaning better than you would doctoring. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody quite as squeamish as you.”

“You got somep’n to say ’bout the way I cleaned yer ‘partment?” Alaina questioned angrily.

Cole shook his head. “No.”

“Then I’ll thank ya to keep yer comments to yerself, mister.” With that, Al stomped back into the hospital, almost threatening to let him find someone else to clean his blamed apartment. But then, it was probably the easiest money she would ever make, for Captain Cole Latimer was as neat as his appearance suggested. And three dollars seemed like a lot to waste for pride’s sake. As it was, she took pleasure in avoiding the captain for the remainder of that afternoon. Small revenge to be sure, but revenge she could afford.

The ride home on the narrow back of Ol’ Tar that evening was a further test of endurance. The old horse’s skill at finding his stable was unerring, and he grumbled only slightly as Alaina led him back to his stall. In the light of the dim lantern that hung from an overhead beam, she saw that Jedediah, Dulcie’s husband and the Craighugh’s coachman, had remembered her and left new hay in the manger and a fresh pail of water beside it. It was a relief that her labors were shortened this much, and she made a mental note to thank the man. She scooped a handful of oats into the grain box for the already dozing Tar, knowing that if Uncle Angus learned of it, he would sorely protest this squandering of the precious grain.

To date, her uncle’s sole use of Tarnation was when he had hitched the animal up to a decrepit cart and went to plead his poverty with the Yankees. Perhaps Angus had been wise, for he had managed to retain possession of at least two horses, one a fine gelding of moderate spirit, which the man used on his own high-wheeled gig, and the other, Ol’ Tar. The beast seemed a random collection of bones connected by rawhide sinew, the whole of which masqueraded in a worn and well-scarred horse’s hide. He had two gaits. A loose-jointed shuffle appeared to be his normal one. It was perhaps faster than a walk. But when an unusually winsome mare happened by, the blood stirred in his veins, he arched his scrawny neck, flagged his tattered tail, and with great effort actually lifted his hooves from the ground, all of which resulted, if a rider was present, in a spine-snapping trot.

In her dirty, ragged garb, Alaina felt much akin to the unhandsome steed. A handful of Angus’s grain now and then was her tithe to the aging mount. She tried not to strain the Craighugh’s larder either and made it her habit to eat her meals at the hospital, stowing portions of the more delectable fare in her leather pouch for use in the kitchen or, occasionally, a late snack. It was her rule to pay Uncle Angus at each week’s end. His Scottish frugality displayed itself as he murmured a few embarrassed words on the hardships of war before tucking the coins away in his purse. Alaina was fully aware that available goods for the store were sharply curtailed since the occupation and that his account books were heavy with entries of unsatisfied credit. It gave her a sense
of freedom knowing that she did not further burden his resources.

The lantern was doused, and through the darkness Alaina groped her way along the flagstone walk from the stable to the house. A thoughtful extravagance on Dulcie’s part met the weary late arrival in the form of a candle stump left aglow in the kitchen and water simmering on the hearth for a bath. Hopefully she would not be expected to work the later hours very often, but with the overload of wounded this day there had been no chance to escape the rapidly mounting chores and no sympathetic ear to listen to her complaint. Doctors apparently had little compassion for the healthy and able.

In the converted pantry, the boyish garb fell into an indiscreet pile on the floor, given no more notice by the one who gradually lowered her aching body into the water. Alaina moaned a soft mewl of delight. After the long, tiring day, when she had to drag herself through the last hours of work by keeping the thought of a bath uppermost in her mind, she intended to enjoy it now at her leisure. Slowly she lay back and closed her eyes, letting the heat seep into her tired limbs.

Only a moment of this revelry had passed when the rattle of the doorknob made Alaina sit up and snatch for a towel. Without so much as a knock, Roberta came boldly in, beautifully clothed in a red crepe de chine dressing gown. As she paused and shaded her eyes against the lamp, the wide sleeve fell back, displaying exquisite white, ruffled lace at her wrist.

“I thought I heard you come in.”

Modestly Alaina tucked the linen towel over her bosom, not wishing to contrast herself with Roberta’s roundly proportioned form. Her cousin began to pace fretfully, a difficult task considering the narrow space left by the tub.

“Do you have any idea what kind of day I’ve had?” Roberta demanded. “Why, it’s been terrible! Terrible! I declare, Lainie darling, I just don’t know what this world is coming to!”

It had all the appearance of being a long session, and though Alaina objected to this intrusion, her voice was casual and chatty. “Your situation sounds dire, Robbie. I thought you were having a guest this evening?”

“I am not!” Roberta whirled in high agitation. “Oh, posh! I wish these damned Yankees would get their war over with!”

“I think they’re trying their best,” Alaina retorted, growing a little annoyed herself. Sometimes she wondered where her cousin’s loyalty really lay, but then, Roberta had given nothing to the war but hours of complaint about her highly vocalized inconvenience.

“The sooner the better, I say!” Resentfully Roberta folded her arms beneath her bosom. “Then the rest of us can get back to doing things the way they were before!”

“I believe Mister Lincoln has other ideas,” Alaina reminded her dryly.

“That backwoods oaf!” Roberta railed and faced the tub. “I’m sick to death of that man’s name! I’m sick of all this—this killing!”

Alaina’s eyebrows raised as she stared at her cousin. Roberta rarely, if ever, concerned herself
with the casualties of war. “Whatever has upset you, it must be serious.”

“I’ll tell you what has upset me! Just look at this!” Roberta pulled a crumpled note from the pocket of her wrapper and waved it beneath Alaina’s slim nose without giving the girl a chance to comply. “For some damn reason, Captain Latimer couldn’t come tonight! He sent this instead.” She shook the missive angrily above her head, making the flame flicker in the lamp which sat high on a shelf. “A righteous excuse! An emergency! Bah! All the Yankees ever do is march about Jackson Square or ride their horses up and down the streets to look threatening. How can anybody get hurt that way? All Gen’ral Banks does is steal cotton or some such thing! Why, there hasn’t hardly been anybody killed since Cock-eyed Butler hanged William Mumford and no one has come down sick with yellow fever since that terrible ol’ Yankee got so scared he would catch it. Imagine, gettin’ all those men out to sweep the streets! Why, New Orleans never had such a cleaning! And
here we all were hoping the Yankees would come down sick and die.”

Alaina’s bath was becoming increasingly tepid, not to mention the fact that she was beginning to feel slightly waterlogged. It went against her grain to defend a Yankee and his reasons for not coming, yet Alaina realized her own comfort was at stake. Despite her great reluctance, she relented. “There was a skirmish upriver, Roberta. The wounded were brought back, and the doctors were kept busy trying to tend them all. I had to haul away bloody bandages and muddy clothes all afternoon just to keep an open passageway through the wards.”

“Muddy clothes!” Roberta’s mind grasped at Alaina’s statement like a vulture at raw meat. “Lainie! You don’t mean you’re there when they undress men!”

Offended by the way of her cousin’s mind, Alaina gritted, “I haven’t seen a naked man yet! And I wish you would stop calling me Lainie. You know I hate that name.”

“I guess you always did prefer ‘Al’ to anything more genteel,” Roberta simpered and, ignoring her cousin’s frown, flounced down upon the low stool that sat beside the tub. “What’s so hellishly important about Cole tending those men anyway? Surely other doctors are there to bandage up those men.”

“There are other doctors,” Alaina conceded. “But it seems they were all in demand today.”

Roberta sensed her cousin’s growing irascibility and changed the subject, though not adroitly. “You must have learned a lot about Captain Latimer.”

“I hear the other doctors talking.”

“You spy on them?” Roberta queried, leaning close.

Alaina glared. “I do not! I’m just not deaf, that’s all! They don’t care who’s around to hear.”

“Tell me more about Cole,” Roberta urged.

“Cole?” Alaina looked at the other woman wonderingly.

“Is he rich?” the older cousin questioned excitedly. “Real rich?”

“How should I know?” Alaina snapped. “I only know that he can afford to pay me three dollars a week for cleaning his apartment, and he never seems to have a shortage of money.”

“You didn’t tell me you cleaned his apartment!” Thoughtfully Roberta tucked her tongue in her
cheek. “I bet Daddy doesn’t know about it either.”

“I can ill afford to turn down three dollars for a few hours work,” Alaina said crisply. “And I see nothing wrong with it since Captain Latimer is not there when I am.”

“You mean he trusts you in his apartment alone?”

“And why not? I’ve never stolen a thing in my life!”

“But he can’t be sure of that.”

“He was confident enough to give me a key.”

“A key? To Captain Latimer’s apartment?” Roberta’s interest rose with every passing second. “How do you manage to work all week at the hospital and then clean his apartment, too?”

“I do it after work the nights he has duty. He doesn’t live far from the hospital, so I don’t have to go far out of my way.”

“And where does the captain live?” Roberta sweetly inquired.

Alaina looked at her suspiciously.

Smiling pleasantly, Roberta warned, “If you don’t tell me, Lainie, I’ll inform Daddy you’re cleaning that Yankee’s apartment. I don’t think he’ll approve. He might not let you work there after he finds out.”

“I don’t know what you have in mind, Roberta,” the younger girl snapped, “but I really don’t care. If you want Captain Latimer so much, take him.”

“Where does he live?” Roberta questioned eagerly.

Alaina shrugged. “Pontalba Apartments. Anything else you’ll have to find out from the good captain himself.”

“You’re mean, Lainie,” Roberta pouted. “You always did like to tease me and be hateful about things. You’re getting just what you deserve for being so spiteful.”

“Da’ ye say now?” Alaina retorted, affecting the Scottish burr of her father. “The truth ne’er hurt me nane, but ye’ll na be hearing more aboot his lordship from these here lips!”

Roberta sulked for a long moment, but realizing even a fine pout would not impress her cousin, changed her tactics. “I’ll ask Captain Latimer when he comes.”

“Comes?” Alaina straightened in the tub and grasped the linen cloth more firmly when it threatened to fall from her bosom. “You mean Captain Latimer—is coming—here—despite this evening?”

Roberta was the epitome of angelic goodness now that her tirade was spent. “Didn’t I tell you, Lainie? He wrote that he’d try to make it next week if the invitation is still open.” Her voice took on an edge of command. “Now you be sure and tell him next Friday is just fine. Daddy said it would be.”

Alaina wrinkled her nose as if she smelled something sour. “What do you see in that Yankee, anyway?”

“Everything.” Roberta laughed gaily. “But most of all, a way out of this miserable hole!” She leaned forward, her dark eyes asparkle, and spoke as if she confided a deep, dark secret. “Did I tell you that he addressed the letter to me and signed it simply, ‘Cole’?” She hugged her knees and rocked in sheer joy.

“Not until now,” Alaina murmured wryly. She propped her elbow on the rim of the tub and leaned
her chin in her palm. She could almost spell out what was coming next.

“The way he looked at me,” Roberta sighed, her eyes half closed with the blissful memory. “And right in front of Daddy, too! You saw that, didn’t you, Alaina?” She ignored the girl’s perplexed frown and rushed on. “Oh, he’s a bold one, that Cole! And I tell you, Lainie, I’m going to wrap that long-legged Yankee right around my little finger.”