“Yes?”
The nurse, a young trainee, stared at the floor. “The doctor will be out to see you shortly, miss.”
“How is my friend?”
“The doctor will speak to you when he comes.” The nurse left as quickly as she had appeared.
Sarah did not like that the girl had evaded her question and avoided her eyes. Her heart thundered in her chest, and when she stood, she cried out, “No, Lord, please! Please let Blythe be all right!”
Only a minute passed before Croft pushed through the double doors. He still wore the gown he had donned in the surgical ward. It was spattered with blood.
Blythe’s blood.
“Dr. Croft?” Sarah whispered.
Croft glanced at Sarah, then away. “As I suspected, her appendix ruptured before we got her here. It spewed infection into her abdominal cavity—and back into her intestines. We lavaged her organs with sterile saline to remove as much of the putrefaction as we could. She was young; ordinarily, she might have stood a fighting chance against the sepsis—but the toxins and the shock of the surgery overwhelmed her already impaired system with frightening speed.”
He spoke through clenched jaws, still looking away. “I am truly sorry, Miss Ellinger.”
Sarah shook in disbelief. “What are you saying? What do you mean? She-she is dead?”
He blew out a deep breath. “I did not leave her side. She was not in much pain . . . at the end.”
Sarah could not follow, could not process what he said. Blythe was gone? Was she never to grow into a woman? Have the family she longed for?
Was her life for nothing?
“I have called your friends, the O’Dells, so that you will not be alone.”
When Croft finally looked at her, his eyes glinted with something angry, even dangerous. Seeing his fury, Sarah took a half step back and swayed. He reached out a hand to steady her, but she swatted it away. “Y-you said, ‘ordinarily she might have stood a fighting chance.’ What did you mean by ‘ordinarily’?”
That dangerous thing flashed again. “What do I mean? What I mean is that this girl, this child—what, fourteen or fifteen years old?—has been horribly violated, Miss Ellinger, horribly. Someone—no, a gang of someones—has raped and tortured this poor girl. Her thighs and belly are covered with the barely healed scars of cigar burns.”
“What?”
“Are you saying you did not know? She was used in such a violent and outrageous manner, that she has unhealed tears and ulcerations, inside and out—resulting in what I surmise was a chronic inflammation and infection in her female organs. Her system was already compromised. In short, she had nothing in reserve to combat rampant peritonitis—nothing! No wonder she appeared so frail!”
Sarah sucked in a sob. “But we . . . she came to us in late August, perhaps three months ago now? Pastor and Mrs. Carmichael brought her to us. We were caring for her, but we . . . I did not know about—”
“Someone should have known. This is outrageous! Monstrous!”
Sarah found herself on the defensive, reacting to his growing indignation. “Y-you are blaming us? But we did not harm her—we took her off the street. We rescued her!”
She growled at Croft. “We did not do this terrible thing. Men attacked her—men like you, men who prey upon innocent children! All Blythe was guilty of was going out after dark to fetch her uncle his precious drink!
“So then, you did know.”
“I knew the little she confided in me—that she was ashamed of what was done to her. She did not go into detail. She said nothing about . . . she did not tell us that she needed a doctor.”
“She should have been examined by a physician.”
“How were we to know that?” Sarah racked her mind to come up with an instance where Blythe hinted at her condition. “She never complained—not about anything!”
“Excuses.”
Sarah’s eyes narrowed. “I do not care for what you are suggesting, Dr. Croft.”
“Then allow me to remove my indictment from the realm of ‘suggestion,’ Miss Ellinger: How dare you take a soul as wounded as poor Blythe’s off the street without investigating and uncovering what has wounded her so? And to have the gall to fault me for what was done to her? I suppose I am also to blame because I could not save her?”
“Yes,” Sarah shouted. “Yes, you are to blame! You and every other man who would use a woman in such an abominable way—and I hate you for it!”
A nurse, drawn to the waiting room by their loud exchange, stared at the two of them, her eyes wide.
“You hate me? Really, Miss Ellinger—do you feel that you did not make that abundantly and unmistakably evident upon our first encounter? But, I must ask myself, why should you take such an immediate dislike to me? What have I done to you or yours? What, for that matter, do you even know of me?”
Croft smiled with cynicism, not amusement. “Do you know, for example, how my medical studies demanded not only four years of my life but every penny I had and all my attention and efforts? Of course not; you could have no idea what becoming a physician requires. Nor could you know that I was, immediately, upon graduation, conscripted into the Army—against my will. I spent nearly two years tending an unending line of wounded in Europe before being discharged to the States, before I moved to Denver to partner with Dr. Murphy.
“There I was, newly returned from the war and a stranger to this city. As I had nothing to call my own, my friend George offered to take me out to buy a bed, perhaps a chest of drawers. George is a good friend, you see—but how could you have known that George wishes nothing more for me than to be as happily settled as he is?
“Smile, George told me. Say hello to pretty, virtuous girls, he said. Find yourself a godly woman to marry and make a life with. I cannot number the eligible young ladies to whom he introduced me but, fresh from the war, I was in no fit frame of mind to consider any of them.
“That I, myself, would take notice of a lovely, chaste woman on our foray to purchase bedroom furnishings? Why, George was beside himself. Overjoyed, in fact.
“Yet this woman, the first woman to even remotely interest me—you, Miss Ellinger—took umbrage over a simple smile and a perfectly innocent attempt to introduce myself. Frankly, I had not seen a tantrum such as the one you threw that morning in your shop since I left home for medical school.”
“Tantrum? You accuse me of throwing a tantrum?”
“I grew up with three older sisters. I recognize a tantrum when I see one.”
Sarah’s jaw dropped. “How dare you speak to me with such outrageous familiarity?”
“How dare I? Because it is not me you dislike. No, Miss Ellinger, to put it plainly, you do not like men. It should have been obvious to me the day I met you, but I see it plainly now: You hate men, and you are trying to make me—and every other man on the planet—pay for the misdeeds for which one or more men are guilty.”
The bones in his face and jaw turned to stone. “How does it feel, Miss Ellinger, to have judged, convicted, and condemned half of the human race based on the narrow scope of your own experiences—a sample size that could not even approach the realm of statistical significance—and yet you call yourself a Christian?”
Sarah was not educated, not in mathematics or the physical sciences. Everything she had learned after her childhood ended, she learned via the school of hard knocks—a curriculum devised by the lusts and demands of “cultured gentlemen.” She had, therefore, no understanding of the term, statistical significance, but she could infer the meaning of sample size from its context.
“If you, Dr. Croft, had any inkling what I have lived through, what I have endured and survived, then you would believe me when I say that the overwhelming majority of males in my experience—quite a “significant” number, if you must know—have earned my distrust and disdain.”
“Miss Ellinger, I can hardly credit your assertion! The overwhelming majority of males in your experience? If I were to name and list every male
of your acquaintance, could you categorically condemn the overwhelming majority of them for their behavior? What of your friend, Mr. O’Dell? What of kind old Mr. Wheatley and Billy Evans at Palmer House? How can I believe that you, a confessed Christian woman, have had the introduction of, let alone the exposure to, a number of males large enough to support the wild statement of ‘what I have endured and survived’?”
Sarah paled. Her expression transformed before him to a picture of such gravity as to cause Croft to lick his lips and stammer.
“I-I must apologize, Miss Ellinger. I blame my very bad behavior this morning upon being brought up with three sisters who could argue the paint off the walls. I should not have gone after you, hammer and tong, as I would with them.
Sarah waved off his regret with icy scorn. “Please do not apologize yet again, Dr. Croft. I do not shy away from truth in conversation. In point of fact, while I laud civility, the overreaching restrictions of ‘polite’ society can stifle honesty and-and-and . . .”
“Yes, Miss Ellinger?”
“I suppose I should simply say that I prefer honesty between us. Without it, you will continue to disbelieve my assertions.”
He folded his arms. “You wish honesty? Very well, then. Tell me what ‘the overwhelming majority of men’ have done to you.”
Sarah opened her mouth, only to splutter, “B-but, surely you know?”
“Know what?”
She shook her head. “No. I cannot tell you. You would not believe me.”
“Then whom would I believe? Who could I call upon to give credence to your tale?”
Sarah lifted her chin. “You are new to this city. Have you not speculated about Palmer House? Has no one mentioned what it is?”
It was his turn to be perplexed. “I thought . . . a Christian boardinghouse.”
Sarah snorted. “Perhaps you should ask Mr. O’Dell about Palmer House. Then you will have your answer.”
“You can tell me yourself.”
“I shall not. As you are not a Christian, you would not understand; you would judge us.”
“You are wrong about me once more, Miss Ellinger. I am a Christian. I love the Lord Jesus. I have dedicated my entire life to serving him in the medical profession. It is not God I have a problem with—it is the church, the bigoted, hypocritical, self-righteous church—such as those who denied Christian burial to enemy soldiers who were but boys sent on a fool’s mission by the bigger fools in the German Kaiser’s cabinet.”
Sarah put her head to one side and considered him. For a long, charged pause she said nothing. And then she murmured, “How does it feel, Dr. Croft, to have judged, convicted, and condemned the entire Body of Christ based on the behavior of a sample size that . . . that does not, uh, approach the realm . . . that is not big enough to, that does not—”
Bryan Croft put back his head and laughed. “Oh, that is rich indeed. You had it perfectly—if only you had not lost it before you delivered your coup de grâce.”
His sarcasm baited Sarah yet again, and she readied a retort—but at that moment, Rose and Edmund O’Dell burst into the waiting room, interrupting Sarah and Croft’s fractious row.
For those minutes while they argued, Sarah had forgotten why she was in the waiting room. She had forgotten the dreadful news Croft had delivered.
Blythe was gone.
Rose drew near. “Sarah?”
Sarah took a step toward her, then sobbed, “Oh, Miss Rose! Blythe is dead!”
Rose gathered Sarah to herself. “I know, I know. Come, dear. Let me take you home.”
Sarah allowed Rose to lead her away, out of the hospital, and into O’Dell’s Bergdoll. She said nothing as they drove.
When they arrived at Palmer House, Sarah was immediately surrounded by friends who hugged her and wept with her. It was then that Sarah realized that she did not want to be held and comforted—not, that is, by Rose or Olive or Marit.
Not by anyone but Lola.
Chapter 16
The remainder of Sunday passed in a haze of mourning. The following afternoon, Monday of Thanksgiving week, Palmer House’s residents and their friends gathered to lay Blythe to rest.
Dr. Croft attended, also. Sarah, crushed by grief and a heavy measure of regret, could not be bothered with him, so she ignored his unwelcome presence. She could only stare at Blythe’s little coffin and recall the golden-haired child’s last hours: Blythe’s head lying in her lap, her knees drawn up to her chest; Blythe crying and moaning in pain.
Oh, Blythe. Oh, my dear girl! How did we not know—why did you not tell us how badly those men had hurt you? If only we had known, if we had taken you to a doctor, we might have saved you . . .
Pastor Carmichael had located Blythe’s uncle, and he had come to the service—likely more sober than he had been in many months. He seemed confused, however, as to where Blythe had been for the past three months.
“Girl went t’ get’ m’ drink an’ niver come back,” he grumbled. “Don’ know what b’came o’ her.”
Mr. Wheatley stood with the befuddled man, telling him that Blythe had been with friends, that she had been greatly loved, that she had come to faith in Jesus.
Blythe was buried in Riverside Cemetery, the same cemetery where Joy’s first husband, Grant, was buried. After the brief graveside service, Sarah observed Joy and O’Dell, with their two boys, wander toward Grant’s headstone. Joy carried flowers with her.
Sarah was grateful that the service had been short. The pain she felt was so acute that, as soon as the mourners began to disperse, she strode away from her friends, across the grassy park. Then she ran. She ran and ran and ran, not knowing where she was going—not until she reached a trolley stop some distance from the cemetery.
Then she knew: The shop was closed out of respect for Blythe’s funeral, but Lola did not know that. She would be waiting for Sarah at the usual time, outside the shop’s back door.
All Sarah longed to do was to forget. Forget Blythe’s death, forget her guilt, forget everything and fall into the solace of Lola’s arms.
THANKSGIVING INTERRUPTED their mourning: The holiday came whether those who lived at Palmer House wished it to or not—whether they were prepared for it or not.
Sarah dreaded the holiday, not only because it was supposed to be a time of gratitude and fellowship, but because the shop would be closed Thanksgiving through to Monday, and she would lose those opportunities to see Lola. Instead, she would be stuck in the house, pretending to enjoy the festive dinner, and expected to spend the long weekend with Palmer House’s guests.
All without Lola.
Palmer House’s telephone rang that morning during the flurry of cleaning and preparations. Olive answered it.
“Palmer House. Olive speaking.”
“Miss Ellinger, please,” the voice directed.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
“Miss Pritchard.”
“Thank you.”
Olive climbed the stairs on nimble feet and rapped on Sarah’s door. “You have a telephone call, Sarah. A Miss Pritchard.”
Sarah had been dawdling in her room since breakfast. With news of the call, she ran down the staircase and into the great room, arriving at the telephone out of breath.
“Hello?”
“Hello, darling. What time is your turkey dinner?”
“Um . . .” Sarah glanced around to see who might be listening. Most of the activity was in the kitchen and dining room. The great room was, to her surprise, empty.
“Dinner is at one o’clock.”
“How soon afterward can you get away?”
Sarah realized, suddenly, how simple it would be to leave the house after dinner. Chaos would reign until the meal was on the table and everyone settled down to eat. But afterward, when the dinner was over, the house and its guests would clean up and spend the remainder of the day visiting, playing games, and eating pie.
“Quite soon, I should think.”
“Meet me in the park down the
street from the house?”
“Oh, yes! I shall plan to be there no later than two o’clock.”
“Dress warmly, my dear!”
Thanksgiving Day was suddenly much brighter as Sarah hung up. She entered into the festivities with a small smile playing about her mouth, not at all concerned that she was, more and more, hiding her comings and goings from those who loved her.
AS SOON AS EVERYONE was engaged in clearing the table, Sarah left the dining room. She grabbed her outer clothing from the hall tree in the foyer, took them into the parlor, and bundled up there, putting hat, mittens, and scarf over her long coat and sturdy boots. Then she stepped quietly to the front door and stole outside. She covered the distance to the gate in brisk strides. Once through, she turned right, toward the park, two blocks away.
Lola saw her coming from a distance; she waved and ran to meet her. Although the park had a lovely, wending path through evergreen trees, the center was planted in maples and ash trees. The grass was already strewn in golden-red leaves, but more were falling in the chilly air.
Lola tugged Sarah by the hand, and they ran through the piles of fallen leaves, laughing like children, watching their breath come out in white puffs. Then Lola pulled Sarah behind a particularly wide tree trunk.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you, Sarah. I . . . I cannot bear to be apart from you.”
Raw emotions and urges Sarah had thought dead awakened, kindled, and flamed to life. Lola saw Sarah’s longing. She leaned toward Sarah and kissed her.
DR. CROFT SPENT THANKSGIVING with George and his family. It was a pleasant enough day, but he was distracted, his thoughts turned inward, rewinding his argument with Sarah Ellinger.
He took a long, meandering drive that afternoon, replaying the insults of their quarrel. Pieces of what she had shouted made no sense to him.
You are new to this city. Have you not speculated about Palmer House? Has no one mentioned what it is?
Perhaps you should ask Mr. O’Dell about Palmer House. Then you will have your answer.
Sarah Redeemed Page 20