by BJ Hoff
The enormity of what had transpired this night still shook her to the core. A confession of love, a proposal of marriage, and the fall of the stronghold where her darkest secrets lay buried had left her emotions in turmoil. Her head was pounding, as much from the chaos of emotion as from exhaustion. She knew she needed nothing so much as a full night’s rest, knew just as certainly there would be no such peace for her tonight.
Somehow she mustered the initiative to drop to her knees beside the bed and attempt to pray. For a long time, words failed her. She could manage nothing more than to hide herself in the presence of God and let his peace settle over her, his comfort quiet her.
But gradually, as she felt the first faint stirring of renewal in her spirit, she was able to form at least a faltering entreaty, a plea for guidance. When her petitions were met by only silence, she reached to the night table for her Bible and began to pray through some of the dearly familiar verses that over the years had strengthened and sustained her when her entire world seemed to be crumbling.
Samantha knew that even if she were to eventually overcome her resistance—her fear—to the idea of marriage again, she could not lightly dismiss the Scriptural admonition to not be “unequally yoked with unbelievers.” By his own admission, Jack professed only a “limited” faith of any sort and apparently had lived most of his life as an unbeliever. How could she even consider a proposal from him?
The Scriptures spoke of an unbelieving husband’s being sanctified by a believing wife, but this was different. She would be going into a relationship as a believer, knowing from the beginning that Jack didn’t share her faith. Samantha had seen firsthand the consequences of willful disregard of this particular counsel, had seen too many Christian husbands or wives whose spiritual beliefs had been either shaken or completely decimated, if not by the immoral lifestyle of an unbelieving partner, then by the lack of shared commitments and values. How could she consider embracing a life with someone who had no interest in the very things that were most important to her?
But she loved him! “Oh, Lord…how can I simply ignore my feelings? How do I dismiss the fact that I love him…and he loves me?”
Pray for him…and trust me…
Startled by the clarity of the whisper in her spirit, Samantha caught her breath. It occurred to her that she wasn’t quite sure how to pray for Jack.
“He doesn’t know you, Lord, although sometimes I think he believes in you. But by his own admission, he’s lived a life that must be anathema to you. Surely you don’t want me to love a man like Jack. And yet I do! Dear Lord, help me; you know I love him…”
And so do I, child…So do I. Trust me with your beloved. Pray for him, and trust me.
Thoroughly shaken, Samantha squeezed her eyes closed as if to shut out her surroundings, forcing herself to see nothing, know nothing, but the silence. Scarcely breathing, fervently yearning for still more than she had been given, she waited, clinging to the One who had never failed her. And finally, little by little, she felt the darkness in her spirit give way to light. From the deepest recesses of her being came an all-encompassing calm, a singing peace that flowed and filled her until she could no longer keep silent.
And finally she was able to pray. She prayed for an indeterminate time, prayed for the man who called himself an infidel, the man who only tonight had vowed his love and protection to her. She prayed for the divine pursuit of Jack’s soul, the redeeming grace offered by a suffering Savior. She prayed for deliverance for the man she loved. And she prayed for the courage to love him rightly and to entrust him to the only One who could heal him and make him whole.
Uptown on Thirty-Fourth Street, Jack Kane paced the floor in his bedroom. The room was shadowed, its only light the dying fire and an oil lamp on the bedside table. The house was quiet and cold, the streets below deserted.
Earlier he had donned his smoking jacket in the expectation of relaxing by the fire, perhaps reading for a time before going to bed. Such optimism had been foolish, he admitted sourly to himself. For hours, thoughts of Samantha had filled his mind like swarming bees. He had thought of nothing else, had done nothing else since arriving home except to walk the floor and think. Think about Samantha.
She had come close to admitting that she loved him tonight. His heart rose to his throat every time he recalled that admission, inadvertent though it had been.
And he had kissed her, there was that. And even though she hadn’t actually kissed him back, neither had she resisted him.
Best not to dwell on that, he told himself firmly. Still, he couldn’t quite stop the thought of how she had looked at him after he released her, not with the revulsion he had half dreaded, but with her magnificent eyes still shining from the tears that had filled them earlier, and a softness he hadn’t seen in them before—at least not for him.
Unwillingly, he also remembered the utter despair that had clouded her features when she told him of the beating that had killed her unborn child, the terrible anguish in her voice when she revealed the bitter truth that she was now barren because of that same beating.
Jack knotted his fists at his sides and went to stand at the window. The night had cleared, the rain finally giving way to a sky studded with random stars and a bright half-moon. He stood looking out, staring into the night, seeing nothing but Samantha’s lovely but tormented features. It was incredible to him that he had come to love her so fiercely when she in turn had done everything possible to discourage him. Even the wrenching awareness that marriage with her would never include children, that it would more than likely always see her haunted by the tragedy of her past, wasn’t enough to turn him away from her.
Indeed, he couldn’t imagine anything that could turn him away from her. Except perhaps Samantha herself. If she simply would not have him, if she refused to even consider making a life with him—well, then, what could he do?
There had to be something. Some way to finally make her his. There had to be!
He looked up to the pale wisps of cloud passing over the moon. For a long, still moment he watched the sky. Finally, he brought one clenched fist to his mouth, pressing it against his lips so hard he tasted blood. And then for the first time in years, he addressed an unknown Deity he wasn’t even sure he believed in—but one in whom Samantha most definitely did believe—with an utterance of desperation that began in the very depths of his spirit.
“If you’re as real as she believes you are,” he grated out, “if you’re really out there and as all-powerful as she seems to think you are, then show me how to help her. How to heal her. Let me, somehow, make up for all the pain she’s suffered. Show me how to be the kind of a man she deserves, the kind of a man she can love. Not for me, mind—but for her. Just—do it for her.”
Feeling suddenly self-conscious in spite of the fact that there wasn’t another soul within earshot, Jack shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket and started to walk away from the window. But then he stopped and turned back, his gaze again lifting upward as he added, “I do love her, you know. More than I ever thought I could love anything or anyone, and that’s the truth. I’ll take care of her, I promise you. I’ll cherish her. And I’ll never hurt her, or let anyone else hurt her, not ever again. My word on it.”
21
DAVID’S SEARCH
I stood beside the couch in tears
Where pale and calm she slept,
And though I’ve gazed on death for years,
I blush not that I wept.
RICHARD D’ALTON WILLIAMS
David Leslie had never agonized over a patient as he agonized now over the suffering young woman named Terese.
He had been excruciatingly close to losing her more than once, but each time she had surprised him by clinging to life with a tenacity he wouldn’t have thought possible in one so weak, so dangerously ill. He could actually see her fighting to defeat the specter of death that seemed to hover in the room.
David had witnessed similar struggles at other bedsides, and his
experience had led him to wonder if it wasn’t only the most rugged, valiant spirits who battled so fiercely. So great was the ordeal taking place in this room that he now found himself laboring along with his patient, as if by his own efforts he could somehow facilitate hers.
It had been over a week since Madog Wall had brought her to the mission, and so far there had been no improvement; if anything, her condition had worsened. Most of the time, she drifted in and out of consciousness, and for the past three days, she hadn’t been coherent for more than a couple of minutes at a time. David knew she couldn’t possibly last much longer if she didn’t turn for the better soon.
He fretted that there must be someone he ought to notify, but he had no idea where to look. He hadn’t been able to get anything out of the little girl, Shona, and as for Terese, although she had muttered the same word two or three times in the throes of her delirium, David wasn’t sure what she was saying or even if it was a name at all. It sounded like “Gaven,” but when he questioned Shona, she merely shook her head, obviously as much in the dark as he.
He did know that he had become too involved emotionally. Against everything he had been taught—and even against his own instincts—he had allowed himself to make a kind of attachment to this young woman that was neither professional nor practical.
It wasn’t only that he was spending too much time at her bedside. He was also sacrificing the few precious hours at night when he might have been taking his own much-needed rest to dig into every medical text he could find, in hopes of discovering something he might have missed, some new treatment he didn’t know about.
The truth was that he had come to care too much. He knew better. He was aware of the pitfalls of becoming emotionally involved with a patient, had actually known physicians who had suffered the consequences of ignoring this counsel. He’d never thought it would happen to him. Certainly not with a perfect stranger, one swollen with child, and one with whom he had scarcely exchanged a reasonable conversation.
But it had happened before he’d realized, and now he wasn’t quite sure how to extricate himself, how to step back and regain some semblance of emotional distance. And yet he knew he must.
Even if she survived—and the thought that she might not wrenched his heart—there was more than likely a husband waiting somewhere, worrying about her, wondering what had happened to her. David knew his own part in this ought to be limited to treating her condition and trying to learn anything he could that might lead to that husband, or at least to a member of her family.
The thing was, he didn’t even know where to start. He supposed he could always go and speak with Madog Wall, see if the man could think of anything at all that might help. But he was fairly certain it would be a waste of time. Wall claimed he had never seen either Terese or Shona before the day he brought them to the mission.
A soft moan from his patient jarred David back to his surroundings. He put a hand to Terese’s forehead, and the heat from her skin nearly scorched him.
On the other side of the bed, Shona sat, silent and intense, watching David. He forced a smile but could see she wasn’t fooled. The child had something almost painfully unchildlike about her that was disconcerting to say the least.
But then, from what David had seen of the immigrants from Ireland, most of them, children included, had experienced the kind of adversity and tragedy that tended to age one quickly—if one survived at all. The little girl across the bed had probably endured more affliction in her few years than most adults could even imagine. There was no telling what she…and Terese…might have gone through up till now.
And, sad to say, he seemed incapable of making things any better for them.
When David finally found time later in the day to pay a visit to the Vanguard, he found Madog Wall lying on his back, working on the underside of one of the newspaper wagons. The big man hauled himself up, wiping his grease-smeared hands down the sides of his trousers as he mumbled a greeting.
It would have been easy to feel threatened by the big, lumbering Irishman’s size and battered features. But David had come in contact with Wall on other occasions and by now knew that he wasn’t the mean-spirited thug he appeared at first glance. Mostly he saw in Madog Wall a rather shy giant who thought slowly and spoke haltingly, but almost certainly wasn’t vicious or cruel. Wall was said to be fiercely protective of his employer, the notorious Black Jack Kane, but David didn’t necessarily think that was a character flaw.
Today, however, he was surprised to sense a certain evasiveness in the man as he inquired about Terese and Shona. Madog seemed almost defensive, insisting that he knew nothing—“nothing a’tall”—about the girls.
“Didn’t I already tell you everything I know, Doc?” he said, still rubbing his large hands against his thighs. “They showed up on a Sunday morning, they did, lookin’ half starved and poorly. When the older one fainted away, I brought them to the mission house. I didn’t know what else to do, don’t you see?”
“You did the right thing, Madog,” David assured him. “I’m simply trying to find out if by any chance they have relatives or friends here in the city. Terese—the older of the two—is seriously ill. I was hoping she might have said something to you, anything at all, that might help me to locate a family member.” He paused, studying Wall for a moment. “You’re quite sure there was nothing?”
The other frowned and looked away. “It’s as I said, Doc, I don’t know nothin’ else. The older girl, she passed out almost as soon as they showed up.”
Still, David couldn’t shake the feeling that Wall was concealing something. Perhaps it was only because he’d had his hopes disappointed. There seemed no reason for the man to dissemble, after all.
“Well, then—if you’re sure—” He gave a nod, turned, and started to go.
“Doc?”
David turned back. Wall seemed to be squirming where he stood. His small eyes went over David’s face as if he were trying to gauge whether or not he ought to say more.
“What is it, Madog? Did you think of something?”
The big man shoved his hands down into his pockets. He pursed his lips together, watching David. After a frustratingly long time, he finally replied. “Well, there was one thing—and mind, I’m that certain the girl wasn’t tellin’ the truth—but she did keep goin’ on about how Mr. Kane was ‘expecting’ them.”
David frowned. “Mr. Kane? Jack Kane?”
Wall nodded, his mouth twisting with disapproval. “I didn’t pay her any heed, of course. Sure, and Mr. Kane wouldn’t be acquainted with two poor immigrant girls such as them, now would he?”
David stared at him. “Did you tell Mr. Kane about this, Madog?”
Wall shook his head. “He wasn’t here at the time, and there didn’t seem to be no need to bother him with it. Then after a day or so I just forgot.” His expression changed to a troubled frown. “Now that you come askin’, though, I wonder if I did wrong.”
Wall was clearly seeking for reassurance, but David’s mind had begun to race. “Tell me exactly what the girl said, Madog. Try to remember everything.”
Wall took his hands out of his pockets and wiped one over his bald head. “Well, let me think now. She was set on finding out Mr. Kane’s home address. Said he was expecting them—her and the little lass. Is she all right, by the way, Doc—the little girl?”
David gave a nod. “She’s fine. Go on, Madog. Please. What else do you remember?”
Wall shrugged. “Just that she was set on seeing Mr. Kane. Right away, she kept saying. She was a pushy one, she was.”
“Anything else? Think carefully, Madog.”
Wall shook his head. “No, sir. That’s all there was.” He cast another uneasy look at David. “Should I have mentioned it to Mr. Kane, do you think, Doc?”
“Well…yes, actually, Madog. I believe you should have told Mr. Kane. It might be important.”
“But I’m that sure Mr. Kane wouldn’t have had nothing to do with that girl’s…condition, D
oc! She isn’t the sort he’d traffic with. Mr. Kane is an important man.”
David was beginning to feel some pique at Wall’s adulation of his employer, whose reputation couldn’t have been much more deplorable. He reminded himself that Wall was obviously rather slow-witted and slavishly loyal. There was no call to be impatient with the man.
“Well, what’s done is done,” he said. “The important thing is that you tell Mr. Kane now. You need to tell him exactly what you’ve told me without delay.”
Wall’s face underwent an immediate transformation. David supposed it spoke leagues about the infamous Jack Kane if a man like Madog Wall could be intimidated by the mere thought of his displeasure.
Almost in the same instant, however, the thick features seemed to relax. “Can’t do that, Doc. Mr. Kane is away.”
“Away? For how long?”
Wall shrugged. “A day or two more, I expect. He and that young Mr. Sheridan went up to Albany to some sort of a big political conference and a—a banquet. Whatever that might be,” he added.
The thought went through David’s mind that a day or two might be too late. “Is there anyone else who might have information about this, Madog? Someone who works with Mr. Kane, perhaps?”
Wall frowned, rubbing a hand over his chin. “Well, there’s Mrs. Harte, of course.”
“Mrs. Harte?”
“Aye, Mrs. Harte—the lady who sometimes works for Mr. Kane. Real nice lady, Mrs. Harte. Mr. Kane seems to admire her a lot.” Wall gave a knowing smile—not a leer, but more a pleased expression, for his employer’s good judgment. “Now that I think of it, seems to me she’s been helping Mr. Kane and young Mr. Sheridan with some kind of a newspaper story about the people coming across.”