This Side of Heaven

by Karen Robards

  “Is she not?” James turned away to stride to Matt’s bedside, where he frowned at Mr. Williams.

  “Do you see aught that’s amiss?” he asked.

  “I fear the massive swelling and bruising heralds blood poisoning. I tell you again, the leg needs to come off.”

  “I’ll kill the man who tries it!” Matt spoke bitingly, his expression ferocious as he glared at Mr. Williams.

  “ ’Tis the only alternative I see to your death!”

  “Mr. Williams, if you would go belowstairs to join my wife and the Reverend Miller in a cup of tea, I will endeavor to reason with my unreasonable brother.” James put his hand on the apothecary’s arm and turned him away from the bedside. “There’s naught to be served by setting up his back, you know.” This last was said in a lowered tone as Mr. Williams, with James’s assistance, gained the doorway, but Caroline—and she suspected Matt as well—heard it. But if he did, he said nothing as Mr. Williams sulkily quitted the chamber, and James returned to frown down at him.

  “Now, Matt, I know that losing your leg is hard to face, but if ’tis needful to save your life …” James began in a persuasive tone.

  “I’ll not lose the leg,” Matt replied doggedly. From the raggedness of his voice, it was clear that he was exhausted. Caroline moved to stand at the opposite side of the bed, frowning across Matt’s supine form at James. But before she could say anything, Daniel spoke.

  “After today, I have great faith in Caroline’s powers as a healer, and she says amputating the leg is not needful. I trust her, James.” Daniel’s words were quiet.

  “She brought him out of a fever that should by rights have killed him,” Robert chimed in. “Is that not right, Thom?”

  “Aye,” Thomas said after the barest hesitation. Though the single word had a grudging note to it, it was agreement. Caroline shot him a surprised and faintly grateful look. Earlier today he had thoroughly distrusted her; now it seemed as if he was at least prepared to give her a chance.

  “She is Elizabeth’s sister, is she not?” James said, as if reminding them.

  “Half sister, and there is no harm in her that I have seen,” Daniel answered firmly.

  “Your tongues must be hinged in the middle, to flap at both ends like they do!” This was from Matt, who scowled at his brothers as they spoke above him.

  “If you will forgive me, gentlemen, I believe your brother would be best served if you were to continue your discussion elsewhere. He needs to rest.” The black scowl as much as the sweat popping out on Matt’s brow and upper lip prompted Caroline’s intervention. It could do Matt no good to be further upset.

  James looked at her in somewhat haughty surprise, while the others, more used to both her presence and her tendency to be outspoken, nodded.

  “You’re right, of course,” Daniel said, and with shooing gestures ushered his brothers from the room. Not even James protested, though he seemed not over-pleased at being asked to leave by such an upstart as he plainly considered Caroline to be. But fortunately his care for his brother was such that he could put Matt’s welfare before his own indignation.

  “I’ll not lose the leg,” Matt told her, when she came back to his bedside with a draught of the sleeping medicine in her hand.

  “No.” Caroline sat down on the edge of the bed beside him and slid a hand behind his head to lift it so that he could swallow.

  “I’m not a babe,” he said irritably, and moved his hand as though he would hold the glass himself. But he was too weak, and his hand fell back. “What is it that you would pour down my throat, anyway?” he asked, glaring at her as if his weakness were somehow her fault.

  “ ’Twill help you rest.” She guided the glass to his mouth, and touched it to his lips, which remained obstinately closed. “Drink.”

  “I won’t lose the leg!” he said again, fiercely, as he resisted her efforts by turning his head. Caroline, understanding that he feared that, were he asleep, he could not defend his person against whatever might be done to him, spoke gently in reply.

  “I tell you, there is no need for it, and your brothers are too fond of you to maim you without reason. You need have no fear of having your leg missing when you awaken.”

  “Need I not?”

  “No. Now please drink this. If you do not rest, I fear a return of the fever, and that might kill you where the condition of your leg will not. Please.”

  She held the glass to his mouth once more. Over its rim, his eyes met hers. They burned fiercely, a bright searing blue. Again Caroline feared a return of the fever, but his skin, when she lifted her other hand to touch his temple gently, did not seem overhot.

  “Promise me you won’t let them take my leg.” Despite his weakness, his hand managed to grasp the wrist of the hand holding the glass. The strength that remained in his long fingers surprised her.

  “I promise.” She gently pried his fingers loose. Despite his illness, she was not strong enough to force him to release her had he not wished to. But he did, slowly.

  “I promise,” she repeated, and pressed the glass to his lips. With another long look at her, he opened his mouth and allowed her to pour the contents down his throat.

  “That’s a good boy.” Caroline murmured the words automatically, intending only encouragement. Swallowing, he shuddered at the bitter taste. As she stood up to rinse the glass with the water remaining in the pitcher and wipe it dry, his eyes followed her. There was a thoughtful quality to his frown.

  “I am not,” he said quietly, “a boy. Injured or not.”

  Startled, Caroline looked around at him. Then she remembered her words. “No,” she agreed, setting the glass on the bedside table.

  “Just so you know.”

  “I know.”

  “Yet you’re not afraid of me any longer.”

  That made her almost drop the bowl she’d been emptying into the slop jar. Looking at him, her eyes widened. He was watching her intently as if she were a puzzle he was determined to solve.

  “I was never afraid of you.” The half-lie made her hands clumsy, and she had to snatch at the bowl as it nearly slipped again. Lips tightening, she returned it to its perch on the lower level of the washstand before she could reveal how close his perception was to the mark.

  “Oh, yes, you were. Or at least, of my touch.”

  There was nothing Caroline could find to say to that. Suddenly she was very busy rearranging the vials of medicines on the bedside table. He said nothing for a while, but she could feel him watching her. Finally she could bear his silent scrutiny no longer. Turning to face him, her arms folding over her chest, she eyed him defensively. But he no longer seemed interested in the topic under discussion. His lids were drooping over eyes that had lost their keenness. Suddenly he yawned. Disarmed. Caroline relaxed her belligerent stance. Her arms dropped, and she crossed to his bedside to straighten the quilt that had, in the course of his examination by Mr. Williams, gone sadly awry.

  “Don’t leave me,” he said suddenly, his lids opening so that, leaning over him, she received the full force of that dazzling blue gaze. For a moment Caroline, caught by surprise, could say nothing. She realized that he was actually expressing a need of her. Her guarded heart leaped and quivered, and not all her fine resolutions could prevent the crumbling of the barriers she had so carefully erected for its protection. Looking down at Matt, she felt a blossoming, a kind of greening such as occurs when spring comes after a hard, cold winter.

  “I won’t. You need have no fear,” she answered, the huskiness of her voice surprising her. Then, completely without volition, she smiled at him.

  This time the smile was genuine, and not tentative at all. But Matt’s lids had closed, and he did not see it.

  For a moment she watched him sleeping, not liking what she felt at all. As if keeping him safe were her responsibility, which it most emphatically was not. Then she remembered the others and bethought herself of the debate that was doubtless raging at that very moment in the kitchen.


  Dragging a chair close to the bed, Caroline settled herself in it. Her brows twitched together in a fierce frown. Her lips stretched into a hard, straight line. Her arms folded over her bosom. Her eyes fixed on the open doorway, their expression so forbidding that Millicent, who had approached her chair with the evident intention of jumping into her lap, desisted and instead slunk beneath the bed where she crouched, her eyes glowing as yellow as her mistress’s.

  Thus girded for battle, Caroline set herself to wait. They would do Matt unnecessary hurt over her dead body!

  20

  “Caroline!”

  Caroline made it all the way to the foot of the stairs before Matt recalled her with a bellow. It was a week after the battle over his leg, which had resulted in James being persuaded to side with his brothers and Caroline against the Reverend Mr. Miller and Mr. Williams, who consequently went away furious. Caroline found herself thoroughly accepted by her new family, at least where domestic chores were concerned, but that was sometimes a mixed blessing. Matt was a fractious, demanding patient, and Caroline was worn out from looking after him. Being bedridden did not suit him at all, and he expected Caroline to be at his beck and call morning, noon, and night. Exasperation thinning her lips, she turned to retrace her steps to his bedchamber. Her hands tightened on the untouched breakfast tray she held as he yelled for her a second time.

  “Caroline! From the smell, I’m thinking the bread’s burning!” Daniel’s shout froze her on the first tread. She looked in the direction of the kitchen, and opened her mouth to reply.

  “Aunt Caroline! Is there any more porridge?” yelled Davey, who had become somewhat reconciled to her presence in the household over the past few days. Whether that was because of her care of his father, her kindness toward himself and John, or her cooking Caroline couldn’t begin to guess. But at the moment he was clearly most concerned with her cooking.

  “Would you mind mending these before Meeting on Sunday?”

  With her head turned toward the kitchen, Caroline didn’t see Robert until he was standing two steps above her, holding out a pair of gray woolen hose with a large hole in one toe.

  Caroline juggled the tray, accepted the hose, and automatically stepped down and aside so that he could pass.

  “ ’Tis a blessing that you can sew. Those are my best hose, and I’d hate to have my toes sticking out during Meeting. The Lord could see them, if no one else could.”

  Robert headed for the kitchen, where the rest of them were eating. Caroline had just carried Matt’s breakfast up to him, and he had just refused to take so much as a bite of it because she had brought him tea instead of ale to drink. Consequently her humor was not the sunniest. She wrinkled her nose in silent protest at the unwashed state of the hose.

  “Caroline! Where in the name of all that’s holy are you? Bring that tray back up here!” bellowed Matt again.

  “The bread’s burning! Ouch! Confound it, that’s hot!” Daniel yelled.

  “I’m still hungry!” moaned Davey.

  Ruff! Ruff! came Raleigh’s contribution to the general chaos. Raleigh? In the house? Juggling tray and hose, Caroline mentally consigned Matt to the devil and hastened in the direction of the kitchen, from whence the barks had surely come. What was the blasted dog doing in the house?

  Stepping over the threshold, she cast one quick, harried glance around.

  “Ouch! Thank the Lord! Caroline, the bread’s burning, and I burned my hand trying to get it out!” Daniel stood by the hearth, sucking the side of his hand like an injured child.

  “Aunt Caroline, Uncle Thorn ate all the porridge and I’m still hungry!” Davey, seated with John and Thomas at the table, looked woebegone.

  “You can have some of mine if you’ll just hush up.” John shoved his bowl in Davey’s direction.

  “I want my own!”

  “I did not eat all the porridge!” said Thomas, who sounded almost as childish as Davey.

  “Did too! Look at this, empty as can be! And with me not getting so much as a bite!” Robert, peering into the pot, tipped it toward the room to confirm his statement.

  “The bread …” Daniel gestured frantically toward the brick domed oven at the side of the hearth with the hand that was not attached to his mouth.

  “Caroline!” From abovestairs, Matt was still shouting for her.

  Ruff!

  “Where the dickens is that dog?” The question burst from her mouth. Setting the tray down with a clatter on the nearest chair and dropping the hose on the floor, Caroline stormed to the oven, grabbing a cloth on the way, and opened the iron door just in time to rescue a pair of slightly overdone loaves.

  “They’re burned!” cried Davey.

  “Aunt Caroline will make some more.” Daniel consoled him.

  “I wish she’d make some more porridge,” muttered Robert.

  “You should get down on time, if you want some,” said Thomas.

  Ruff! Ruff!

  Looking ferociously around as Raleigh, sounding delighted, barked again, Caroline lost the tenuous hold she’d managed to maintain on her composure. “Where is that dog?”

  Without waiting for an answer she rushed toward the keeping room, which by default had become her bedchamber. Not that she’d had much time to sleep in it, of course, what with sitting up with Matt and attending to the unending needs of the rest of the household as well. Against all logic, the barks had seemed to come from there. Surely the creature could not be in her room.…

  She threw open the door. Her eyes widened as she stared aghast at the sight that greeted her. The outside door was open; dawn’s graying light provided just enough illumination to reveal Raleigh’s huge form in the middle of the truckle bed she’d set up for herself in one corner. He was in a semicrouch, front paws flat against the mattress, rear end and madly waving tail in the air as he worried one of her best boots!

  “Out! Out! Out!” she screamed, snatching a broom from a corner of the kitchen and rushing into the room. Her boot, of fine black leather with a delicate high heel, already bore signs of being badly chewed. “Out, you benighted beast! Who left the door open so this animal could get in?”

  Raleigh, pleased at this new game, leaped from the bed as she flailed at him and ran, madly barking, around the room. Millicent, who’d been curled up before the fire in the kitchen, took one look at her nemesis and streaked for the stairs. Spying her, Raleigh gave chase with a bound and a volley of earsplitting woofs.

  “Get that animal out of this house!” Broom held threateningly aloft, Caroline ran after the enormous animal as he bounded up the stairs in vocal pursuit of the fleeing Millicent. “Blasted dog! Get out, get out, get out!”

  Millicent gained the top of the stairs and darted for Matt’s room, as his was the only open door. Behind her, nails scrabbling on the plank floor, came Raleigh in full cry. Like Millicent, he tore through the open door.

  “What in the name of …!” Matt’s muffled protest ended in a yell.

  “Out! Out! Out!” Waving the broom, Caroline burst through the door just as Raleigh, all hundred and some odd pounds of him, jumped onto Matt’s bed. A hissing black streak leaped from the mattress and disappeared under the bed; Caroline, incensed, swung the broom at the bouncing dog. He bounded from the bed in pursuit of the cat just before the broom would have connected with his furry backside. Caroline ended up whacking the mattress instead. Fortunately, she just missed Matt, who cowered in the face of so much avenging fury, his arms lifted to protect his head.

  “Stop it, now! Caroline, that’s enough! Raleigh, sit! Blasted troublesome cat!”

  “Don’t you dare blame this—this debacle on Millicent!” Caroline screeched, using the broom to rout the dog from beneath the bed, where he had wedged himself in pursuit of the cat. Unfortunately, she routed Millicent as well. The cat tore around the room with Raleigh, barking deafeningly after her. Caroline, wielding the broom with grand disregard for what it hit, pounded floor and furniture as she chased the galloping dog. One p
articularly wild swing hit the washstand, causing bowl and pitcher to teeter; before she could so much as grab at them, they crashed to the floor, shattering. Shrieking with fury, Caroline at last succeeded in making contact with the dog—and got knocked to the bed for her trouble when the huge animal, with a shocked yelp, leaped by her in a lunge for the door.

  “I’ll kill that bloody dog!” Caroline gasped into Matt’s chest. Broom and all, she had fallen across him, and he was holding her by the arms to prevent her from getting up. His chest was heaving. Had she hurt him? She looked up, frowning with concern, to discover that the maddening devil was laughing at her!

  “She hit Raleigh!”

  “Here, Raleigh! Here, boy! Aunt Caroline didn’t mean it!”

  “He won’t hurt that cat!”

  “If you hadn’t gone off half-cocked …!”

  “ ’Tis time and past you stopped acting like Raleigh was some kind of wild beast!”

  Like a Greek chorus, the five Mathieson males crowded through the doorway, voicing their opinions and giving Caroline condemning looks without restraint. Caroline stiffened even as Matt’s grip tightened on her arms.

  “I hate you, Aunt Caroline! I hate you!”

  That was the final straw. The entire morning had been a disaster, and it wasn’t even full daylight yet! She’d worked herself to the bone waiting on the ungrateful crew, cleaning and cooking and mending and nursing, and what did she get for it? A chewed-up shoe, and Davey telling her he hated her! Caroline felt the hot rush of tears. Blinking frantically, she tried to force them back, but she was terribly afraid she was going to make a fool of herself before them all.

  “Hold, now,” Matt whispered in her ear. “Davey, you may apologize to your aunt later. For now, ’tis time and past that you and your brother left for school. You know your aunt didn’t hurt Raleigh. Why, he outweighs her by a good half stone! Daniel, see them off to school, would you? And take yourself, and Rob, and Thorn, off as well.”

  “But, Pa …!”