by P. B. Ryan
Looking pretty satisfied himself, the lieutenant said, “Skinner, what did I tell you not ten minutes ago about insulting Detective Cook?”
“But...but he—”
“Collect your things and leave,” Quinn said. “You’re no longer a member of this department.”
“Nice work, indeed, detective,” Nell whispered as they turned to leave.
Chapter 18
The substance of things hoped for.
The phrase drifted in and out of Nell’s mind as she lay awake the following night, listening to the faint tick...tick...tick of the grandfather clock downstairs, punctuated by an occasional creak from the bed on the other side of the wall. Will had insisted on leaving the connecting door open as before, reasoning that Charlie Skinner was no less of a threat for having been sacked; probably more so.
Substance. A word of consequence, hefty as an old pair of boots...
Hope. Light as a breath, soft as a heartbeat...
The distant clock proclaimed midnight with a succession of stately, muffled gongs. Nell had been lying in this bed trying to get to sleep for over an hour and a half. This time, her sleeplessness couldn’t be blamed on the heat, for it was pleasant enough tonight to need her quilt; nor was it the product of fear, for she trusted Will to protect her if need be.
Her wakefulness stemmed from the sermon Martin had delivered at King’s Chapel this morning, which Nell and Will had gone to hear, and which she couldn’t seem to stop ruminating on. “The Substance of Things Hoped For” was a discourse on the foundations of faith, beautifully expressed. Martin had truly found his calling. He’d always been wise beyond his years, compassionate, articulate... a winning combination for a man of the cloth. Nell had found herself not just inspired, but deeply moved by his observations on life and devotion, many of which seemed to speak directly to her circumstances.
Afterward, Nell and Will had chatted with the handsome new reverend on the front steps of the church. Martin looked so at home in his clerical robes, despite his youth. He told them he’d be leaving tomorrow for four weeks on the Cape before launching into his new pastoral duties, taking his little coal box buggy instead of the train, which he hated. Will suggested that Nell accompany Martin rather than traveling alone, which made him nervous given recent events, so it was arranged; Martin told her he’d come by for her at seven tomorrow morning.
Excusing himself to Nell, Will had taken his brother out of earshot for a brief, private conversation. Nell had watched surreptitiously as they spoke, with Will doing most of the talking. Whatever he’d said had seemed quite troubling to Martin; he’d grabbed Will’s shoulders, his expression earnest, imploring. Will had glanced at Nell, then shaken his head. He took something out of his vest pocket—it was too small for Nell to make out—and pressed it into Martin’s hand, then hugged him tight. It was a rare display of emotion for Will Hewitt. Nell couldn’t help but wonder what had transpired between the brothers, but of course it wouldn’t do to ask.
After lunching at the Parker House, Nell and Will had returned home to find a note from the Cooks, inviting them to pay an afternoon call. When they arrived at the brick townhouse on Fayette Street, they found not just Chloe’s friend Lily Booth there, but Denny Delaney as well.
Detective Cook, as it turned out, had gone to Nabby’s early that morning in search of Denny, only to be told he’d packed his paltry belongings and left during the night, unwilling to remain one moment longer under the roof of someone who didn’t want him there. Cook had found him at St. Stephen’s, asleep in a rear pew during early mass. The boy had allowed Cook to bring him home and feed him, after the detective had explained that it was merely a gesture of thanks for coming forward to clear his name, but he’d drawn the line at Cook’s offer, once again, for him to live there and attend Boston College High School. That would be crossing the line, he’d said, from gratitude to charity.
As they were enjoying a light afternoon repast of tea and apple fritters—made by Lily, since Chloe, although much improved, wasn’t moving from her couch in the front parlor—Ebenezer Shute came by. Detective Cook, to whom Will had entrusted the newspaper-wrapped thousand dollars, tried to return it to Shute, who refused to take it. Instead, he bequeathed it to Denny, explaining that it was part of his reward for having exonerated both him and Colin Cook, despite the risk to himself. Predictably, Denny’s outsized pride got in the way, and he tried to reject the money as a handout, obliging everyone present to spend most of the remaining afternoon explaining the difference between money that was donated because of poverty and that which was earned.
That concept having sunk in, Denny was in a more receptive frame of mind by the time Shute got around to the second part of his reward: an education at Georgetown Prep, the Jesuit boarding school where Shute’s brother—who owed him a favor—was headmaster, plus college tuition once he graduated. This time, Denny offered only the most cursory objection before gratefully accepting the offer. He spent the rest of the afternoon in a giddy daze of anticipation.
At one point during the afternoon, Nell noticed that Will wasn’t there. Chloe told her he’d stepped out to run an errand. When he came back and Nell asked him where he’d gone, he called her a “meddling duchess” and changed the subject. Then, after they returned home following dinner at Jacob Wirth’s, he sequestered himself behind the closed door of his father’s library for almost an hour. When he emerged, she didn’t ask what he’d been doing in there, knowing he’d just tease her about nosiness again. In any event, he didn’t owe her an accounting of his time. She wasn’t his wife, or anything close to it.
The substance of things hoped for.
Curled up on her side, Nell closed her eyes, trying to coax her racing mind to surrender to sleep.
The substance of things...
Things hoped for...
Hoped For...
Things—
The sound was soft, almost imperceptible, a papery whisper against the linen pillowcase behind her. Nell would never have heard it had it not been so close, mere inches from her head.
She lay on her side, facing away from the door on the lefthand side of the bed. As far as she could tell, something had just been placed upon the righthand pillow.
Nell waited, eyes closed, heart drumming, for an interminable minute, until she heard the bed in the adjacent room groan slightly as Will lay back down. She wouldn’t have guessed that a man his size could move so quietly.
She opened her eyes and waited another few minutes, until the sounds of him shifting about on the bed had faded away, to sit up and look behind her. A nearly full moon shone through the sheer curtains, casting the room in a kind of radiant twilight, so she had no trouble seeing the envelope lying in the middle of the pillow. She lifted it, finding it weighty, and held it close to her face to make out what was written on the front in Will’s angular, masculine hand: Nell.
Rising from the bed slowly and silently, so as not to draw Will’s attention, Nell brought the envelope over to a window that was brighter than the rest, owing to the street lamp directly below. She broke the wax seal and unfolded three sheets of thick ivory vellum engraved 148 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts: August Hewitt’s writing paper, which he kept in a neat stack on his library desk.
10 July 1870
My dearest Nell,
Forgive this cowardly letter, I beg you. Some things are more easily written than spoken aloud.
I won’t be here when you awaken. Yesterday afternoon, when I stepped out during our visit with the Cooks, it was for two purposes—first, to wire President Grant my acceptance of the appointment as field surgeon to Ambassador Washburne, and second, to book passage to France. It happened that there was one remaining stateroom available on the Melita, which departs tomorrow morning, so I reserved it. I must leave here before dawn to gather my effects in order to be at Constitution Wharf when the ship boards.
By the time I arrive in Paris, France will in all likelihood be embroiled in war with Prussia. My dut
ies are as yet undefined. All I know for certain is that I am to serve the ambassador in whatever capacity he requires. Given his specific request for a surgeon with wartime experience, and his own political sympathies, I suspect that I am to provide medical services to Napoleon’s army on the field of battle. There is no explicit term to my service, and of course, no telling how long the fighting will last. It is possible, likely even, that I could be gone for years.
You will wonder why I’ve chosen this course, rather than the more comfortable alternative of teaching at Harvard. We have reached a juncture in the path of our acquaintance, you and I, from whence we cannot continue as before, strolling along side by side with no particular destination in mind, at least none of which we dare speak. If this turn of events grieves me, I have only myself to blame. Our friendship had its parameters, which you, in your wisdom, always respected, and which I, as is my nature, ultimately overstepped.
I am a far better man for having known you, Nell, but I am ultimately a selfish man, or I would never have imposed upon your tender nature as I did at the railroad station last January. The fault was entirely mine, but the cost, I regret to say, is one which we both must bear.
I had promised you, when I asked for that kiss, that we would go on afterward as before. Were I a stronger man, perhaps I could simply lift my chin and do so, but I think we both know that my fortitude has its limits. Did I not crave relief from pain—all manner of pain, not just the physical variety—I would never have wasted all those years in the numbing embrace of Morphia.
Sooner or later, I will weaken and contrive to violate, once more, the boundaries of our friendship. Whether you rebuff me or indulge me, the result will be the same. I will inevitably press you for more, you will grow to resent me, and the priceless attachment that has evolved between us these past years will be irreparably spoiled.
Having given the matter much consideration, I have arrived at the sad conviction that the time has come for us to step apart. It would be far better, for both our sakes, to withdraw from one another now, than to permit what we’ve shared to decay into something bitter and complicated. When people ask about our presumed engagement, simply tell them that you ended it over my gambling, aimlessness, and various other bad habits and defects of character; no one will question that.
Give Gracie a kiss for me. Tell her how sorry I am not to have seen her before I left, and that I will write to her when the opportunity presents itself.
Please do forgive the abruptness of my departure, and don’t, I implore you, attempt to come to the wharf to see me off. I haven’t the backbone for it, and in fact I’ve asked Martin to keep you away. He’ll be coming to the house around 5:00 tomorrow morning to keep watch over you after I leave. Yesterday after church I gave him the spare key to my house so that he can live there when he returns from the Cape next month.
It has taken all my strength of will to commit these words to paper, Nell, and it will take even more to leave this letter on your pillow tonight. You befriended me when I was in dire need a friend, you saved me when I needed a savior. Your presence in my life has shone a light upon my soul that will never be extinguished. For that precious gift, I shall forever be in your debt.
Yours in undying affection,
Will
Nell could barely breathe by the time she finished the letter. It felt as if there were a giant iron clamp around her chest, squeezing, squeezing...
She re-read the letter through a sheen of tears, sorting it all out in her mind—the things he’d said, and hadn’t said, the nuances and implications. Unmentioned was her marriage to Duncan, yet Nell couldn’t help but suspect that, if she could only free herself from it, Will would have chosen to remain in Boston rather than risk his life in a war that meant nothing to him.
She refolded the letter and crawled back into bed, shivering in her thin night shift, although the breeze fluttering the curtains was a mild one. Don’t cry, she told herself even as the tears pooling in her eyes spilled down her cheeks. She scrubbed them away, thinking, Don’t cry. He’ll hear. He’s trying to be strong. So must you.
She tried to draw a calming breath, but it snagged in her throat, emerging as a sob that she muffled by turning her face to the pillow. Another wrenched itself out of her, and another, and another, silent but wracking.
“Nell.”
She felt the mattress dip with his weight. He lowered himself atop the quilt behind her, banding an arm around her waist as he tucked his long body, clad in loose linen drawers, against hers.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his breath hot in her hair, his arm tightening around her. “I’m sorry, Nell.”
He snugged himself closer, draping his outside leg protectively around hers as he murmured things she couldn’t hear. As she absorbed his warmth, his tenderness, her crying ebbed, leaving her limp in his arms. She loosed a hand from the bedcovers to lace her fingers with his. It was the kind of thing lovers did, she realized, but she was beyond caring about appearances and repercussions.
She was losing him yet again—to a war this time.
“W-will it—” Her voice caught. “Will it be like...like it was during the War Between the States, where battle surgeons aren’t supposed to be fired upon?”
He took his time answering. “I don’t know.”
She closed her eyes and gripped his hand harder, feeling a terrible, black foreboding. “Don’t go.”
He nuzzled her head, sighed. “I’ve given the president my word. It can’t be taken back.”
She shook her head, her eyes stinging with fresh tears. “I hate this.”
Propping himself up on an arm, Will eased Nell onto her back and brushed away the hair that clung to her damp face. The moonlight shadowed his eyes and silvered his skin, throwing the bruise and scrape on his face into sharp contrast. She breathed in his familiar scent, trying to store it away in her memory—Bay Rum, warm skin, and a hint of tobacco; he must have smoked a cigarette, probably while he was in his father’s library writing that letter.
He blotted her face with the edge of the sheet, then lowered his head until his forehead rested against hers. She heard him swallow. A hot little droplet struck her eyelid and trickled down the side of her face.
She freed both arms from the quilt and gathered him to her, their mouths meeting as naturally, as ardently, as if they’d done so a thousand times and not just once, during another anguished parting half a year before. The kiss stole her breath, her senses. The world, with all its conventions and expectations, dissolved away, leaving just the two of them alone in this room, this bed.
“I should go,” he said hoarsely, his hands tangled in her hair.
“No, don’t.” The softspoken plea resonated between them before she even realized she’d spoken.
Will searched her gaze, his eyes dark and shimmering.
Nell drew in a breath, willing herself to take it back, to bow to her mind and not her heart, to do the right thing, the prudent thing, but when the air left her lungs, it emerged in a whispered, heartfelt, “Stay.”
###
Other Electronic Books by Patricia Ryan
Nell Sweeney Historical Mysteries by Patricia Ryan writing as P.B. Ryan:
Still Life With Murder
Murder in a Mill Town
Death on Beacon Hill
Murder on Black Friday
A Bucket of Ashes
Medieval Romances by Patricia Ryan:
Falcon’s Fire
Heaven’s Fire
Secret Thunder
Wild Wind
Silken Threads
The Sun and the Moon
An EXCERPT from Book #6
After returning home with a battle injury, Will helps Nell to investigate the mysterious death of her long-lost brother in
A BUCKET OF ASHES
by Patricia Ryan writing as P.B. Ryan
Chapter 1
August 1870: Cape Cod, Massachusetts
“Miseeny, who’s that man?” asked breathless littl
e Gracie Hewitt as she treaded water in Waquoit Bay flanked by the two young women charged with her care.
“What man, buttercup?” Nell Sweeney, standing waist-deep in the placid water, followed Gracie’s gaze toward the Hewitts’ colossal, cedar-shingled summer “cottage.” Shielding her eyes against the late afternoon sun, she saw a man walking toward them across the vast stretch of lawn that separated the shore from the house. Lean and with a graceful gait, he wore a well-tailored cutaway sack coat and bowler. It wasn’t until he removed the bowler and smiled at Nell—that warm, genial smile she’d once known so well—that she recognized him.
“Oh, my word,” Nell murmured.
“Who is he, then?” asked Eileen Tierney in her softly girlish brogue.
“He’s, um, someone I used to know when I lived here on the Cape. I haven’t seen him for some time.”
It had been three years since Nell, who lived in Boston with the Hewitts except for summers here at Falconwood, had last crossed paths with Dr. Cyril Greaves. In July of ‘sixty-seven, she had accompanied her employer, Viola Hewitt, to a charity tea in Falmouth, and he’d been there. Their conversation had been cordial—affectionate, even—but as if by unspoken agreement, neither had made any move to resume their acquaintance. Two summers before that, they’d passed each other on Short Street in Falmouth, he in his all-weather physician’s coupé and Nell in her little Boston chaise, and had chatted for a minute until a salt wagon rumbling up behind Dr. Greaves had forced him to move on.
For him to actually seek her out this way was unusual enough to be disconcerting.