“I’ve kept you here too long,” Susanna said as she climbed down. “Tell me about the families whose children I will be teaching.”
“I can sum up the families in two words,” Katie said, as she stood up. “High sticklers. They will expect far too much of you.”
“Daunting,” Susanna murmured.
“The children of the garrison are charming enough, but their mothers … They’re another matter.” She lowered her voice. “Remain above reproach and you will have smooth sailing.” She touched Susanna’s sleeve shyly. “I know you will do well.”
Until someone finds out I am not who they think I am, Susanna thought as she closed the door behind them. Joe, please be right. Let nothing come of Emily’s lie.
Joe Randolph glanced at his watch and pocketed it again, pleased with his timing. The ladies stood on the broad porch at Old Bedlam. He had come from the quartermaster storehouse, followed by a dubious private with a long-handled brush.
“I hope you did not mop any floors,” he told Susanna as he joined them on the porch. “You see here Fort Laramie’s answer to a chimney sweep. Go to, lad. Be brave. Come, ladies.”
Katie O’Leary took his arm, but Mrs. Hopkins hung back. “It seems so early to return to quarters,” she murmured.
It’s that difficult there? he thought. “It’s almost time for recall from fatigue,” he told her. “I’ll squire Katie home, and take you to meet your fellow educationist for the enlisted men’s children.”
“I’d like that,” she said, and sat down to wait for him.
Home for Katie was only two doors from Old Bedlam, but he would always be a Virginian, and prone to good manners. “What do you think?” he asked Katie, when he knew the two of them were out of earshot.
“She’s sweet, but there is such sadness in her,” Katie said, as she opened her front door. “I remember how I used to worry about my Jim before every battle, but he always came home. I’d hate to be a widow, and on my own.”
He returned some answer, writhing inside to continue perpetuating a lie to such a kindly woman. He toyed briefly with telling her the truth, but only tipped his hat and thanked her for her time, so generously given.
Mrs. Hopkins was shivering on the porch when he returned to Old Bedlam. “You’d be warmer in Emily’s house,” he said.
“I know, but I’d rather meet the teacher,” she said quickly, then glanced over her shoulder. “The chimney sweep must have found a bird’s nest. He swears better than Stanley.”
So you want to change the subject? he asked himself. They walked across the parade ground to a storehouse by the bakery, where children were coming out. Susanna watched them, and he noted the interest on her intelligent face.
“Where does Fort Laramie find teachers for enlisted men’s children?” she asked.
“From the ranks. It’s fifty cents a day extra duty pay,” he told her. “Sometimes it’s a malingerer wanting to get out of more arduous fatigue detail. I’ve even seen prisoners, clinking about a classroom in chains. Seriously.” He gestured to the open door. “Sometimes we get lucky, as we did with Private Benedict.”
He watched her expression as she stepped into the commissary warehouse, where barrels of victuals lined the walls. The room smelled of raisins and apricots, pungent dried herring, and vinegar. Her smile grew as she saw the blackboard pretty much where Captain Dunklin had so snidely described it, leaning on top of bags of wheat.
“Not fancy,” he said, feeling apologetic.
“No, but I like raisins.”
“You won’t after a winter of nothing but raisins,” he assured her.
Seated at a packing crate desk, Private Benedict looked up as they approached. He was on his feet at attention then, snapping off a smart salute, which Major Randolph returned.
“Private, let me introduce Mrs. Hopkins, teacher for the officers’ children.”
She extended her hand with no reticence, to Joe’s pleasure.
“I’m delighted to meet a fellow teacher,” she told Private Benedict.
“Where’s your classroom, Mrs. Hopkins?”
“A place not nearly as pleasant-smelling as yours,” she said. “It’s that first floor room in Old Bedlam, complete with a chimney probably full of bats or birds, and maybe a ghost or two, if I can believe the corporal of the guard.”
They laughed together, comrades already. With a friend in Katie O’Leary and a colleague—however improbable—in Private Benedict, Mrs. Hopkins would rub along at Fort Laramie, Joe thought. Now if he could convince her to give him some spare time at the hospital …
The private offered Mrs. Hopkins his chair, and in no time they were deep in conversation. Joe perched himself on an apple barrel, content to watch her. He knew she must be tired after a day’s hard labor in an old building, but she had found a friend in Private Benedict.
He had admired blondes before, but Melissa’s brunette glory had always stirred him, especially the sight of her wavy dark hair spread on his pillow. He folded his arms and decided that Mrs. Hopkins’s blond hair, coupled with her brown eyes, could prove endlessly fascinating. He liked the trimness of her figure. Mrs. Hopkins was also tidy and impeccable of posture. She had a full, deep laugh, not ladylike, but so infectious.
They were both looking at him now, as though waiting for a reply to a question he had not heard, so busy was he in admiring Mrs. Hopkins. “Beg pardon?” he inquired.
Private Benedict asked again, “Sir, may I walk Mrs. Hopkins back to her quarters? I’d hate to keep you from work.”
Hell, no, he thought. He took a few deep breaths, surprised at his resistance to a kind offer. “Actually, I had hoped to quick march Mrs. Hopkins to my hospital and introduce her to the redoubtable Nick Martin.” Joe paused, hoping Susanna Hopkins would see his interest. He was not a man to encroach; blame his Virginian upbringing. “Mrs. Hopkins, it’s your choice.”
Please choose me, he pleaded silently, yearning for her approval like a schoolboy.
He realized he was holding his breath until Mrs. Hopkins replied. “Private, I trust we will have plenty of occasions to discuss both your pupils and mine.”
Private Benedict sketched a charming bow to her. “We will.”
“Good day, Private. We’ll speak again soon. Major, shall we go?”
When he was a boy, living on his father’s plantation, Joe Randolph had had a one-eyed dog. Brutus belied his name, being most tame and possessed of a self-effacing nature, at least until the post rider happened by.
Brutus became a different dog then, considering it his duty to give chase. The post rider always managed to escape Brutus’s retribution, until one day when the energized dog latched on to the horse’s tail.
The horse stopped, looked around at this source of discomfort, and did nothing. Joe remembered watching, eyes wide, as Brutus sank to the road and also did nothing. Once he had caught the post rider’s horse, he had no idea what to do with it.
Joseph Randolph, grown now but possibly no wiser, had no idea what to do with Mrs. Hopkins. He had never supposed she would abandon a conversation with a fellow educationist. But here she was, probably with nothing on her mind beyond avoiding her cousin’s house for another hour. That thought channeled him toward his best efforts to relieve at least some of her anxiety. He couldn’t call it a smooth recovery, but Mrs. Hopkins probably knew better than to expect miracles from men.
“Yes, I promised you Nick Martin and I suppose you are wondering why,” he said, as they left the warehouse.