“You’ll meet our groundsman, Mr. MacNeil, later. The facilities are his charge, and it is no small task, I assure you.”
Gitch tugged on Ida’s arm. “Mrs. Leonard kept the flowers, only not so much as she got sick. Mr. MacNeil fixes things, but he ain’t much for flowers and such.”
“Isn’t much,” Dr. Parker corrected as he walked on. “Mind your grammar.”
Gitch rolled her eyes with such classic childhood weariness that Ida could only chuckle. She leaned down to the girl. “I ain’t much for grammar, neither.”
Gitch’s formerly narrowed eyes popped wide in shock, then she swallowed a giggle. Ida held a finger to her lips, smiled and offered Gitch a wide, wild wink. Well, at least she seemed to have one young ally at the Parker Home for Orphans. As for Dr. Parker, only God knew if he was friend or foe.
* * *
Daniel placed the two—thankfully light—cases down at the entrance of his office, genuinely puzzled. Camp Jackson had assured him Nurse Landway was practical, hearty and generally well suited for the endless job of keeping so many children fit. “Hearty and practical” suggested a stout, older female much like the late Mrs. Leonard. What stood before him was a slender, curvy peacock of a woman with wide, brilliant eyes, unruly hair and evidently not much focus.
He watched Miss Landway say goodbye to the Martin girl as if the child was Queen of England. Holding out a formal hand, Nurse Landway dropped a curtsy worthy of the stage and declared, “Fare thee well, Lady Gwendolyn. I look forward to our next meeting—grammar and all.”
Fare thee well, Lady Gwendolyn? Daniel shut his open mouth and waited for little Miss Martin to explode in protest to the use of her full name. She always did. Why the child hated her given name so, he could never work out. Nor could he bring himself to refer to her as anything so crass sounding as “Gitch,” keeping to “Miss Martin,” or avoiding calling her by name altogether. To his shock, the child only smiled and—most surprising of all—attempted a curtsy of her own. Nearly falling over, she erupted in a flurry of giggles and a “Bye, y’all” called over her tiny shoulder as she tumbled from the room.
Miss Landway stared after her, laughing. “Oh, she’s delightful.” She turned to look at Daniel. “Are they all like that?”
Daniel tucked his astonishment back down inside as he motioned her to take a seat at the chair in front of his desk. “Like what, exactly?”
She cocked her head so far to one side that a curl bobbed over her raised brows. “Such contradictions—pale, sullen, then suddenly friendly. I was worried they’d all be grim, given the troubles they’ve had.”
“They’re children, Miss Landway, not soldiers. Many of them are sullen, as you put it. Withdrawn. Others are cheerful, despite coming from some dreadful situations. Many of them haven’t had a dependable home or meal until they came here.”
“That’s just wrong, if you don’t mind my saying so.” He’d forgotten a grown woman could pout as easily as any youngster. “Children shouldn’t know so much sadness. Children ought to have mamas and papas, don’t you think?”
A wiggling tendril of doubt over this recent hiring grew stronger in Daniel’s chest. He steepled his hands. “Children ought to have a lot of things the war took from them. Surely your work at Camp Jackson gave you some preparation for situations like theirs.”
She looked out the door that Gwendolyn—he used the name in his head now that she’d permitted it—had exited. “I’m no stranger to a sorry tale, Dr. Parker. I’ve seen some sad, lost souls come back from the war inside bodies that barely held their skin on.” She returned her gaze to Daniel, pointedly meeting his eyes. “Only it seems a double sorrow to bear so much at a young age.” Miss Landway made a dramatic gesture of clasping her hands and planting them in her lap. Miss Landway was fond of dramatic gestures, it seemed. “I want to help.”
Daniel couldn’t decide if her enthusiasm stood any chance of holding. There were days when the demands of the Home nearly drowned his spirits. So much was out of reach for these youngsters. Starting life with so many strikes against them sometimes loomed like the largest of hurdles; a burden that pressed against his ribs so hard some nights, he had trouble catching his breath. “Excellent.” The last two nurses had left after a handful of weeks, and Daniel needed this one to stay.
Donna Forley, one of the oldest girls in the Home who often helped out around the office, poked her head into the door. “You asked for me, Dr. Parker?”
“Miss Forley, I’d like you to meet Nurse Landway. Can you show her to her rooms?”
Miss Landway stopped midhandshake to blink at Daniel. “Rooms?”
“You were expecting an army pup tent?” Daniel could not remember the last time he’d cracked anything close to a joke. Why had he chosen such an inappropriate time to start?
“Well, I’m just astonished, that’s all. It’s been a long time since I’ve had rooms. As in plural—to mind my grammar. The army’s not known for generosity in lodgings, you understand.”
Daniel tucked his hands in his vest pockets. “You have a suite of three rooms on the first floor of the girls’ dormitory.”
Her hand swept grandly to her chest, and the wiggling in Daniel’s own chest returned. “Three!” she pronounced. “A veritable embarrassment of riches. I’ll get lost.”
Donna launched a wave of teenage giggles at the jest. Giggling. Was he to be surrounded by giggling from here on in? “I highly doubt that. They are small rooms, I assure you. But I can promise you the luxury of a private bath.”
“A private bath. I swoon at the very thought.” She struck a pose that sent Donna into another round of tittering.
Daniel swallowed his sigh. “All the same, dinner is at five thirty in the dining hall. You can meet the rest of the children then, although I suspect Miss Martin will have told half of them about you already.”
“Gitch has a big mouth,” Donna confided.
“Well then, she’s my kind of gal. I like conversation, and lots of it.”
Daniel took a breath to ask Donna to help with Miss Landway’s cases, but the nurse had already plucked the pair of them off the floor. She squared her shoulders at the teen before he could get a word out and commanded, “Lead on, my dear Miss Forley.” The pair of them marched from the room, bright as sunshine and chattering already.
However had the army managed the likes of Ida Lee Landway? More to the point, how would he?
Ida took a small bit of time to explore the Home as she made her way to the dining hall for her first dinner. Her few visits to Charleston had shown her that the Home’s buildings were ordinary by the city’s standards: three stories high with a few of the requisite columns and shutters framing the windows. Still, the compound held none of the ornamental grace for which Charleston’s buildings and residences were famous.
The front entrance led into the center wing of the U-shaped main building. This segment housed a half-dozen classrooms on the upper floors, while what few offices there were shared the main floor with the dining hall. On one end of the main wing sat Dr. Parker’s office and a small receiving parlor. Ida presumed his living quarters sat beyond the French doors at the far end of that parlor, but didn’t dare investigate. On the other end of the wing sat a library and a common study room. Her infirmary was just around the corner from the library, at the beginning of the girls’ residential wing. The boys’ wing sat sensibly on the other side of the main building.
It was the thing that struck her most: the sheer sensibility of the place. The overwhelming practical, even institutional feeling of the whole structure. It felt off, wrong somehow. Too