the mop and pail to the hall closet. “Do you go back to the hospital steward’s house for noon?” she asked gently, when he just stood there, a puzzled look on his face.
“I do, I do, indeed.” He executed a courtly bow that made Susanna smile. “Thank you for reminding me. God will bless you.”
“You’re kind to him,” Katie said as they both stood on the porch of Old Bedlam and watched him walk away. “He’s a lost soul, and hardly anyone treats him kindly. Sometimes children are mean.”
“I know what that feels like,” she said simply. Katie could take that however she chose; it didn’t matter to Susanna.
As she looked across the parade ground, Susanna watched Major Randolph walk by the new guardhouse construction, his head down, his hands behind his back. She pointed him out to Katie, who was buttoning the only three buttons on her coat that closed over her pregnant belly.
“I don’t think things went well at Sergeant Rattigan’s house,” Susanna whispered, even though he was too far away to hear her.
“The Rattigans? Oh, no!” Katie said in genuine distress. “You haven’t met her yet, but Maeve Rattigan gets in the family way every few months, and just as regularly loses her baby.” She looked down at her own swollen body, evidence of fertility that the sergeant’s wife couldn’t match. “I’d go to her, but I fear I would only make her more sad.”
“Perhaps I could go,” Susanna offered.
Major Randolph was closer now. She thought he was headed to his quarters, but he veered toward Old Bedlam. He looked up and squared his shoulders in a gesture that went right to Susanna’s heart.
“It must be so hard to do what he does,” she whispered. “I couldn’t.”
They waited for him on the porch of Old Bedlam. The parade ground was busy now with soldiers heading to the mess halls behind their particular barracks, but the post surgeon hardly seemed aware of them. You have no one to go home to and talk out the misery you see every day, Susanna thought. What a shame.
He didn’t have to say anything when he got to the porch, because Katie was in tears. Without a word, he took out a handkerchief, wiped her eyes, then put the handkerchief over her nose. “Blow, sweetheart,” he told her.
He looked at Susanna. “I had a note tacked to my door last night, and I’ve been in the Rattigans’ quarters since then. I wish I knew how to help her, but …” He shook his head.
“Is there anything I can do?” Susanna asked.
“Are you finished here?”
She nodded.
“You wouldn’t mind visiting a sergeant’s wife over on Suds Row? Emily would probably be aghast.”
“I’m going to overlook that question,” she said, more crisply than she intended, but at least it brought a momentary smile to his face. “What would you have me do?”
He thought a moment. “I’ll get a book from my quarters. I’ll introduce you, but would you stay there this afternoon and read to her? She might listen, she might just doze. She’ll know someone cares, and that’s all I care about.”
He left the porch with a quicker step than he’d arrived, and hurried to his quarters. “What’s Mrs. Rattigan like?” Susanna asked Katie.
“Quiet. Calm. She worships the ground Sergeant Rattigan treads on.” Katie shook her head. “All they want is a baby. It seems so simple.”
The post surgeon was in no hurry to return to Old Bedlam, apparently. When Katie started rubbing her arms to warm them, Susanna told her to go home. Katie left with no argument, walking carefully down the icy steps. Before she reached her quarters, her husband joined her. Susanna sighed to see them continue arm in arm, her head close to his shoulder.
When she began to wonder if the post surgeon had forgotten her, he hurried from his quarters and up Officers Row again, a book and package in his hand.
The package was a cheese sandwich. “I eat a lot of these. This one’s for you.”
She smiled her thanks and sat down to eat it. He pulled a half-eaten sandwich from inside his overcoat and peeled back the waxed paper. “It wasn’t so appealing last night,” he told her as he chewed and swallowed. “I knew it could wait.”
“You should eat better,” she admonished, wishing for water to wash down the dry bread. The man was no cook.
“I should do a lot of things better.” He said it mildly enough, but she heard the regret in his voice.