“Poor Mrs. Rattigan. She just can’t carry a child to term, and I have no idea why.” He sighed. “She looks at me so patiently, and I feel more inadequate than a first-year medical student. Give me a festering wound any day.”
He waited until she finished. “Tonight, after supper, if you wish, I’ll take you around to meet your pupils.”
She nodded. “I’d like that.”
He held out a book. “Up you get, Mrs. Hopkins. Here’s your text for this afternoon.”
She took it. “I have heard this is quite good.”
“I bought it in Cheyenne. Mark Twain always makes me smile. I doubt it will have the same effect on a lady who is sad, but we shall see.”
The bugler blew fatigue call as they crossed the parade ground and walked by the construction.
“It’s the new guardhouse,” he commented, taking her arm and walking her around a pile of lumber.
He pointed to a footbridge over the frozen Laramie River. “Can you swim? I’m joking. Over there is Suds Row, called so because of the laundresses. Noncommissioned officers and their families live here, too. This is where Private Benedict’s pupils come from, and this is Sergeant Rattigan’s quarters.” He opened a neat little gate.
“I don’t know if I can help,” she said, hanging back.
He pushed against the small of her back and moved her forward. “You can. She needs female company.”
“Do you bully everyone like this?” Susanna demanded.
“Yes. I always get my way,” he replied, a smile lurking around his lips.
He knocked and walked in. “I’m glad you’re sitting up, Maeve,” he said to a blanketed figure in an armchair, her feet propped on an ottoman. “Meet Mrs. Hopkins. She’ll be teaching the officers’ children starting Monday, and I’ve asked her to keep you company until your man returns. Mrs. Hopkins, this is Maeve Rattigan, just about my favorite person, because she makes me soda bread and peppermint tea.”
Susanna held out her hand. Maeve’s hand was cold, so Susanna did not release it, but put her other hand around it and sat on the edge of the sofa.
“I had … we had … a bad night,” Maeve said, not withdrawing her hand. She glanced at the post surgeon. “Did he tell you?”
“He did, and I’m so sorry,” Susanna replied simply. “May we ask the major to bring us peppermint tea?”
“Aye,” she said. “He doesn’t mind a little step and fetch.”
Her brogue was so charming that Susanna had to smile. “Do you know, I have only been here a few days, and I am rather smitten with the Irish accents I have heard. Thank you, Major. How prompt you are! Just set the cups on that little table. I need to take off my coat.”
She released Maeve’s hand and let Major Randolph help her with her coat. He hung it on a peg and returned to the lean-to kitchen. The house appeared to have two more rooms, and that was all. She looked around appreciatively. Everything was spotless.
She took Maeve’s hand again, pleased to feel more warmth. Major Randolph returned with something wrapped in a blanket. He lifted the blanket covering Maeve’s legs and pulled out a similar package. “Iron pigs,” he told Susanna. “I’ll leave the cool one in the oven and you can exchange it for this hot one, when it cools. Keep your feet warm, Maeve.”
He patted the blanket back in place and smiled at his patient. “Lean forward, my dear Maeve,” he told her, pulling out a thinner pad. “I’ll put this one back in the oven, too.” He returned to the kitchen, coming back with another blanket, which he put in place when Maeve winced and leaned forward again. “I’m not sure of the science behind a warm blanket on the back, but it feels good,” he told them. “You can trade it off, Mrs. Hopkins.”
He straightened up, took a professional look at Maeve Rattigan, then kissed her cheek. “Don’t tell the sergeant,” he said with a wink. Nodding to them both, he let himself out quietly.
Maeve shook her head. “I honestly think he feels worse about this….” She stopped and dissolved in tears, as though she had been holding them back until there were only women in the house.
Susanna gulped, then hesitated no longer than the major had. Quickly, she plucked a chair from the dining table and sat as close to Maeve Rattigan as she could. She leaned forward to hold her in her arms as the sergeant’s wife sobbed every tear in the universe. Tears came to