She lay in perfect stillness until the house grew quiet and everyone in it slept. Because the walls were thin, she couldn’t help but hear Katie O’Leary’s tears through the wall.
Susanna went down the stairs a step at a time, careful to make no noise. She didn’t bother with her coat; she was only going next door. She knocked and waited.
Captain O’Leary opened the door and pulled her in quickly.
“You’ll catch your death out there, Mrs. Hopkins,” he told her, and put his arm around her shoulder. “Katie,” he called up the stairs.
Her friend came down quickly, gathering Susanna close when her husband released her, and leading her into the parlor.
“What terrible thing is this?” Katie asked, a sodden handkerchief in her hand.
With her own hands so tight that her nails dug into her palms, Susanna told them the whole story of Frederick’s descent into drunkenness, his brutality and degrading treatment, and her desperation the night she’d fled from her own home, blinded by her blood.
“He ruined me,” she finished simply. “Emily thought to call me a war widow to spare her own embarrassment.” She looked at Katie and held out her arms. “Katie! Joe wanted me to tell the truth to Major Townsend, but I was afraid! Am I always going to be afraid?” She started to sob.
Katie held her close, and looked at her husband. “Jim, is there anything we can do?” She kissed Susanna’s forehead. “My dear lady, we have no credit here, either, or not much. Jim, please …”
Susanna wiped her eyes when he handed her a dry handkerchief. He looked at her for a long moment.
“I think I will tell Captain Burt tomorrow what you have told me.” He managed a ghost of a smile. “He’s infantry, but I trust him more than anyone here except Major Randolph.”
Susanna shook her head. “He and Mrs. Burt were in that meeting, too! They both signed that letter!”
“I know,” he replied, taking her hand. “But he’s a reasonable man, is Andy Burt. I may not convince him, but I can plant a seed.”
Susanna nodded, unconvinced, but determined not to say so to these kind people. “That will be a start,” she said. She stood up and looked at the O’Learys. “I hope you will forgive me for not calling out that lie immediately. I think I have lived in fear so long that I don’t know anything else.” She touched Katie’s shoulder. “I couldn’t bear to lose your friendship, although I do not deserve it.”
“You have never lost my friendship,” Katie said quietly. “Never.”
Susanna shook her head when the O’Learys tried to coax her to stay the night in their parlor, and went next door again, letting herself in as quietly as she had left. She climbed the stairs as though she wore lead boots, then lay down to sleep.
She was alone, at liberty to contemplate her ruin in a small society she could not escape until she earned some money to leave it. For the first time in the whole ordeal, she considered the merits of walking out the door and onto the open field behind Officers Row. She could take off her clothes and keep walking until she froze to death, which wouldn’t take long. She discarded the idea; with her bad luck, she would likely encounter a sentry who would save her life.
Never mind. The O’Learys had assured her their son would be in the classroom in the morning, so Susanna would be there, too. The whole debacle probably would be over after one more day. Mrs. Dunklin would find a way to end the school.
Susanna lay on her cot, silent, relaxing gradually after she heard the O’Learys in their bedroom through the wall. She had heard them reciting the rosary on other evenings. This night, it was balm to her wounds, not because she had any idea what the Latin words meant, but simply because she knew there were good people through the wall.
She thought of the Rattigans, finding comfort in each other, and then of Private Benedict with his classroom in the commissary warehouse. Her mind lingered longest on Joe Randolph, who shouldered burdens even worse than hers.
As always, she thought finally of Tommy, home asleep in the big house in Carlisle, where life, if never completely pleasant, had been tolerable before Frederick Hopkins decided to fortify himself with alcohol and make his family suffer.
She did what she always did each night, whispering favorite nursery rhymes, then humming