Twin of Fire

  “Of course they do,” Houston said with some anger in her voice. “They’d ‘love’ you, too, if you did as much for people as I do. Someone will say, ‘Let’s have a social,’ then someone else will say, ‘We’ll get Blair-Houston to do all the work.’ I was too cowardly to ever say no. I have organized socials that I didn’t even attend. How I dreamed of telling them no. I used to imagine packing a bag and climbing down the tree outside your bedroom and just running away. But I was much too cowardly. You said I had a useless life and it has been.”

  “I was jealous,” Blair whispered.

  “Jealous? Of what? Surely not of me.”

  “I didn’t realize I was until Lee made me see it. I’ve won awards, scored high on tests, had many honors, but I know I’ve always been lonely. It hurt when Mr. Gates said he didn’t want me, but he did want you. It hurt when you wrote me of all the men you danced with one evening after another. I’d be studying a chapter on the correct way to amputate a leg, and I’d stop and reread one of your letters. Men have never liked me as they have you, and sometimes I thought I’d give up medicine if I could be a normal woman, one who smelled of perfume and not carbolic.”

  “And how many times I’ve wished I could do something important besides choose the colors of my next dress,” Houston sighed. “Men only liked me because they thought I was, as Leander once said, pliable. They liked the idea of a woman they could browbeat. To most of the men, I was a human dog, someone to fetch their slippers for them. They wanted to marry me because they knew what they were getting: no surprises from Houston Chandler.”

  “Do you think that’s why Lee asked you to marry him?”

  “Sometimes, I’m not sure he did ask me. We saw each other a few times after he returned, and I guess I so expected to marry him that, when the word marriage came up, I said yes. The next morning, Mr. Gates asked if it was time yet for the announcement in the paper. I nodded, and the next thing I knew the house was full of people wishing me a lifetime of happiness.”

  “I know about the citizens of Chandler and their curiosity. But you loved Lee all those years.”

  “I guess so, but the truth is, we never seemed to have much to say to each other. You and Lee talked more than he and I did.”

  Blair was quiet for a long while. It seemed ironic that all these years she’d envied her sister, and at the same time her sister was envying her.

  “Houston, you said you used to have dreams that you were afraid to pursue. What were they?”

  “Nothing much. Nothing like you and medicine. But I did think I might be able to write—not a novel or anything grand, but I thought I’d like to write articles for ladies’ magazines. Maybe about how to clean silk charmeuse or how to make a really good facial mud.”

  “But Mr. Gates would hate that, wouldn’t he?”

  “He said those women who wrote were probably adulteresses who’d been thrown out by their husbands and had to support themselves.”

  Blair’s eyes widened. “He doesn’t mince words, does he?”

  “No, and I let him bully me for years.”

  Blair ran her finger along a cabinet top. “And your husband doesn’t bully you? I know you said you loved him, but now it’s…I mean, it’s after the ceremony and you’ve lived with him.” No matter how many times Houston said she loved the man, Blair would never be able to believe her. Yesterday, she’d seen Taggert in front of the Chandler National Bank. The bank president, half Taggert’s size, was looking up at the big man and talking as fast as he could. Taggert had just seemed bored as he looked over the man’s head at some place down the street, then he’d taken out a big gold pocket watch, looked at it, then down at the little bank officer. “No,” Blair’d heard him say before he walked away. He was impervious to the man’s entreaties to stay and listen.

  And that’s how Blair thought of him: impervious. How could Houston love a man like him?

  When Blair looked up, Houston was smiling. “I love him more every day. What about you and Lee? At the wedding, you said you didn’t believe he loved you.”

  Blair thought of this morning, of their exuberant coupling that had tumbled them out of bed, and of later when Mrs. Shainess had nearly slammed breakfast on the table. When the woman’s back was turned, Lee had rolled his eyes in such a way that Blair had started giggling. “Lee’s all right,” she said at last and made Houston laugh.

  Houston began to pull on her gloves. “I’m glad everything worked out as it did. I’d better go. Kane and the rest of my family will be needing me.” She paused a moment. “What a lovely word. I may not have a medical degree, but I am needed.”

  “I need you,” Blair said. “Was it you or Mother who organized all my ‘patients’?”

  Houston’s eyes widened. “I have no idea what you mean. I merely came here because I was hoping I was expecting. I plan to come back at least once a month, or any other time I’m not feeling well.”

  “I think you should visit your husband more often, not me, if you want a baby.”

  “Like I hear you’re exhausting Lee every night and morning?”

  “I what?” Blair began, then remembered her telephone boast. Of course it was all over town.

  “By the way, how is Mrs. Shainess working out?”

  “Dreadful. She doesn’t approve of me.”

  “That’s nonsense. She’s bragging to everyone about her lady-doctor.” She kissed Blair’s cheek. “I must go. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  Chapter 29

  The next morning, early, Blair looked up from her desk to see Nina Westfield, now Hunter, standing before her.

  “Hello,” Nina said softly, her eyes half pleading. “Wait,” she said, when Blair started to rise. “Before you say anything, let me do some explaining. I just got off the train and came directly here. I haven’t seen Dad or Lee, but if you say you can’t bear the sight of me, I’ll leave on the next train and you’ll never have to see me again.”

  “And miss thanking you every day for the rest of my life?” Blair asked, eyes sparkling.

  “Thanking…?” Nina said, then realized what Blair meant and, the next minute, she was pulling her sister-in-law out of the chair, hugging her and crying on her neck. “Oh, Blair, I’ve been so worried that I haven’t really enjoyed what I’ve done. Alan kept saying that you loved Lee but just didn’t know it. He said you and Lee were much more suited to one another than you and he were. But I wasn’t sure. To me, Lee’s a brother. I couldn’t imagine choosing to live with him. I mean—.” She pulled away, blowing her nose and sniffling.

  Blair was smiling at her. “I’d offer you tea, but we don’t have any. How about a cup of cod liver oil?”

  That made Nina smile, as she sat down heavily in an oak chair. “I think this may be the happiest moment of my life. I was so afraid you’d be angry, that the whole town would be angry with me.”

  “But no one in town knew Alan and I were engaged. They thought Lee and I were to be married.”

  “But you wanted Alan,” Nina persisted. “I know you did. I know you went to meet him at the train.”

  Blair’s curiosity was peaked. “I want to hear the whole story.”

  Nina looked down at her hands. “I really hate to tell you everything.” She looked up, tears beginning to form again. “Oh, Blair, I was so unutterably devious and underhanded. I did everything I could to get Alan. You never had a chance.”

  “If I shoot you, I promise I’ll sew the wound myself.”

  “You can joke, but you won’t after you hear about the things I did.” She blew her nose again, and, while looking at her hands, she began. “I met Alan the night he decided to kill Lee.”

  “What? Leander? He was going to kill Leander?”

  Nina shrugged. “He was just angry, and I understood so well how he felt. Lee has such a highhanded way about him. When I was little, he used to decide what was good for me and what was bad. It used to make me so angry that I wanted to strangle him.”

  “I know the feeling,” Blair
said. “He hasn’t changed a great deal.”

  “When I saw Alan, I knew he wasn’t going to kill anyone, he was just enjoying the idea. I invited him into the parlor, and it was quite easy to get him to talk and tell me what was going on. He told me he was in love with you, but I knew that Lee’d already made up his mind that you were going to marry him, so I didn’t think Alan had much of a chance. I knew Lee’d win.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  Nina looked surprised. “I’ve lived with Lee all my life. He wins. He always wins. If he decides to play baseball, his team will win. If he enters a fencing tournament, he’ll win. Dad says he’s even forced dying patients to live. So, of course, I knew he’d win in this competition, whether the prize wanted to be won or not. But anyway”—she ignored Blair’s look of astonishment—“I knew how Alan felt, and we started commiserating with one another, comparing examples of Lee’s domineering ways. Then Dad came home, and I introduced Alan and we sat up late talking about medicine and life in Chandler compared to life in the Northeast. It was a very pleasant evening.”

  Nina paused a moment. “After that, Alan began to seek me out whenever Lee did something especially devious, like pushing Alan out of the operating room, making Alan look like an incompetent. He’s going to be a very good doctor; he just has a lot of training to do yet.”

  “I think he will, too,” Blair said softly. “So you and Alan fell in love.”

  “I did. I think he did, too, but he wasn’t aware of it. I don’t mean any disrespect, but I think that after Alan saw you here, he was a little afraid of you. He said that in Pennsylvania the two of you had had a very sedate courtship, holding hands in the park, studying together, but when he came here…” Nina’s eyes brightened. “Really, Blair, jumping on and off horses like a circus performer, blithely pulling a man’s intestines out onto a table so you could reach something underneath, beating him at tennis—no wonder he turned to someone else.”

  “Lee didn’t turn away,” Blair said defensively.

  “Exactly my point! You and Lee are just alike, always tearing from one thing to another. You exhaust us mere mortals. Anyway, I don’t think it occurred to Alan that you and he shouldn’t get married. After he told you to meet him at the train, he came to me and told me what he’d done. By then, I knew I was in love with him and I didn’t think you were, but you were too stubborn to admit that you weren’t, or maybe all of you were too obsessed with winning your nasty little competition to look at the issues.”

  Nina took a deep breath. “So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I thought that if my brother could play some devious tricks to get what he wanted, I could, too. At three thirty, before he was to meet the four o’clock train, I asked Alan to come to the kitchen with me. I heated some molasses, not hot, but just so it was warm and runny; then, while he sat there playing with those blasted train tickets, I ‘tripped’ and spilled about a quart of it all over him. I must admit I did a good job. I managed to get it in his hair and all the way down to his shoes.”

  Blair couldn’t speak for a moment. “But I stayed at the station for hours,” she managed to whisper.

  “I…ah…” Nina stood. “Blair, if my mother were alive, I’d never be able to face her again.” She looked back at Blair, her pretty face flaming red, squared her shoulders defiantly and said in one breath, “He went to the bathroom, handed his clothes out to me, but I dropped his watch, it rolled inside the bathroom, I ran after it, the door slammed behind me and the outer key fell out.”

  Blair thought about this a moment, then began to smile. “You locked yourself inside the bathroom with a naked man?”

  Nina set her jaw, put her chin in the air and gave a curt nod.

  Blair didn’t say a word but went to a side cabinet and withdrew a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. She poured an ounce in each glass and handed one to Nina. “To The Sisterhood,” she said and downed the whiskey.

  Nina, with a big grin, downed hers also. “You really aren’t angry? I mean, you don’t mind being married to Lee?”

  “I think I might be able to stand the torture. Now, sit down and tell me what your plans are and how is Alan? Are you happy with him?”

  Once Nina started, she couldn’t stop. She didn’t like Pennsylvania much and she said she’d almost persuaded Alan to return to Chandler when he finished interning. “I’m afraid his feelings for you and Lee aren’t the friendliest, but I have hopes of working on him. I came back to see if I could persuade you to forgive me and to bear Dad and Lee’s wrath.”

  “I don’t think Lee—,” Blair began, but Nina cut her off.

  “Oh, yes, he will. Wait until you’ve known him as long as I have. He’s a lamb when he’s pleased, but when one of the women under his care does something he doesn’t approve of, then look out! And Blair,” she toyed with her parasol, “I need someone to take over the miners’ pamphlets.”

  Blair’s senses were immediately alert. “You mean the paper that may incite the miners to riot, to go on strike?”

  “It’s merely to inform them of their rights, to point out that if the miners united, they could accomplish a great deal. Houston and the others who drive the huckster wagons are taking them to the mines where they deliver vegetables, but that’s only four mines. There are thirteen others. We need someone who has access to all the mines.”

  “You know those places are locked up. Even Leander’s buggy is checked—. Nina! you can’t think of trying to get Lee to deliver the papers?”

  “Not on your life! If he even knew I was aware that there were coal mines, he’d lock me away. But I did think that, with you being a doctor and having the Westfield name, you could maybe see some of the women of the camps.”

  “Me?” Blair gasped, then stood. This bore thinking about. If she were caught with those papers in her carriage, she’d be shot immediately. But then she thought of the poverty of the mine camps, the way the people had to forfeit all American rights in order to earn a living.

  “Nina, I don’t know,” she whispered. “This is a serious decision.”

  “It’s a serious problem. And Blair, you’re home again. You aren’t just another body in a big city anymore. You’re a part of Chandler, Colorado.” She stood. “You think about it. I’m going home to see Dad now, and maybe Lee and you can come over later for supper. I have only two weeks before I have to return to Alan. I wouldn’t have asked you, but I don’t know anyone else who has access to the mines. Just let me know what you decide soon.”

  “All right, I will,” Blair said absently, her mind completely taken with the idea of delivering seditious news into a camp guarded by men with guns.

  All afternoon, as she wandered about the empty clinic, and as she tried to read a medical journal Lee had lent her, she considered the possibilities of what she was being asked to do. Nina had hit on something about Blair: she didn’t really consider herself a part of Chandler. When she’d left the town, in her mind she’d left for good. She’d never planned to return, but now she had to face it: she was either a part of the community or she wasn’t. She could stay in her clean clinic and occasionally patch broken bodies, or she could help prevent bodies from being broken.

  And what if her own body were broken?

  Her thoughts went round and round, and she never seemed able to reach a conclusion.

  She and Lee ate dinner with his father and sister, and when Nina pulled her aside to question her, Blair said she hadn’t decided yet. Nina smiled and said she understood—which made Blair feel even worse.

  The next morning, Blair’s head ached. The empty infirmary echoed with her steps, and Mrs. Krebbs said she had some shopping to do and left. At nine o’clock, the doorbell jangled and Blair hurried to what she hoped was a patient.

  A woman and a little girl, about eight, stood there.

  “May I help you?”

  “You the lady-doctor?”

  “I am a doctor. Would you like to come into my office?”

  “Sure
. Course.” She told the girl to sit and wait while she followed Blair.

  “What seems to be your problem?”

  The woman sat down. “I ain’t strong like I used to be, and I find I need help now and then. Not a lot of help, just a little.”

  “We all need help at times. What kind of help do you need?”

  “I might as well come out and say it. Some of my girls, you know, on River Street, have been sold dirty opium. I thought maybe, with you bein’ a doctor, you could get us some pure stuff from San Francisco. I figure you doctors got ways to check it to make sure it ain’t bad, and maybe you could afford to buy it in large quantities and sell it. I can find you all the buyers you need and—.”

  “Please leave my office,” Blair said quite calmly.

  The woman stood. “Well, ain’t you Miss High and Mighty? Too good for the likes of us, are you? Did you know the whole town is laughin’ at you? You callin’ yourself a doctor and just sittin’ here in this empty place and won’t nobody come to you. And ain’t nobody gonna come, either.”

  Blair walked to the door, held it open for her.

  With her nose in the air, the woman grabbed the child’s hand and left, slamming the outer door behind her, the bell falling with a thud to the floor.

  Without a trace of anger, Blair sat down at her desk and picked up a piece of paper. It was a household account of expenses Mrs. Shainess had given her that morning. Blair was supposed to add the twenty-two figures and check that Mrs. Shainess’s total was correct.

  She was looking at the paper when suddenly her eyes blurred, and the next thing she knew, she had her head on the desk and she was crying. She cried softly, tears that fought their way up from her stomach, before she lifted her head to search for a handkerchief.

  She gasped when she saw Kane Taggert sitting in the chair across from her. “Do you enjoy spying on people?”

  “Haven’t done it enough to know,” he said, looking at her with concern.

  She floundered through desk drawers for a moment before snatching the big handkerchief Kane offered.