Isabelle and Alexander by Rebecca Anderson (new books to read TXT) 📗

up a decorative wooden bowl from the table beside the window. She turned it in her hands and replaced it.

“I believe a new lamp and matching mirror would look lovely on this table,” Mrs. Burns said. “I have received sketches from a shop for several options for drawing room tables, as well. Let us create a list of each of the furnishings that need to be replaced to make this room more a bedchamber for a married couple and less a compartment for a single man.” She brushed her hands over her apron-covered skirt and said, “There is room for both of you, I daresay.”

Cheeks flushing and heart surging at the implication of Mrs. Burns’s statement, Isabelle picked up the letter she’d written to her mother that morning. “I believe I shall post this while the doctor performs his examination,” she told Mrs. Burns. “A walk will do me good.”

“Very well, ma’am.” The housekeeper’s formality replaced the momentary intimacy of their discussion, returning them solidly to their expected footing.

Isabelle fastened on a coat and hat and stepped out into the bracing autumn wind. She wondered how soon she could expect snow, and what effect, if any, white snow would have upon the bleak gray air of the city. Would the flakes cover the dirt and grime or merely take on their shades? Perhaps, she thought, she’d look out for some late blooms or berries to add an air of festivity to their home after she posted the letter.

Upon entering the post office, Isabelle was pleased to receive several letters. Her mother had sent another, and there was a great, fat, folded delight from Edwin.

Determined to find someplace where warmth overshadowed the chill of the afternoon, Isabelle walked to a teahouse she had passed. Seated in a warm corner by a fire, she looked about the room to find herself the only patron who’d entered alone.

“No matter,” she said to herself, cracking the seal on Edwin’s letter. “This will be company enough.”

And how right she was. The letter was days’ worth of notes scribbled in stolen hours and at strange intervals. He wrote of his Charlotte’s charm and of their mothers’ conspiring to make their wedding the party of the season. He told her of Christmas holiday plans and clever and funny incidents Isabelle would have found delightful even had they been dull. But they were not dull; on the contrary, it was as if Ed sat beside her at this tiny table and spoke to her in the way he’d always done. Reading his words allowed her to fondly remember hours and days and years of playful pleasures.

When she’d had several cups of tea and spent quite a long time suspended in her joyful escape, she knew she ought to return. A shop near the teahouse offered a lovely floral arrangement she carried home to place in the parlor. Or, she thought, if it did not please Alexander, at least she could place it in the drawing room.

With luck, Doctor Fredericks would have left long ago, Alexander would ask about her walk, she would read him passages from Ed’s letter, and her husband would come to love her dearest friend through his writing.

As Mrs. Burns said, the best things were ahead.

Coming through the door, Isabelle heard a loud groan. She dropped her package on the table in the entry and ran to the parlor door, where she saw Alexander lying not on his temporary bed but on a metal-framed cot above which a tall and fierce-looking woman stood pressing on his legs. Isabelle stood mutely staring at this unexpected addition to her household. Alexander groaned again, a sound that filled Isabelle’s mind with visions of more pain to come.

“Hello,” Isabelle said, unable to think of a more suitable interruption.

The woman looked up, said, “Ah, the little wife,” and carried on pushing. Her voice could not have been more dismissive if she had actually asked Isabelle to step out of the doorway.

Isabelle walked forward into the room. “Indeed I am. And you are?” she asked, stopping at the edge of the cot.

“Nurse Margaret,” she said, assuming, apparently, that was sufficient explanation.

“Why are you here?” Isabelle asked. She had only been gone a short time. How had this woman arrived? And for what purpose?

“To nurse this man,” she said. With answers such as these, Isabelle wondered if the woman was simple or if she thought Isabelle was.

“Yes, I can see that,” she said. “But on whose orders have you come?” Isabelle resisted the urge to slap the woman’s hands away from Alexander, who had not spoken a word. Presumably he couldn’t, as he had not stopped moaning.

“Called upon by Doctor Fredericks,” the woman said.

Isabelle scowled.

“Paid for by himself,” she continued, pointing to Alexander. The woman slid her muscular arm beneath his shoulders and bent him at the waist, forcing him into a sitting position. He gasped, and she flattened him again. Isabelle watched, agape, as this woman slung her husband to and fro on the cot.

Finally, it occurred to Isabelle that she should ask Alexander’s opinion of this treatment.

She stepped closer to the cot, and as the nurse hauled up his leg in a violent parody of Doctor Kelley’s muscle exercises, she said to Alexander, “Is this what you want?”

All the air rushed out of him followed by a weak, “No.”

“Stop,” Isabelle commanded the nurse. To Isabelle’s surprise, the nurse complied.

Leaning closer to Alexander, she asked again, “It’s not what you want?”

He closed his eyes. “No,” he said. “Please go.”

Vindicated, Isabelle looked up at the nurse. “You heard Mr. Osgood. Please,” she said, “it is time for you to go.”

“No,” Alexander interrupted. He opened his eyes and looked at his wife. “Not her. You.”

Isabelle felt her mouth open, but no words formed. Even in her mind, she could think of nothing with which to answer him. The intimacy of that very morning seemed all but erased from Alexander’s memory as he dismissed her in preference of this stout and fearsome woman. She