The Moon by Night Read online

  Cheney & Shiloh: The Inheritance

  Book Two

  The Moon by Night

  Lynn Morris

  Gilbert Morris

  © 2004 by Lynn Morris and Gilbert Morris

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-6265-3

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Cover illustration and design by Dan Thornberg

  The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

  Dedication

  ****

  With Thanks

  to Kylie,

  for letting me poke her and prod her and measure her,

  but she still grinned.

  Thanks also to Kylie’s person, Maureen Russell.

  The sun shall not smite thee by day,

  Nor the moon by night.

  Psalm 121:6

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I: They That Build the House

  1. Emergencies and Alerts

  2. Lifeline

  3. The Lovely Fun-Loving Young Persons

  4. Shadow Song

  5. A Well-Spoken Gent

  Part II: The Work of Our Hands

  6. In the Light of the Full Moon

  7. None So Blind

  8. One Cold Dark Morning

  9. Social Obligations

  10. Invisible Mice

  11. Shade There Never Was…

  Part III: True From the Beginning

  12. The Odd Man

  13. For Barely Moments

  14. Moon Ghosts

  15. The Crack in the Curtain

  16. No Lying, Very Little Evasion, and Wee Leprechauns

  Part IV: The Day of Trouble

  17. True Love Prevailed

  18. Idle Vicious Gossip

  19. Laudanum, Brandy, and Wormwood

  20. Stop, Traveler

  21. Swells Stays Here

  Part V: The Terror by Night

  22. The Razor-Thin Edge of Time

  23. The Time Was Past; Her Course Was Set

  24. Beautiful Mornings and Beautiful Women

  25. Another Snort of Pretend Laudanum

  26. Some Instincts and Some Extra Sense

  27. These Small Hours of Night

  28. Fate and a Fête

  About the Author

  Books By Gilbert Morris

  Back Cover

  Part I

  They That Build the House

  Except the Lord build the house,

  they labour in vain that build it:

  except the Lord keep the city,

  the watchman waketh but in vain.

  Psalm 127:1

  One

  Emergencies and Alerts

  For the third time Cheney started, then darted a quick glance behind her right shoulder.

  Of course there is nothing there, she thought as she doggedly returned to her work. Just as there was nothing there the last time and the time before that. She adjusted the oil lantern so that she could see her yardstick better, then measured out three feet and marked the floor with a piece of charcoal. With satisfaction she straightened and surveyed the space she had outlined for a microscope worktable. Absently she pressed two hands to her aching back and then realized that her legs had pains shooting through them and her knees felt as if they were capped with slabs of ice. Quickly, with lithe grace, she rose from her knees, holding the lantern carefully so as not to brush against her wide skirts.

  She was a tall woman, with a quick athletic grace that was certainly unfashionable in 1869, the thirty-second year of Queen Victoria’s reign and the third decade of the reigning fashion for women being that of pale complexions, dreamy eyes, frail constitutions, vaporish tendencies, and meek and complaisant temperaments. Dr. Cheney Duvall Irons-Winslow had none of these things. She was a strong woman, both physically and emotionally, and had a direct gaze and manner that was often intimidating, even overbearing. Her eyes were a brilliant green, her hair a fiery auburn, waist-length and thick and curly—all but impossible to tame. As was Cheney herself.

  But this morning her maid, Fiona, had managed to pull Cheney’s hair back smoothly into a modest French chignon, though some curls had escaped at the nape of her neck and around her ears. She was wearing a plain white blouse with a plain gray skirt, though the white coveralls she wore hid them. It was a physician’s uniform, and over the pocket at the breast was embroidered “St. Luke the Physician Hospital” and a dove with an olive branch in its mouth.

  She was in the cellar of St. Luke the Physician Private Hospital and Dispensary. St. Luke’s had opened only a month ago and was already at seventy-five percent capacity. Of the thirty-two available beds, there were thirteen patients in the women’s ward and eleven in the men’s ward. There were only two charity cases, one woman and one man, and the rest were paying patients. This had made the owners—Mr. and Mrs. Richard Duvall, Dr. and Mrs. Devlin Buchanan, Dr. Cleve Batson, and Mr. and Mrs. Shiloh Irons-Winslow—very happy. But what had made Mrs. Shiloh Irons-Winslow—or Dr. Duvall, as she was known to the staff and patients—really happy was this cellar. Cheney herself had designed it and had personally supervised the renovation that had turned a damp, dank, cavernous cellar into a well-lit, clean, efficient laboratory/morgue/storage area.

  St. Luke’s was actually what was called “the old van Dam place.” In 1752 Kiliaen van Dam had built a gracious mansion far north of the little village of New York, in the forest close to a quiet little stream that ran into Collect Pond. It was a fine spacious three-story home, built of costly yellow-hued Holland brick. In the Georgian style, the front door was framed with fluted classical columns and topped by a pediment inscribed in block letters: Siste Viator. Latin, it meant Stop, traveler, which seemed very hospitable of Mr. Van Dam. But the first time Cheney had seen it, she had recalled that the ancient Romans had put this inscription on roadside tombs, and she had thought it rather odd, even a little sinister. She knew very little about the history of the house, though she knew its name because it was on the same block as the offices of Dr. Devlin Buchanan, M.D., R.C.S.; Dr. Cheney Duvall, M.D.; and Dr. Cleve Batson, M.D.

  Today the hospital had been open for exactly one month, and Cheney had managed to secure their first corpse for autopsy, a prostitute who had evidently drowned in the Hudson River. Cheney was very excited about using her new morgue and laboratory, but when she had come down to the cellar, she had seen that she still had some organization and renovation to do before the laboratory could be considered complete. Although she had come downstairs at seven o’clock, it was already full dark, and she had realized that the gas lighting was insufficient for microscopic studies at night. So she had sat down and sketched out a design for a suitable workspace with good lighting and then had measured out the space along the wall where a long counter would
be installed.

  The cellar of the old van Dam place was huge, spanning the entire length and breadth of the original house. The rear half of the room had been built as a storage area, with cupboards along the wall and three rows of floor-to-ceiling shelves.

  The front half was divided equally between the laboratory and the morgue. Cheney was so proud of her specially designed morgue. The rectangular room was built of the finest cypress and lined with a double thickness of tin. Along each side were long metal slabs with metal ice bins beneath. Cheney had also designed a rolling dissection table. When their ward policeman, Officer Sylvester Goodin, had delivered the corpse—he had called her Miss Darlene—to the hospital that afternoon, he and Cheney had placed the body onto the dissection table and simply rolled it into the morgue to wait until Cheney was ready to perform the autopsy. Now she went into the morgue and rolled the table out of the double doors straight into the laboratory area. In this way Cheney could handle autopsies by herself without needing an assistant on hand to help move the body.

  But as Cheney began the dissection, she reflected ruefully, The only problem with my wonderful design is that I can’t see the east stairwell from here because the wall of the morgue blocks it. And I could swear I hear something over there sometimes. The cellar, which was, of course, sunken six feet underground, had two staircases leading up into the first floor of the hospital. The west staircase was plainly visible from the lab area, but the east one was not. And the outside entrance to Sixth Avenue was also on the east side of the room and out of sight from the lab.

  Impatiently Cheney pushed away the unsettling thoughts. It’s silly. Probably just a draft or this old house settling or maybe a mouse. Perhaps we should get a cat.

  She heard a noise on the stairs and realized with relief that someone was coming down the west stairwell, which she could see. It was Dr. Lawana White, an intern, and the way she was running down the stairs two at a time made Cheney stop her initial Y incision to ask sharply, “What is it, Dr. White?”

  “Emergency telegram, Dr. Duvall. From Officer Goodin, so I thought that you would probably like to handle it.”

  “Yes, of course, let me see.”

  Dr. White hurried forward, rather nervously handing the telegram to Cheney while eyeing the lurid corpse on the table. The intern was a slight, small girl with red-gold hair, a lovely creamy complexion, and big innocent hazel eyes. Though she was soft spoken and meek, she was extremely intelligent, and her shy ways belied an iron determination. Dr. White had decided to specialize in surgery, still a controversial field even for well-established and respected physicians. She had managed to get Cheney’s adopted brother, the famous and renowned Dr. Devlin Buchanan, to accept her as a preceptee along with two other male interns, Stephen Varick and Duncan Gilder.

  Dr. White had also succeeded in attaching herself to Cheney when she worked at the hospital, and Cheney had even agreed to tutor Dr. White along with her ongoing tutelage of her former maid, Nia Clarkson, who was attending the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women. Now Cheney could see, with slight amusement, that Dr. White had every intention of sticking to Cheney like a leech to deal with this emergency.

  The telegram, sure enough, was on the special paper with the red heading: EMERGENCY-ALERT-EMERGENCY-ALERT

  It read: EMERGENCY STOP MULTIPLE INJURIES STOP ACCIDENT WEST 10TH & WASHINGTON STOP REQUEST DR. W/AMBULANCE STOP

  P/O GOODIN

  “If Officer Goodin requests a doctor with the ambulance, then it must be bad,” Cheney murmured half to herself.

  “I’ll go,” Dr. White said eagerly. “I’ve already sent word to Dr. Batson to stand by on call. And Dr. Gilder is still here.”

  Ordinarily the male student doctors, or the male attendant, went with the ambulance. The simple reason was that only the very basic medical procedures—such as a tourniquet, a quick bandage, or the administration of laudanum—were attempted at the accident site. The main objective of the ambulance was to get the person to the hospital as quickly as possible. It was better for the physicians to be preparing to receive the patient rather than to be out riding at a breakneck, teeth-cracking, heart-stopping pace through the streets.

  “Very well,” Cheney agreed with secret amusement. “Then quickly go tell James and John to hitch up the ambulance. And check the ambulance box to make sure it’s fully stocked.”

  Dr. White turned and ran out as Cheney headed toward the long rows of the supply shelves with her medical bag. Cheney hurried up and down the long dim rows of the shelving, stopping here, holding up the lamp to squint at a label, whirling and running to another shelf, searching frantically for the supplies she needed. This storage area is still so disorganized. There are so many things without labels, no diagrams of the layout…and here’s the Lady With the Lamp running up and down. Only I’m more like the proverbial bull in the china shop than like Florence Nightingale.

  Finally she finished and ran outside. She met Dr. White running back from the livery. Breathlessly the intern told Cheney, “There’s nothing in the ambulance box except for a few rolls of surgical lint.”

  “What!” Cheney said sharply. “I thought I had made it clear that—oh, never mind. Do you have a medical bag?”

  “Yes, ma’am, in the physicians’ sitting room.”

  “Then come on. Let’s get it and grab a few more supplies. Are both James and John still at the livery?” Roe’s Livery serviced the hospital and was handily located right on the south side of the block. James and John Roe, two young brothers, often drove the ambulance when the male attendants couldn’t leave the hospital.

  “Yes, ma’am, and they’ve already almost got the ambulance hitched up.”

  “Then let’s run.”

  Within three minutes they were in the ambulance, rounding the corner out of the drive on two wheels, both brass bells clanging loud enough to alert people on the streets for miles around. Inside the box of the ambulance Cheney and Dr. White gritted their teeth. The echoes of the harsh clangor inside were almost unbearable.

  It was fifteen blocks down to Tenth Street. The numerous carriages, riders, hansom cabs, hackney coaches, carts, and pedestrians that filled the street somehow managed to clear out in front of the speeding ambulance wagon.

  It seemed an age to Cheney, but actually they covered the perilous blocks in only twenty minutes. Before the heavy wagon had come to a stop, Cheney threw open the doors and jumped out, with Dr. White close behind her.

  Officer Sylvester Goodin met Cheney. He was a tall, thin man, stoop-shouldered, normally with a pleasant homely face that reminded Cheney a little of Abraham Lincoln. Now he seemed more like a gargoyle with the garish lamplight making his face look cratered and grim and his shoulders hunched against the freezing cold.

  Behind him Cheney saw a phaeton turned on its side in the middle of the street, its frame a bunch of spiky rods going every which way. A still form with a long mantle thrown over it was sitting half upright against one big spoked wheel. Another policeman knelt beside a man lying in the street near the overturned carriage.

  On the other side of the carriage was a coal cart pulled across the street, blocking traffic. A man leaned up against the side of the cart, his face a little pale.

  Officer Goodin said, “Good, I’m glad it’s you, Dr. Duvall. One dead, one man slightly injured, and one severely injured. That man back there was driving the coal cart. Maybe Dr. White—good evening, ma’am—should see to him.”

  “Of course,” Dr. White said, hurrying toward the cart.

  Officer Goodin took Cheney’s arm and said softly, “I think you’re going to want to see this man, Dr. Duvall.” As he was talking he pulled Cheney’s arm gently, and she allowed herself to be led toward the man lying in the street. As they neared the prostrate victim, the other policeman rose, and Cheney saw the injured man clearly for the first time. It was an enormous struggle for Cheney to keep the shock from showing on her face.

  The man had a steel spike sticking out of his che
st. He looked up at her with eyes stark with horror. His face was dead white, his lips colorless. He was a fairly young man, Cheney thought, nicely dressed.

  Cheney knelt by him and took his hand. It was limp and freezing. The street was muddy, and the man was covered with the icy muck. She was conscious of James Roe, the older boy, behind her. “James,” she said softly, “go get the blankets out of the wagon. All of them, please.”

  She turned back to the man. “I am Dr. Cheney Duvall. What is your name, sir?”

  He didn’t speak, just looked up at her with stricken eyes.

  “I’m going to check your injury first,” she told him calmly. He was wearing a quilted vest, and quickly Cheney cut both it and his white shirt underneath. The shirt was not showing a very large bloodstain. Good, the spike has effected a tamponotic staunch.

  She took two two-inch rolls of gauze from her medical bag. “I’m going to secure your injury, sir,” she said with deliberate vagueness but with assurance. She placed the fat rolls of gauze on either side of the spike, watching him. He didn’t flinch. She knew that with some types of shock the patient did not feel pain, and this man seemed to be oblivious to it. Gently she packed the linen close and received no reaction from him.

  “I’m going to make sure that you’re secure and stable so that we can take you to the hospital,” she continued as she took his pulse and respiration. His pulse was thready but regular at fifty-eight beats per minute, which was slow. His respirations were shallow, like small sighs. Cheney knew that he was in shock and there was very little she could do about it. She also knew that when a patient was not bleeding profusely and his pulse was slowing instead of fast and erratic, often the phenomenon was a temporary reaction rather than a slow decline into unconsciousness and death. Another encouraging factor was that he was still alive nearly thirty minutes after the accident. There was a good chance, with emergency surgery, that he would live.

  “Sir, please listen carefully to me,” she said, suddenly speaking out authoritatively and loudly. His gaze, which had been growing steadily blanker, honed in on her face again. “I am going to stabilize you and take you to the hospital. I want you to concentrate very hard on staying awake. I need you to tell me what you’re feeling so that I know best how to help you. Do you understand?”