“Pierce, please, not now!”
“Tell her what?” Francois narrowed his gaze but his sister wouldn’t back down.
“Mon Dieu!” She threw her hands into the air. “It will come out. It always does!”
“Jack stopped all that,” Francois shot back.
On that note, Cerisa laughed. “And all that evilness just washed away!”
“And who are you to say it was evil?”
“Wicked, and you know it was!” She was fuming. Pierce finally unslouched and went to her, taking her by the arm.
“The doctor told you not to get so riled up, my dear,” he cooed.
“Fiddlesticks!” She turned to give her brother a look as Pierce walked her toward the stairs. “Tell her, Francois. If you have any feeling for her, tell her now, or lose her forever!”
Ice slithered down his back at his sister’s last remark. He’d worked so hard to try to win Ada’s hand and had succeeded only to now have the family secret destroy it? He closed his eyes, trying to cool the rush of nerves that came when it hit him—She was on her way to check on his mother. Saints preserve him!
As they walked the halls back, Ada enjoyed the relief from the heat and humidity by the breeze that blew through the open floor to ceiling windows that surrounded the house. The wrap-around porch also dropped the temperature slightly, enlightening her on how these Southerners could withstand the driving heat that dominated their part of the country.
The servant who took her back intrigued her. The girl had turned her over to another servant who appeared out of nowhere. The boy was quiet as he walked on his soles down the hardwood floors. His coloring was as light as the girl’s. Mulattos were not foreign to her. Many of the runaways she heard from in the Underground Railroad tended to be lighter than their ancestors were when they arrived from African ages ago, and their stories on how they were related to their owners by blood, often caused a stir of sympathy and anger, but what was this boy’s story?
He turned and she almost missed it, being so caught up in her musings, and then he stopped in front of a double door. When he opened it, she found herself in a spacious bedroom, with the windows shut and the mistress bundled in the bed. The older lady looked flushed and miserable.
“Oh, Isaac, please fetch me some water,” she called.
“Mistress Marie, you got a visitor,” he piped back, then he zipped out the door, and hopefully, Ada prayed, for that water.
“Oh, my, please excuse Isaac,” she said softly. “He’s uncomfortable being around the sick.”
Ada swallowed but moved in quickly. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Fontaine, I’m Dr. Lorrance.”
The woman looked at her with a surprised glance. “A woman doctor? Now, where did Cerisa find you? I realize we are short of physicians, due to the unpleasantness, but…” Her eyes closed tight as Ada put her wrist to the woman’s forehead. She was hot, her skin clammy.
Quickly, she went to the washstand and found a pitcher with some water. The clay pitcher was cool, the rag wrapped around it cool as well. She put her medical bag near the bed, rolled up her sleeves and dampened another linen into the water. Wringing out the excess, she put it on her patient’s forehead, right as the woman’s eyes opened.
“Please forgive me. I have had better days,” she moaned.
“Place your worries aside. You’ll return to those days shortly.” She began to loosen the bed linens that were tucked in around her. “You’re like an oven, roasting away all waddled like that. Let’s let you cool.”
Isaac appeared with the bucket and she motioned him to bring it next to her. Before he slipped away, she called, “Isaac, I need you to open these windows.”
“Mistress Marie always says—“
“Yes, but this is for her comfort, so please do as I say.”
The boy ambled to the window and started to open them. Cooler air invaded the room and she relished in it. “Anyone could get a fever in here this way. Now, the bad humors can leave!” She wasn’t sure who she was telling that to, or if it was just a reassurance, but she did.
At the doorway, another colored person arrived. A young woman, her hair pulled back tight and her cotton dress clinging to her with no shape without petticoats and corset. The dress didn’t hit the floor so Ada could see her bare toes peek out. Her apron, though, was clean yet not a pure white, no doubt, Ada figured, from being used so often. Yet she, too, was a mulatto, her eyes appearing crystal green.
“Miss Ada, my sister Gemma.”
The girl came in. “We’re so glad you’re here,” she stated boldly. “Doctors been scarce, and Miss Marie wouldn’t take one with the quarters sick. ‘Fraid she’s been ailing a while.”
Ada smiled, plunging her hands into the bucket. Her skin tingled from rubbing Francois’s mother down. The two colored servants got busy helping her, opening windows, re-dipping the cloth for their mistress’s face.
“Anyone else sick?”
“Got a handful down in the quarters. Think they’ve hit the worst of it,” the girl shrugged.
“Has Mrs….” She stopped, not knowing the proper name for Francois’s enceinte sister.
“Has Mrs. Duval been here? No, her mama not allow it, being big with child.” The girl sighed as she expunged the excess water off the strip of cloth. If Ada was guessing, she bet the girl was attracted to that Union general the girl was married to. She wanted to laugh. Youth…yet, the thought stuck her, was she that far off? She shook that thought aside and refocused on the ailment.
She pulled out a mortar and pedestal, with a paper packet, opening it carefully and withdrawing a couple of twigs. They were dry, so they pulverized easily with a couple of stiff grinds. She poured the contents into a cup and added water. Stirring it swiftly, she came back to her patient and lifted her slightly.
“Drink this. Slowly,” she
