Allie Pleiter - The Doctor's Undoing

Apparently this was the present case, for she blinked and huffed again, caught up short at the request for a suggestion. While the schoolmistress was never short of opinions, she rarely had suggestions. Miss Landway, on the other hand, seemed to boast an endless supply of both. “Mind she knows her limits, Dr. Parker.”

“Indeed I will, Mrs. Smiley.” It was, in truth, a valid suggestion. Daniel had already concluded that guiding Miss Landway to see her proper boundaries and not to step on toes would be the key to her fitting in on the staff. He switched the subject. “How is Miss Forley doing in her studies these days? I know she was having some trouble earlier.”

Nothing puffed up Jane Smiley like the accomplishments of her charges. “Exemplary. Once Donna put her mind to it, she caught on quickly. I’ve even asked her to tutor one of the younger ones having trouble with subtraction.”

Daniel hoped Donna Forley would be one of the Home’s success stories. After losing her mother to illness at an early age, Donna was raised by her father and an aunt until the war, when battle and influenza took them both from the poor child. Life had dealt Donna a terrible hand indeed, and she’d been withdrawn and near starving when she had come to the Home. Now, at sixteen, she was blooming into a confident young woman ready to take her place in the world. She’d managed to establish bonds with the other children, crafting siblings when no blood family existed. Daniel took great satisfaction in the fact that many of the Home’s “graduating” classes became makeshift siblings to each other in the outside world. Father had told him, “The Home makes families out of need, not blood,” and it was true.

He was almost afraid to ask the next question. “And the business with Matthew Hammond?” Romantic entanglements—even on the most basic teenage levels—were one of the most difficult parts of his job. Young hearts deprived of familial affection often looked for love in inappropriate places. It seemed at least once a week he, Mrs. Smiley and Mr. Grimshaw had to sit down and strategize how to keep Boy A from finding a few minutes alone with Girl B out behind the dormitories. Mr. MacNeil had even once suggested they install a hive of honeybees in that corner to deter “trysts.” While Daniel applauded the groundskeeper’s creativity, he also knew young hearts would simply seek out another secluded corner. Since then, however, “beehiving” had become the staff code word for teens getting a bit too sweet on each other.

“Settled for now,” Mrs. Smiley said wearily. This particular couple had been caught “beehiving” multiple times, making Daniel wish Donna would indeed focus her clever mind on math rather than Math ew . “But it won’t be the last, I’m sure.” Her eyes squinted in analysis, as if the pair were a mathematical equation. “Properly chaperoned, they might make an appropriate couple.”

Daniel sat back in surprise. “Really?” While still eminently clinical, this was the first time he’d ever seen Mrs. Smiley offer anything close to an endorsement of any couple. Just because his curiosity refused to let go, he asked, “How so?”

“When they’re not making eyes at each other over supper, their characters do suit each other well.” She folded her hands in front of her. “Donna coaxes him out of that shell of his, and Matt calms Donna down. Matt turns seventeen next month, and Donna two months after that. I believe they might actually fare well if they chose to make a go of it after graduation.” Again, Daniel couldn’t shake the notion that she looked as if she’d just solved an algebra problem, not brokered a match.

Still, Mrs. Smiley claimed to have been happily married for six years before her husband died. As a bachelor himself, Daniel had to at least respect her opinion as the more experienced on the subject of courtship and matrimony. He certainly brought no expertise to the subject; women had mostly bored or baffled him. Not that Mother ever ceased to offer up suitable bridal candidates—that woman’s pursuit of a Parker family heir could never be called subtle.

It served him well that most women, while enamored of his social standing, quickly grew tired of the time and devotion he gave to the Home. And for all of Mother’s rants about his duty to the Parker legacy to pressure him to find a bride, wasn’t this the true Parker legacy—this orphanage that his father had built? Daniel knew he didn’t measure up to his father in many ways, but he would not cease in striving to give his best to the Home, come what may.

“And what, in your opinion, should we do about that?”

An actual smile broke over Mrs. Smiley’s face—a rare sight indeed. “Much as we should do with Nurse Landway—temper their enthusiasm .” She gave the final word a tone of disdain.

“Perhaps the September picnic could grant them an appropriate social outing.”

She considered the suggestion with a hesitant grimace. “Grimshaw and I will discuss the idea and let you know what we decide.”

Daniel did indeed feel as if Grimshaw and Smiley outnumbered and overrode him some days. The two of them had been mastering the students longer than he’d been director. Should they ever come to a disagreement, Daniel could never imagine how he would reject either of their suggestions. By God’s grace, it had never yet occurred.

There was one subject that might end up testing that theory, however. “Mrs. Smiley?”

“Yes, Dr. Parker?”

“Nurse Landway has asked me for permission to arrange for the girls to receive hand-knit socks from a corps of volunteers.” He steepled his hands and chose his words carefully. “I’ve told her I’m in favor of the project so long as each child receives an equal gift. While I don’t much care what color socks the girls wear, I do think the influx of new volunteers could be of use to the Home. I trust you have no objections?”

“Socks? Like Meredith’s little ones that caused such a fuss the other day?” She looked as if she found that a ridiculous idea.

“Yes. Socks. In colors, apparently. I know it seems...unusual...but I can’t see the harm in trying, provided no one child is singled out. Any new donations—even if they are time and talents—would be a very good thing for us. And I believe the girls would enjoy it.”

“Socks?” Mrs. Smiley repeated, clearly trying to wrap her sensible mind around so ludicrous an idea.

“So it seems. I intend to give my approval, unless you have a reason I shouldn’t.”

“As long as they mind their lessons, I can’t say it matters what’s on their feet.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I think it’s silly.”

“I doubt the girls find it so. But I shall keep my eye on things in any case.”

“You’ll need to do that, Dr. Parker. Mark my words.” With that, Mrs. Smiley turned and left the room, muttering something about colors and nonsense and enthusiasm.

Daniel stood and closed his ledgers, glad to now have a task to divert him from midmonth invoices. Who knows? he mused to himself as he headed for the hallway. It might be rather fun to tell Miss Landway she could go ahead with one of her ideas instead of having to constantly rein in her imagination.

Chapter Seven

Daniel found Miss Landway carrying a load of clean white examination table covers down the hallway toward her office. Her hair, wild as usual, was striving mightily to release itself from the knot she’d wound it in at the back of her neck. Her auburn locks continually struck him as on the verge of escape—which might explain the three different-colored pencils currently sticking out of her bun. Colored pencils. It seems the woman could not even conduct basic correspondence in black and white.