Page 90 of Two Wars and a Wedding

Betsy slung her sack over her shoulder and climbed in next to Kit’s stretcher, holding the other woman’s hand for all she was worth.

“Er—should you be sitting that close to the patient?” asked one of the doctors. The smaller one, with the cowlick that made him look like a schoolboy. “She sounds infectious.”

“I’ve had it already.” Betsy glared at the doctors, daring them to defy her. “Don’t worry. I’m here. I’m not going to leave you.”

The boat pitched, fighting against the waves, as they plunged their way toward the Seneca.

One of the young doctors retched, losing his lunch over the side of the launch.

The Seneca loomed above them, even less impressive at close range. Holt had been rowed out earlier. He must already be on board. Betsy could hear the sounds of shouting and cries of pain as men were jostled up from the boats onto the ship.

She didn’t have a good feeling about this.

Betsy wrapped a blanket around Kit’s shoulders to protect her from the salt spray. “It will all be all right,” she whispered. “I’m going to nurse you myself. And we’re all going to make it home safe.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dear Ava,

Things have gone so terribly wrong—

I’ve done a terrible thing—

I’m not sure what to do. I wish I could make everything go away and start over again.

Ava, I don’t know what to do. I’ve made such a terrible mess.

—Miss Betsy Hayes ’96 to Ava Saltonstall ’96 (unsent)

Athens, Greece

August 1897

Betsy wanted to nurse Charles herself, but they wouldn’t let her.

The hospital was a military hospital and he was a civilian, and what right did she have? What right that anyone would recognize? Just a coin on a ribbon around her neck and a promise of marriage that sounded absurd given that he was quite married already and no one other than she had any idea he was contemplating annulments and papal intercessions. Sometimes Betsy wasn’t even sure of it. He’d been in the grip of a fever, a fever of 104. People said strange things in their delirium. Perhaps he’d meant it, perhaps he hadn’t, but whatever he’d said was between them and them alone.

And so the court physician had borne Charles back to Athens. Betsy hadn’t been with him as he doubled over with stomach pain. She hadn’t been with him as he coughed and gasped for breath. She hadn’t been with him as the red rash spread across his chest.

She hadn’t been with him when he died.

The word came to her in Lamia, in a carefully phrased letter from Aikaterini. The body had been sent back to France for burial. Body. Charles. Dead. Betsy couldn’t quite make the words make sense. They buzzed around in her head like mosquitoes, stinging her and whisking away again. Charles wasn’t that old. He had decades ahead of him yet. He couldn’t be dead.

But he was. He was dead and she had killed him.

Betsy began making mistakes. She was dizzy and confused. She overslept her shift. She stared at a thermometer trying to remember which end went where.

Overwork, they called it. She had been nursing nonstop, in various war zones, often going days without sleep, since April. Everyone was very kind about it, even Dr. Kalopothakes. They spoke about her valorous service and told her to get some rest; she’d done more than her share. Especially in a battle not her own.

They sent her back to Academy Street to recover, back to Aikaterini, the one person in the world who knew that Betsy’s collapse was nothing to do with her work—but who knew enough not to say too much.

In its own way, Athens was worse than Lamia. Except for that one brief moment, that one brief visit, Lamia was only Betsy’s. But Athens belonged to Charles.

Betsy saw him everywhere. She saw him on the velvet sofa in Aikaterini’s salon, helping himself to cakes. She saw him strolling across Syntagma Square, always just a few yards ahead, always just past that next person. She saw him in the hall of the American School in Athens, sprawled on the floor after she’d knocked him down.

He ought to have known after that. That she was trouble. That she would bring him down.

Maybe Charles had been right. Maybe everything was signs and wonders—and omens. Maybe knocking Charles over had been an omen of things to come.