A Veiled Reflection Read online

  He nodded. “That’s better. Now come sit in my examining room, and we’ll see just what you’ve managed to do to yourself.”

  Jillian allowed him to lead her into his medical office. She took a seat on the chair he pointed to, glad that he’d not suggested she try to mount the spindly contraption that posed as an examination table. Just stay calm, Jillian, she told herself. This will all be over in a few minutes, and you can go back to your room. And do what? she wondered. After all, what she wanted to do was pack and leave without another word. But there was no hope of doing that. Judith needed her, and Jillian knew she would remain no matter how uncomfortable things got.

  Mac went to a washbasin, poured water, and washed his hands before coming back to examine her hand. Carefully—in fact, tenderly—he unwrapped her hand while Jillian tried not to think about the blood or the pain. Or the warmth of his touch.

  “My, my,” he said good-naturedly. “Were you just desperate for attention or bored with Mr. Harvey’s routine?”

  Jillian didn’t know quite how to take his teasing. “I fell with a tray of cups and saucers. Then when I went to get up, I cut my hand. It’s that simple.”

  “Well, not exactly,” Mac told her. “It’s going to have to be stitched. Otherwise the bleeding will never stop. See here, it’s already starting back up.”

  Jillian refused to look, but nodded and kept her gaze fixed on Mac’s face. Kate was right. It was an extremely handsome face with its broad square jaw, dark brows, and those wonderfully blue eyes.

  “Are you sure this is the only way?” Jillian questioned, fearing what was to come.

  Mac shook his head. “What happened to you back East? You used to have more gumption than this.”

  Jillian realized she was in danger of being found out. Swallowing her fear, she squared her shoulders and replied, “It’s just that there’s a great deal of work to be done back at the dining room. I made quite a mess and it won’t clean itself. My work—”

  “Can wait,” Mac interjected and added, “at least a few minutes while I tend to that cut. Now just sit tight, and I’ll get a needle.”

  “A needle,” Jillian murmured. Oh, this wasn’t going well at all. How would she ever be able to sit here and pretend to have what he called Judith’s “gumption,” when all she wanted to do was cry? Judith might have taken up the job of stitching herself, but Jillian knew she would be more inclined to pass out in a dead faint from such an ordeal.

  She watched the man move around his office with ease. He was something just over six feet tall and wore a simple dark suit of black serge. He looked like a doctor, she decided. Albeit a young doctor. The doctor who had tended Grandmother had been nearly as old as Grandmother herself. Jillian had no other memory of any other doctor, for doctors were common people as far as her mother was concerned. They were never invited to parties and certainly had never graced the Danvers’ dinner table.

  Mac returned with a tray of necessary equipment. Jillian spied the threaded needle and felt her heart begin to palpitate a little harder. She wished now she was more given to prayers and religiosity. If she were, she would ask God to make this all go away.

  “Why, Judith, you’re as white as a ghost,” Mac stated in a serious tone. “You must have lost quite a bit of blood before making it over to see me.”

  Jillian just nodded. It seemed as logical an excuse as she could come up with.

  He took hold of her hand and began washing the wound. Jillian bit her lip to keep from crying out, then discovered this pain was nothing compared to the actual process of Mac’s stitching. Twice she nearly screamed, and throughout it all she fought waves of nausea and dizziness. She leaned her head back against the wall, grateful that Mac had positioned the chair close to the corner. She had already determined to lean toward the left where the wall might better support her should she faint.

  “There, four stitches ought to hold you,” Mac said, eyeing his work appreciatively. “I thought for sure you’d be watching to make sure I did it right.”

  Jillian eased her head up and looked at her right hand. It didn’t seem all that much worse for the wear.

  “I’ll wrap it up, and in a week, maybe ten days, I’ll take those stitches back out. You ought to be good as new then.” He began to wrap a bandage around the wound, admonishing her to keep it dry. “Tell your Miss Carson that you should not be given any task that will cause you to get your hand wet. Neither should you be lifting anything with this hand.”

  Jillian nodded. Just a few more minutes, she told herself. A few more minutes and I can leave.

  “So how was your trip home? I mean, I know that you went there for your grandmother’s funeral, but since you didn’t like the old woman anyway—”

  Jillian gasped at this. Had Judith really told him that she didn’t like Grandmother Danvers? It was true—neither one of the girls cared much for the superstitious old woman—but that Judith would have actually told this stranger how she felt was almost unimaginable.

  “Did I hurt you?” he asked gently.

  “No,” she managed to say, collecting her thoughts. There was apparently a great deal that her sister had shared with this man. Funny that Judith never mentioned him in letters home.

  Mac smiled and went back to work. “So how did you find your parents and sister?”

  “Oh, they were the same as always,” Jillian managed.

  Before she knew it, he was finished and pushing the tray aside. “Now,” he said in that authoritative tone that seemed to precede any doctorly task, “I’ll take a look at that arm.”

  “What!” Jillian exclaimed, yanking back the left arm that he had already taken hold of.

  Mac gave her arm a gentle pull. “I said, I intend to see how you’re recuperating.” He was already unfastening the wrist buttons of her blouse.

  “No, that isn’t necessary,” Judith protested, but in her weakened state, she was hardly up to matching the determined Dr. MacCallister.

  Mac pulled up the sleeve and studied her arm for a moment, while Jillian looked up at the ceiling. Now he would know the truth, and for the life of her, she wasn’t sure what she could say or do that would set things right. Jillian waited for him to say something—anything. But he remained silent, his hand still firmly gripping her arm. Finally Jillian dropped her gaze back to Mac’s face when the silence became too difficult to deal with.

  “Do you want to explain this to me?” he said, dropping his hold on her. He leaned back against the counter and eyed her in the same fashion one might consider a wayward child.

  Jillian drew a deep breath. “I’m not Judith.”

  “Yes, I can see that for myself.”

  “I’m her twin sister, Jillian.”

  “And you’re here masquerading as Judith because you were bored with life in the city?” he questioned.

  She shook her head. “My sister asked me to come and pose as her.” Jillian sighed, preparing to reveal the whole scenario. There was no sense in lying. She’d been discovered and would soon be sent back to Kansas City. Unless, she thought hopefully, she could convince Mac to keep her secret.

  “You want to give me the full story?”

  Jillian nodded. “I suppose that would be best.”

  “Yes, I think it probably would be,” Mac said, crossing his arms.

  “Well, you see, Judith was in love with a young man we’ve known most of our lives. She planned an elopement with him but knew if she didn’t come back to work for Mr. Harvey, she’d have to pay back half the wages she’d already earned. She couldn’t do that because she’d already given her fiance the money, and there was no possibility of our father giving her the money as he had never approved of her taking up employment in the first place and would certainly never approve of her choice in husbands.”

  “So she convinced her twin sister to come to Pintan in her stead,” Mac stated thoughtfully. Then he totally surprised Jillian by bursting into laughter. “That Judith! What a gal!”

  Jillian didn’t k
now whether to be relieved or jealous. He said it with such obvious admiration for her sister that Jillian couldn’t help but feel a little envious.

  “I realize I tried to deceive you as I have the others, but please 41 understand . . .”

  “Oh, I understand. I mean, Judith was involved, so it couldn’t just be a simple matter. Nothing Judith ever did was simple.”

  “Do you always call women by their first names?” Jillian asked suddenly. It struck her as very strange that this man had insisted she call him Mac, while he constantly called her sister by her given name.

  “I don’t always,” Mac replied, “but your sister was special. She just seemed so at ease with the world. She insisted everyone call her by her first name. She hated it when Miss Carson would get all formal in front of the train passengers. She thought it complete nonsense. If it makes you uneasy, rest assured I won’t call you by your given name unless you grant me permission to do so.”

  “Well, you won’t really have to worry about it, I suppose,” Jillian replied.

  “And why would that be?” He leaned forward and his black hair fell across his forehead in a way that made Jillian want to reach up and push it back into place.

  “Because now that I’m found out, Miss Carson will no doubt demand I return to Kansas City.”

  “Miss Carson would only do that if she found out about your little deception.”

  Jillian eyed him very seriously. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I think this will be great fun. What do you say we just be good friends and keep this between us? If you’re anything like your sister, I know we’ll get along just fine.”

  He was serious, Jillian realized. He was laughing and enjoying the situation, and he was willing to let her go on posing as Judith.

  “Do you mean it? Truly?”

  He laughed again. “I don’t see that it will harm anyone. After all, I know Miss Carson doesn’t have any girls to spare. So if anything, it’ll only be helpful.”

  Jillian breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Dr. MacCallister. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”

  “Mac,” he said, reaching out to help her to her feet. “Call me Mac.”

  Jillian warmed to his smile and nodded. “Very well, and you may call me Jillian.”

  “I’d probably better call you Judith,” he said, then gave her a wink. “Oh, and I’d keep that arm covered with a bandage if I were you. You go to changing clothes in front of anyone and they’ll know right off that you’re not Judith. That burn she had was pretty intense.”

  “But she was all right, wasn’t she? I mean, I never knew in the whole of her visit that she was wounded,” Jillian said, suddenly very concerned for her sister.

  “Oh, Judith will get by just fine. She could sell sand in the desert. Your sister is quite a card. She’ll always land on her feet. Here, let me put a bandage on your arm and no one will know the difference.” He very quickly wrapped her forearm, then pushed her sleeve back into place. “There.”

  Jillian sighed and struggled to rebutton her sleeve. “I wish the same could be said of me,” she murmured. Mac’s confused expression caused her to add, “I mean the part about landing on my feet.” She smiled weakly. “After all, I wouldn’t be in here now if that were the case.” She couldn’t seem to coordinate the work required to secure her sleeve.

  Mac pushed her bandaged hand away very gently, then took up the edges of the sleeve and buttoned it for Jillian. Where his warm fingers touched the sensitive skin of her wrist, Jillian felt a tingling sensation that seemed to move up her arm in waves.

  “I think it would have been a pity not to have learned your secret, Jillian,” he said softly, glancing up to meet her stare. “A very big pity.”

  FOUR

  “THE SECOND CHAPTER OF JAMES states, ‘For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; and ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?”’

  Jillian shifted a bit uncomfortably in the hard pew of the tiny Pintan church. Reverend Lister, the round little man with a balding head and spectacles, held her captive with his words. Words that spoke of treating others badly simply because they were poor. She had seen this type of partiality for most of her life. She couldn’t remember a time when her parents’ social standing hadn’t been an important mark of who they were. People looked up to her family. They were given places of honor. So why did that suddenly seem so wrong?

  “‘But if ye have respect to persons,”’ the pastor continued reading, “‘ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.”’

  He gripped the sides of the pulpit and stared intently at the thirtysome people gathered in the little church. “Do we agree that the Scriptures tell us that we are all equal in God’s eyes?”

  A slight murmuring went through the crowd. A couple of weak “amens” were heard from the very back of the room, and Jillian thought it all rather queer. Her church back in Kansas City had been stately and beautiful in its cathedral-style setting. There had been lovely ornamentation and some twenty stained-glass windows to honor God up in His heaven. Jillian had never really felt inclined to think about God in one way or another. He obviously existed, because she existed. She never thought how pretentious this idea really was—it just seemed logical.

  But in all her time of attending Sunday services back home, she had never once heard the minister address his flock in quite this manner. Scriptures were usually read in lengthy monotone liturgies, and these were always followed with long windy prayers that seemed to berate the unworthy congregation for even daring to draw breath without honoring God’s generosity for overlooking their sin.

  She had no idea what great sin it was that she had committed. She held to the commandments. She didn’t steal or murder or lie. She honored her mother and father. Well, usually she did, when she wasn’t running off on one of Judith’s schemes. She sat faithfully in church to honor the Sabbath. She would never have considered uttering blasphemies against the Lord, and she had never replaced Him with a graven image or had any other gods before Him. But then again, neither did she honor Him in any particular way. Still, it seemed enough to her that she had upheld these rules as well as the other two commandments of the original ten. She certainly hadn’t committed adultery. Finally, there was no need to covet anything of her neighbors’ since she had everything her heart desired.

  “It’s rather easy to sit here in the comfort of our friends and say that we agree with the Bible—that we are all equal in God’s eyes. However, I would like to point out that God had more folks in mind than those who sit here today. God also has made us equal to the Navajo—the Hopi—the Zuni—the Apache.”

  Gasps of discord and a general rumbling of disagreement rose up from the crowd. Reverend Lister waited patiently for the comments to die down before continuing. “I challenge you,” he stated, his blue eyes piercing and ablaze with passion, “no, I demand that you show me where the Word of our God states otherwise.”

  The murmurings faded into a deadly silence. Jillian could feel the electricity in the air. This man had dared to compare heathen Indians with their pagan rituals—rituals that Jillian had heard included everything from animal impersonation to human sacrifice—to good Christian men and women. Surely God didn’t mean that educated and religious folks were on an equal footing with those who were obviously ignorant of Scriptures and the rules of polite society.

  “There is a disease in our midst called prejudice,” Pastor Lister proclaimed. “It allows that our red-ski
nned brothers and sisters are not worthy to sit beside us in our place of worship. It allows that their hearts are not salvageable—that their ways are too corrupt. But Scripture says that God is willing that none should perish, but that all should be saved. Explain this Scripture to me if that does not include our red brothers and sisters.”

  The following silence held the group captive as Reverend Lister moved away from the pulpit and came to stand near the pew where Jillian sat.

  “You sit here in your comfort and finery. Various reasons have brought you to Pintan. You come not as natives to the area, but as visitors. You take what you will and strive to build a town in the midst of a desert land. The Navajo were already here. They could teach us much, but we are a prideful people—and what can we learn from mere savages?” he asked, his tone edged with sarcasm. “They have lived off this land for hundreds of years, and yet we bring in our new methods and our ways are proclaimed as better.”

  He let his gaze travel to each person, making Jillian most uncomfortable.

  “I want to remind you, in case you’ve forgotten, that the wages of sin is death, and from the Scripture we just read, if you have respect to persons, you commit sin and are convinced of the law as transgressors.”

  Jillian was afraid to look anywhere but at the pastor. Her conscience was soundly pricked. She had ignored the Indian women who sat near the edge of the depot and sold their wares. She had smiled at the chubby toddlers and lean athletic children who played with lizards and other desert wildlife, but she had never really given them much thought. They were dark skinned and different. They spoke another language and worshiped another god. They weren’t like Jillian and her people.

  Realizing she could have heard that final thought coming from her mother’s lips, Jillian began to have an understanding of her own attitude and misconception toward the Indians. She hadn’t set out to harm the Indian people, but neither had she considered them worth her time and trouble.

  Reverend Lister spoke for another ten minutes, admonishing his congregation to be bearers of love and Christian charity. He prayed in a fervent manner that resonated within Jillian’s heart. It was nothing like the pretentious and pompous prayers of her ministers back home.