Read Online Dreams of the Red Phoenix by Virginia Pye - Free Book Online Page A

needle remained steady in Shirley’s hand while Lian’s thick, callused fingers on the young man’s chest assured the success of the procedure. Very few people would not follow Li an’s instructions when she spoke in that firm yet reassuring voice. Shirley was able to concentrate on suturing the wound and left communication with the patient to her maid.
    Nursing had never been right for Shirley. Offering solicitous or comforting words didn’t come naturally, though she had risen to the occasion when the young Reverend Caleb Carson with a badly broken arm had been wheeled into the hospital where she was working. He had tumbled from a ladder while placing the shiny star atop a massive fir tree on the seminary campus. A more emblematic accident could not have befallen a more charming and handsome gentleman, who quickly became her guardian an gel. He had careened into Shirley’s life on Christmas Eve, and she had tried to live up to his example of headlong goodness ever since. She tied off the thread now and tried to picture her hus band’s proud, though queasy, expression. Charles had inherited not only his red hair but also his squeamishness from his father.
    â€œNow we clean it again,” Shirley explained to Lian.
    The older woman bent closer as Shirley doused the area with Mercurochrome. Charles hovered over his mother’s shoulder and seemed as eager and jittery as ever, but to his credit, he had re mained quiet while the delicate work was being done and hadn’t distracted her.
    â€œGood going, Mother,” he said as she stood and wiped blood from her hands onto her apron, causing a tremor of disgust through him. “I had no idea you could do that.”
    â€œThere’s much a son never knows about his mother,” Shirley said with a raised eyebrow, unable to hide how pleased she was with herself. “You can handle the bandaging?” she asked Lian.
    Her maid, now her Number One Assistant, nodded. Dao- Ming, at her side, helped collect the rags that had sopped up the blood. They would need to reuse them, Shirley realized. Without proper supplies, they would have to be frugal and clever. She de cided not to dwell on the difficulties ahead but instead was grate ful that this one young man appeared in better shape than when he had hobbled through the front door.
    Then she gazed around at the crowded parlor, the packed din ing room and front hall, and grasped that each person here needed something—food, water, or medical attention. An ancient grand father who had been carried in on a stretcher had since died. There must have been three hundred people in her home, each with his or her own story of hardship. Shirley pushed aside the muslin cur tain from a front window and guessed that there had to be several thousand more Chinese out in the courtyard.
    â€œMrs. Carson?” a familiar, tentative voice asked.
    Shirley turned to greet Reverend Richard Wells, the head of the mission.
    â€œI wanted to check on how you are doing,” he said. “Very good of you to open your doors to all these people.”
    â€œNot at all,” she said as she tried to contain a curl fallen from her bun.
    When Shirley had risen that day, she had decided to finally set aside her mourning garb and instead put on a delicate lace outfit in anticipation of her planned tea with Kathryn. With all the subsequent commotion, the date with her friend was now out of the question, but she was glad nonetheless to have accidentally dressed appropriately to receive the Reverend. Normally she would like to have drawn a comb through her hair or freshened up her lipstick before a visitor arrived, but she was starting to grasp that such concerns were a thing of the past.
    The Reverend Wells’s owl eyes in his thick glasses blinked several times as he noticed the bloodstains on her apron. “Are you injured, Mrs. Carson?”
    â€œHeavens, no, I’m fine. This is from that wounded