by Karen Harper
Annoyed at my disjointed thoughts, I tried to pray myself to sleep, then sat up and fanned my face just as Mrs. Wentworth’s distinctive rap sounded on the door. It must be over—a new child to see, to help the doctor care for. I’d have to get dressed, but at least I’d left my hair pinned up.
I tiptoed to the door and opened it a crack. Then, when I saw it was indeed Mrs. Wentworth holding a partly shuttered lantern, I motioned her in and held my finger to my lips to remind her the little boys were asleep.
“Her Royal Highness is calling for you,” she whispered. She had tears in her eyes, and her face was creased in concern. “You are sent for straightaway.”
“The baby’s born?”
She shook her head, and the lantern wavered. “I fear there’s some concern. I am sent to fetch you. She wants you now.”
My insides cartwheeled. Surely after five children nothing could go really wrong. Perhaps in her delirium—for I know they gave her ether each time—she’d thought the child was born and ready for my care. Or without Lady Dugdale to hold her hand . . . or worse . . .
“I’ll be right there,” I told her and let her out.
I dressed in the dark as I had many times when I had a sick child. But now, it might be worse than that.
AS I HURRIED toward the princess’s bedroom door, I nearly ran into Prince George, indeed walking the hall. His hair was slick with sweat, his face glazed with it. Yet he was formally attired.
“Oh, good, Mrs. Lala.” To my amazement, he took my hand in both of his. He was trembling. “She’s insisting she has something to say to you—that she’s afraid it’s . . . it’s . . . it’s”—he went on, almost stuttering like Bertie—“going badly. But she’ll come through, always has. Comfort her, if you can.”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness. Of course, I will, and I’m sure it will soon be over with a good outcome.”
“Pray God,” he said and opened the princess’s bedroom door, then closed it behind me.
It was deathly silent inside when I’d expected bustle and much ado. The doctor came over to me, blocking my view of the bed. I knew Sir John Williams was much respected and trusted. He’d been here for most of the previous births.
“Mrs. Lala, Her Royal Highness has insisted you be summoned before the administration of the ether so we can deliver the child.” His voice was a mere whisper. “It’s a large baby with a big head, and that is causing complications. Can you speak with her and hold her hand as Lady Dugdale always did? Can you keep calm during a dangerous delivery? She’s raving a bit, so I hope you can stay steady . . . be a comfort to her no matter what she says. Of course, I want to save the child but the mother’s life . . . especially in this case . . . who she is . . .”
His voice trailed off. Imagine—a doctor, one dubbed “sir,” and he was as terrified as I was. I wanted to burst into tears but fought for calm. “Yes, of course. I will do all I can to help her.”
“Steady, then, my girl,” he said and led me over to the big bed.
Princess May’s skin glistened with sweat, her hair stringy and wild across her pillow. A woman I hadn’t seen before, even when Harry and George were born—a medical nurse?—was wiping her face, neck, and arms with a wet cloth. Princess May wore a thin nightgown, ruffled up to under her breasts. A sheet covered her distended belly and spread legs. I saw a chair, which the nurse indicated with a nod was mine, but I remained standing, leaning over the princess to take her hand. I am not certain we had ever deliberately touched before. Just a moment ago, the prince had taken my hand—and now this.
“Your Royal Highness, it’s Mrs. Lala,” I said.
“Who?” she asked, then stared up at me through unfocused eyes. Her face was crushed in a frown that made her look like someone else. “Oh, Lala, yes, thank God. If I should die . . .”
“No. No, you will be fine.”
She barely squeezed my hand and repeated, “If I should die, swear to me you will stay with the children until they are grown. I made the prince—ah, ah—” she cried, gasping for air as a wave of pain contorted her face even more. “You—promise—too.”
My heart thudded so hard it shook me. “Yes. Yes, of course, I will.”
“You love them. Protect them—ah, for—me.”
“Yes, I swear it, but you will be there. We will have picnics in Scotland, and you will teach them more songs and—”
She screamed, gritted her teeth and reared up off the damp, wrinkled sheet, then collapsed again.
On the other side of the bed, leaning over his patient while the nurse stepped away, Dr. Williams said, “All right, then, Princess May. Mrs. Lala has promised so we must bring this baby.”
The nurse came back with a little wire mask and draped a small cloth over it, ready to cover the princess’s mouth and nose. Ether, I thought. Not really newfangled since Queen Victoria had used it in childbirth.
The princess gritted out, “And if this baby lives and I . . . I don’t . . . you will care for him or her too. Please, Lala!”
“Yes, I vow to you I will care for and protect this child with my own life.”
She seemed to rest a moment from her agony as the nurse placed the mask over her nose and mouth and dripped liquid from a bottle on it.
“Sit back away from the fumes,” the doctor told me. “Keep hold of her hand. This ether will help.”
I did as he said, sinking into the chair, wishing Eva Dugdale were here but grateful I could help. The princess’s grip on my hand and then her entire body went lax. The nurse kept the mask over her nose and mouth but dropped no more of the ether from the little bottle.
I jolted even more alert, more terrified when the doctor drew back the sheet and lifted what looked to be metal tongs, large ones, in his hands.
I realized he was going to push those up inside her to grasp the baby’s head and try to pull him or her into the world. My heart went out to our brave Princess May. And to this child who might not live and could kill our queen, its own mother; an infant I’d sworn, above all the others, to cherish and protect.
“This has to end quickly,” Dr. Williams whispered to the nurse and moved the tongs closer. “With these forceps, God help us, it is now or never for them both.”
Part Three
1905–1910
York Cottage to the Isle of Wight
Chapter 16
I held the princess’s limp hand as the nurse steadied her hips and the doctor inserted the forceps. He was sweating now too, great drops off his chin and mustache, as he bent over, concentrating on delivering the child. The room was like an oven this July day with the windows barely ajar. If this went wrong for the baby or Her Highness, what would it mean for Dr. Williams? For Prince George and the children he was so hard on at times? And for the nation, all of our futures, should the Waleses ever be king and queen?
I saw now why Princess May dreaded childbirth. Oh, I’d heard my mother scream now and again through it, but it seemed to quickly end. Surely, this would be over soon and worth the agony and danger. Could I do this myself to bear a child? Chad was lost to me, couldn’t ever stay with me . . .
“Stay with us!” Dr. Williams kept muttering. “This baby, nurse . . . I just don’t know . . .”
So did he mean the baby was lost and he could only hope for Princess May? Sweat stung my eyes as I blinked back tears.
And then, a sucking sound. The princess’s body shuddered. I leaned closer as a head appeared first, one shoulder, two, then the rest of a little body. Another boy, her fifth! Wet and messy, yet the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. But not moving. Not crying. Not—not anything and turning blue.
I started to cry as the doctor bent over the baby and suctioned his nostrils and throat with a tube that had a rubber bulb on its end. Dr. Williams dropped that apparatus and, as slippery as the child was, draped him over one arm and patted, then smacked his back and bottom. No cry. No gasp for air.
“Nurse, see to the afterbirth,” he said, then to my amazement, brought the little boy
—birthing cord still attached—to me and lay the baby facedown over the apron that covered my knees. With both hands free he lifted the baby’s hips and smacked his back smartly once, twice, while I stared aghast.
The little boy sucked in a big breath. He moved against my thighs and cried. Though I didn’t know if I dare touch him, I did, rubbing his wet, little back, his neck up to his sticky, short blond hair until the doctor tended briefly to the princess, then came back with scissors and turned the baby upright in my lap to cut and tie the cord.
“Never would have dared that on Lady Dugdale’s lap,” he muttered. “Keep him warm with these.” He gave me several towels, and I gently covered him, then cleaned as much of the little boy as I could. He looked as if he’d been through a battle, and indeed he had. I murmured low to him, soothing baby talk, calling him “poppet, sweetums, my little one.” Well, indeed, in a way, he was to be mine.
With a glance at Princess May, who looked unconscious yet, I spoke up at last. “Will Her Highness be all right?”
“And will he?” the doctor said as he bent down to stitch up the princess as if she were a sock that needed mending. “Like you, Mrs. Lala, Princess May has grit and go, and that lad had better too. Nurse can take him from you in a moment, clean him up properly, then we’ll have a look at him, but I daresay you’re getting on famously already.”
“Thank God, he’s breathing, but he looks a bit the worse for wear. I can even see the marks from the forceps.”
“Necessity, or we’d have lost them both. It’s best if you tell no one what a struggle this was. I’ll inform the prince, of course. As soon as we have things set to rights here, I’ll bring him in.”
“The baby’s trembling now, but no longer blue,” I told him. I sounded breathless, as if I’d done all the work. “He’s breathing but shallow. Despite these towels, we’ll need a blanket even before he’s all washed up to keep him warm.”
For the first time since the birth, the nurse left the princess and brought me a blanket to wrap the little mite around the damp towels. But under it all, I kept my hand on his chest to be sure it rose and fell as he breathed. His tiny mouth was puckered, his brow creased, his nostrils flared as if this world was a shock and a struggle. I’d promised the princess I would take care of this child, as was my duty, but it was from that very first moment I held him, so helpless in my lap, that I loved him fiercely.
When the nurse took the child, my apron was such a mess that I removed it and left it with the pile of rags. I stood by as the nurse bathed the baby, put some sort of oil on his limbs, even washed his hair. He was so new, so wrinkled. He fretted and wailed as he was bundled, so I knew he was indeed kin to his siblings.
“Let Mrs. Lala hold him,” Dr. Williams said, after he had put packing between the princess’s legs. “I need you here.”
I need you here. This child, even more than the others, needed me. He was special, and if I never bore a baby of my own, this one was mine.
THREE DAYS LATER, Finch and I escorted the five children down the upstairs hall, summoned to the queen’s bedroom since she was more herself now. I would not say she was much recovered, though she usually bounced back quickly after a birth. I had seen her several times, and she had thanked me for my help and vow to tend the child, but I almost thought she resented the little one for giving her such a hard time. I would not feel she was really well again until the doctor and nurse, still here, left Sandringham.
Today would be the first time the other children would see their new brother, who took extra watching because of occasional breathing concerns. My nursemaids and I had the two younger boys all scrubbed up to meet the latest family addition and to hear their parents announce his name, or string of them, if the pattern held true. Unfortunately, Mary was pouting because her governess had scolded her for shoddy work, but Finch had David and Bertie in firm tow. Harry and George were still so young that all they knew was that they had another playmate.
I chided myself over how not only protective but possessive I felt toward the new Wales baby. So I gave extra cuddles to his siblings, lecturing myself that Mary Peters, the demented nurse I had replaced at Sandringham, had been overly possessive of David. I vowed I would not be that with this new child. Still, as I helped tend him on those first few days he was yet officially unnamed, I hardly saw the other children. On the way to visit their parents and new brother, David clung to me.
“Remember, I was first and I’ll be king someday, even if I don’t want to!” he whispered to me as if in warning.
“I love all of you very much,” I assured him while Finch rolled his eyes and shook his head. He’d evidently been hearing much the same from David, maybe from Bertie too. “You are all different, and I love you in different ways.”
“Well, Mary’s different, since she’s a girl,” David said, seizing my elbow and bouncing my arm. I was carrying little George. “But now we have five boys, and I am still number one.”
As we went in, I curtsied to Their Highnesses, for the prince stood near the bed where the princess lay, propped up on a pile of satin and lace pillows. The room looked so different from a birthing room, without the medical supplies but decked with flowers, letters, and cards. The familiar crib with its organza skirting and ruffled hood stood near the queen’s bed. I had been helping the doctor and medical nurse off and on in the next room, which they had requisitioned to keep a watch over the baby, but, of course, they would have brought the new child here now.
I saw they were not in the room, perhaps resting after what had, no doubt, been an ordeal for them too. I was still weak-kneed at all that had happened. I edged a bit closer to the crib to glance in and— Dear God, it was empty! Had we been summoned for an announcement of another kind?
The prince must have heard me gasp. He looked so sharply at me that I feared a telling off, but he said, “The child is still with the doctor. As you know, some slight respiratory problems hanging on.”
“What is res-pra-tory, Lala?” Mary asked, turning toward me instead of her father.
He nodded that I could answer. “It means it’s a little hard to breathe sometimes,” I tried to assure her, though my heartbeat had kicked up. I longed to rush next door to see if the baby was all right. “Like when you have a cold and your nose is stuffy and you have to breathe through your mouth.”
“Precisely,” the prince said. “But you will all see him soon, and your mother and I want to tell you before it is announced far and wide that his name is to be John.” He stepped to the side of the bed and took Princess May’s hand as she managed a wan smile. “To be exact,” the prince said, “his name is John Charles Francis in honor of my brother, who was lost.”
“Lost?” little Harry piped up. “Like in the woods?”
“No,” their father said. “Such as who never lived to grow up like all of you will, including baby John, who we will call Johnnie, right, my dear?”
Princess May agreed, and the children peppered them with questions about the uncle they didn’t know they had, though the prince mostly put them off. As he prepared to shoo them out, each of the children went to their mother’s bedside and kissed her cheek, I holding the two youngest in turn so they could reach her.
But I was as upset—even annoyed—as were the children, who were let down because the baby wasn’t there and their questions weren’t answered. I thought it was a terrible omen that a baby who had a difficult birth and was having trouble breathing should be named for a baby who had died. I’d seen the grave of Prince George’s younger brother, John, out in the churchyard of St. Mary Magdalene a half-mile walk from here. It bore a white cross with the engraved words, Suffer the little children to come unto Me. Good gracious, I thought, though I loved and honored the Lord, I surely hoped He’d let us have Johnnie longer than he’d let Queen Alexandra keep her little boy named John.
THE NEXT EVENING, and I suppose it was a strange thing to do, when the princess insisted I needed a break from helping to care for Johnnie, I made a beeline
for the deceased John’s grave. Dr. Williams and his nurse were still with us, though he’d pronounced that the baby was getting stronger every day. Blessedly, I had seen that was true.
Daylight lingered in the sky, and the July evening was warm. Yet coolness wafted from the grass as I headed for the gray, rough-stone building with the white trim that stood out ahead. The Gothic windows lost the last rays of sun, and the face of the clock on the tower went dim. I cut across the rows of old tombstones straight for the white cross over the first John’s little grave.
Remembering what I had heard from Mabel about this early death the last time I had visited her at the Big House, I stopped to read the carved words on the tombstone. JOHN CHARLES ALBERT had been born at SANDRINGHAM ON APRIL 6, 1871 and had died the very next day. Poor Alexandra to lose her sixth and last child, just as our Johnnie would, I had no doubt, be the Waleses’ sixth and last. And she’d lost her firstborn Eddie, whose portrait Chad had rescued during the fire. Too many deaths here, but I vowed anew that our Johnnie would live and thrive.
I wished the biblical quotation the white cross bore didn’t say Suffer the little children on it. Oh, I knew that word “suffer” meant “allow,” but that didn’t help. Queen Alexandra’s lost sons—did they suffer? Our Johnnie seemed to sometimes when he struggled for a breath. If I was there, especially if I was holding him, I would shift him to lie upright against my shoulder, cradle the back of his head, and gently wind him as if he’d just been nursed because it seemed to help him breathe.