The Midwife's Tale

by Delia Parr

  “No word from Victoria?” Samuel asked.

  She sighed. “Not yet. The mail’s due again on Tuesday.”

  Samuel shook his head. “Makes me wonder about how my mama felt when I left. I never thought much about that before now. I was a lot younger than Victoria when I left home, though.”

  Will looked up and grinned.

  “Older than you are,” Samuel added, offering the boy a stern look.

  She knew Samuel could not see the boy clearly enough to catch his facial expressions, and chuckled to herself. Even half blind and well near seventy, Samuel was still keen enough to know the boy’s temperament and hold him in line.

  “I was twelve when I run off to sea. Never wrote. Never went back home. Just cut the cord and let the wind blow me away.”

  She sucked in her breath and lowered her gaze. Like Samuel, Oliver had left home years ago and continued to live completely independent of her influence, although he did travel back to Trinity once a year for a visit. But what would she do if Victoria did the same as Samuel and never returned? What had Samuel’s mother done? How had she spent the rest of her life, one day after another, never knowing the fate of her child? Had she prayed as hard as Martha did? Had she gone to her grave still brokenhearted, as Martha feared she might do?

  Sadness seeped into her bones. Longing to see Victoria again tightened around her heart so she found it difficult to draw a breath because of the pain and even harder to keep tears at bay.

  “But you got a home here now—and treasures, too. Lotsa treasures,” Will prompted. “Can I show her? Can I?”

  “I don’t think Widow Cade would be much interested in what’s packed away in that old trunk. Seems to me you’re just lookin’ for an excuse not to work the ropes.”

  “It’s getting late. I really should go. Perhaps another time,” she whispered.

  When she started to get up, Will urged her back down. “It won’t take more than a minute or two,” he argued.

  Her tears threatened to spill over. She needed to leave. Now. To be alone. To keep Samuel from knowing how much his words had hurt, even though he had not meant for that to happen. “I really do need to go. Grace needs to be fed and bedded down for the night, and I promised to be back to help serve supper, too.”

  Will’s narrow shoulders slumped. Disappointment extinguished the excitement burning in his eyes.

  She sat down again and tried to rekindle the curiosity she had always had about the contents of the trunks and failed. “Maybe you can just show me a few today. If it’s all right with Mr. Meeks.”

  Samuel waved at the boy. “Go on. If that’s what you want.”

  Will scampered off and carried the smallest trunk back with him. He laid it on the floor between Martha and Samuel. The lid creaked halfway open, and his eyes lit up again when he lifted a treasure from the trunk. “This here’s a genuine dagger from India.”

  “Be careful,” she warned. “That looks awfully sharp.”

  He scowled and laid it on the floor. “I know that.” He rummaged through the trunk and pulled out an opium pipe. “He brought this all the way back from China. Strange-lookin’ pipe, ain’t it?”

  She frowned. “Indeed.”

  “One more for today,” Samuel ordered.

  Will laid the pipe next to the dagger and studied the contents of the trunk. Finally, he turned the trunk around so Martha could see inside. “You pick somethin’. I bet I can tell you where it came from,” he challenged.

  She leaned forward, eager to pick something. Anything. Just to be on her way. She pointed to the gold chain lying between a piece of scrimshaw and a tin of some sort of spice. “Try that one. The chain.”

  He tugged at the chain and pulled it free. The moment she saw the object swinging from the end of the chain, her heart began to race and pound in her ears.

  “This ain’t nothin’ special,” he grumbled. “It’s just some ole thing he found lyin’ by the trash pit.”

  Samuel chuckled. “I tripped over that some months back. Kicked it, actually. I never would have seen it, that’s for sure. Probably doesn’t work so good. Bit down on it, though. Sure feels like real gold. Hard to believe somebody would just toss it away.”

  Nearly in shock, she took the chain from Will. Her fingers shook as they opened the gold case on the watch. When she saw the initials engraved inside the front cover, she closed the case and wrapped her hand around it. “This is something very special,” she whispered. “I do believe you found no ordinary watch, Samuel. You found a miracle.”

  24

  Discovering a miracle was quite different from knowing precisely what to do with it, although Martha had little problem getting Samuel to give her possession of Webster Cabbot’s watch.

  Late that same night, she laid the watch and chain on the table near the daybook. While Bird was fast asleep on Victoria’s pillow, she finished describing another event in her life:

  The end result, of course, was that I had to admit to my teacher that I had indeed copied my eloquent essay from a book.

  She paused for only a moment, at no loss for the words she wanted to share with Victoria:

  Your gift, dearest girl, is your reverence for the truth. No matter how easy or difficult you found it to be, you always faced your own failings and spoke the truth.

  “How I wish you had found the watch,” she whispered, as if Victoria might hear her. While the ink dried, she toyed with the chain of the watch and let it slide between her fingers. She had several options when it came to returning the watch, but they were limited by her promise not to involve Samuel—or even Will, for that matter. Given Samuel’s reputation as a gruff recluse and Will’s background, even she had to agree it would be best if no one learned of their involvement.

  She could take the watch to Sheriff Myer first, but that would put Webster Cabbot in an awkward position, one that would force him to explain why he had made a complaint against Burton Andrews when, in fact, Webster had merely lost his watch.

  Unless he had not lost it. Maybe Burton had dropped it near the trash pit, either attempting to bury the evidence against him or losing the watch quite accidentally when he fled town. She could not very well give the watch to Burton to return. She had no idea where to find him.

  She might take the watch to Rosalind, but dismissed the idea at once. Rosalind would not take it well if Martha showed up with the missing watch less than twenty-four hours after their conversation today. The woman might even get angry when Martha refused to divulge where she had gotten the watch and blame Martha in some way, even to the point of accusing Martha of having had the watch all along. Involving Reverend Welsh also seemed problematic since Cabbot was not a member of the congregation.

  Leaving the watch on someone’s doorstep with an anonymous note asking for the watch to be returned was the second option she rejected out of hand. She did not want anyone to think there was a thief in town who suddenly had had an attack of conscience. Not when the townspeople were already concerned about whoever was responsible for the rash of petty thievery plaguing the area. She could not afford to take that risk. If anyone ever discovered she had gotten the watch from Samuel, he might get blamed for the other robberies.

  Stymied, she put the watch back into the corner cupboard for now and closed her daybook. All the options she had considered made her feel as cowardly as the day she decided to copy her essay all those years ago instead of writing it herself.

  She knew, in the end, she would have to speak to Cabbot herself to right this injustice. She was just as certain Victoria would never have considered doing anything else. On that note, she decided to make an early night of it. She banked the fire in the hearth, changed into a flannel nightdress, and extinguished the candle on the table before climbing into bed.

  She tugged the covers up to her chin and folded her hands in prayer. “Forgive me, Lord, for my failures this day. I thank You for the blessings I received, especially the ones I overlooked. Please keep a watchful eye on Victoria for
me, and since You seem so set on putting this dilemma into my hands, I’ll trust You to guide me to do what’s best for all concerned. Amen.”

  She turned and snuggled into her pillow. “Oh, I almost forgot. You might want to think of a way I could fix Bird’s wing. By spring would be fine. Amen.”

  Bird announced the arrival of a new day with a joyful serenade. Martha opened one eye, pulled the curtain aside, saw the dark, murky skies overhead, and burrowed back under the covers.

  Samuel had been right. A storm was brewing. She immediately canceled her plans to travel the rest of Candle Creek today. In fact, she felt so toasty warm, she even entertained the idea of staying in bed for the morning. She had not really slept in late since she had returned home, and the idea was sinfully appealing.

  The sound of a wagon approaching, then screeching to a halt, followed by a harsh rap at her door, ended that thought before she even had a chance to feel guilty. She got out of bed, slipped on her robe, and hurried to answer the door. The floorboards were stone cold, and she made another mental note to find those missing slippers of hers. She kept half of her body behind the door when she opened it and peered outside.

  When Edward Palmer removed his hat, his hand was shaking. “It’s time. Carrie and Belinda sent me to fetch you. It’s time. Melanie. The baby. Can you come right away? I brought the wagon. I’ll take you. It’ll be faster.”

  “I just need to get dressed. You can wait in the tavern—”

  “I’ll get the wagon turned around and wait here. Just hurry. This one’s comin’ pretty fast.”

  “I will,” she assured him, and closed the door. She did not bother to heat the water to bathe her face, and quickly dressed in a comfortable gown before dressing her hair in a simple knot at the nape of her neck. She grabbed her bag, took the birthing stool off the shelf, and set them just outside the door. After she slipped into her cape, she tied her bonnet into place and remembered to snatch her gloves before leaving.

  When she got outside, Edward already had her bag and birthing stool in the back of the wagon. She checked the sky overhead. Dark, forbidding clouds were getting closer, but she and Edward did not have to travel far, and she was confident they could reach Melanie before the storm hit.

  She climbed aboard and had barely settled onto the seat when he clicked the reins and the wagon took off. Jolted backwards, she clung to the edge of the seat to keep her balance. There was no sense telling the man to slow down. He would not listen anyway.

  By the time they reached the stone cottage he had built with his own hands, she had been jostled and rocked until her bones ached. She was half afraid to check to see if any of her teeth had cracked, but her cheeks and lips were so numb with cold she could not bear the thought of opening her mouth.

  Edward jumped down from his seat before the wagon finished skidding to a halt, grabbed her bag and birthing stool, and met her as she disembarked. She took her things. “I’ll meet you inside,” she murmured, and entered the house while he tended to the horse and wagon.

  Carrie greeted her in the sitting room with an anxious smile. “I was hoping you weren’t on another call. I don’t think Melanie has long to go.”

  “How close are her forcing pains?” Martha asked as she removed her outerwear.

  “Belinda says they’re barely a minute apart now. We sent Edward for you when the waters broke half an hour ago. Her pains really got close after that.”

  A shrill scream split the air and sent Martha’s heart racing. “Where are the other children?”

  “Lucy took them all upstairs.”

  Martha grabbed her bag and the stool and nodded toward the small bedchamber behind the kitchen straight ahead that was used as a spare room as well as a birthing room. “Who else is in there?”

  “Just Belinda. Everything happened so fast, we didn’t have time to send for anyone else.”

  Edward burst through the door just as another scream shattered the calm, and he stared at Martha. “Why aren’t you with Melanie?”

  “I’m on my way. Go upstairs. Send Lucy down. We’re going to need her help. Let Mark take charge of the other children, and then get down here. We need you, too. Quickly,” she urged. “Carrie, come with me.”

  While Edward bounded up the steps, she led Carrie to the birthing room, where Melanie lay in bed, writhing in pain. Belinda was mopping her own brow, clearly distraught. “Martha! I thought you’d never get here in time,” she cried.

  Melanie gritted her teeth together. “Too . . . late. Too late,” she managed before unleashing a scream against unbridled pain and rode out another fierce contraction.

  Martha sprang into action, wasting no thought about donning her birthing apron. She barely had time to wash her hands. While Carrie attempted to get the collapsible stool together, Martha rolled up the bed linens, starting at the bottom of the bed, and gathered them into a loose tent in the middle of Melanie’s thighs. She urged her patient to bend her knees.

  One touch revealed the soft down atop the baby’s head, which was at the entrance of the birth canal. She climbed onto the bed and knelt between Melanie’s legs. “Forget the stool. Carrie, get over here and take hold of one of Melanie’s feet. Belinda! Stop mewling and hold Melanie’s hand. Now then, Melanie. Let’s get this babe born.”

  Lucy ran into the room. “Mama? Mama, are you all right?”

  Martha looked over her shoulder and caught the girl’s gaze. Barely thirteen, Lucy had not witnessed a birth before, but Martha had no choice but to change that right now. “Your mama is going to be fine. Come, child. Take your mama’s other hand and hold on tight. Where’s your father?”

  The girl remained frozen in place. “He’s upstairs. Jamie’s cryin’ and Matthew’s wailin’ ’cause I had to leave, then Mama screamed again, so Papa had to stay to get ’em quiet for Mark.”

  Melanie began to groan. Her stomach hardened. “Move, girl! Help your mama. Now! This baby isn’t going to wait any longer.” She looked back at her patient. “Now, Melanie. Push!”

  Martha cupped the baby’s head as it emerged.

  “Again!”

  A scream. The shoulders emerged.

  “Again!”

  Panting hard, Melanie gave one final effort before collapsing. Her legs were still shaking when Martha leaned back on her haunches and gazed down at the tiny miracle now lying at her knees. “You have another son. Good and sturdy lad, too,” Martha murmured.

  Edward charged into the room. “A son?”

  The baby cried out for the first time, and Martha looked back over her shoulder. “A son. Fetch my bag so I can cut the cord. Carrie, get me some towels to wipe this baby down—and a blanket, too. He needs to see his mama.”

  The next half hour became a blur of activity, one so familiar, Martha scarcely had to think about what to do next. Before long, baby Isaac was suckling at his mother’s breast under his proud papa’s gaze, and Lucy led the other children into the room to meet their new brother.

  Martha stood in the doorway, exhausted, yet oddly exhilarated. The room that had only an hour ago been racked with anxiety and pain now radiated peace and contentment. While the scene before her was one she had witnessed countless times over the years, she was still filled with the same awe and wonder she had felt the very first time. In an instant, memories of all the long, hard journeys through bitter cold or simmering heat she had made and the sleepless nights she had endured mattered little.

  She glanced down at her soiled gown. It was ruined, of course, but she would sacrifice every single gown she owned, one at a time, to be blessed with the opportunity to help birth another child.

  She backed into the kitchen and eased the door closed. The moment she smelled the sausages and potatoes frying, her stomach growled. She joined Carrie at the table, and Belinda set a platter down in front of her. “Melanie only had time to peel the potatoes before she had to stop. I hope this will be enough.”

  “With six sausages and a mound of potatoes covering the plate? It’s plenty.�
�� Famished, Martha dug in and finished every bite before fixing her tea with cream and a generous dollop of honey.

  Normally full of chitchat, Carrie was strangely silent as she cut her sausage into tiny pieces. Belinda kept her gaze on her plate, but her hand twisted a napkin until it was a spiral as tight as a spring.

  Martha let out a sigh. “Give it up. Whatever you two are reluctant to tell me can’t be that bad.”

  Carrie plopped a forkful of potatoes into her mouth.

  Belinda gnawed at her bottom lip. “I don’t like to spread gossip.”

  Martha chuckled. “Since when?”

  The other woman’s cheeks turned pink. “Since meeting yesterday. Reverend Welsh had a stirring sermon on that very subject.”

  Carrie shook her head and quickly swallowed what she had in her mouth. “That was last week. Yesterday he preached about selfishness. Remember?”

  Belinda opened her mouth, paused, and her blush deepened. “Oh. That’s right.” Her expression brightened. “Then it’s been over a week. I’m doing better than I thought I was.”

  “Not gossiping?” Martha prompted.

  “Exactly.”

  Martha turned to Carrie. “What about you?”

  Her eyes widened. “Me? I’m not going to say anything about Mayor Dillon. Not me.”

  “Mayor Dillon?” Martha let out a longer, deeper sigh, wrapped her hand around her mug of tea, and looked at each of them. “Does this have anything to do with Samantha, too?”

  “Not exactly,” Belinda suggested.

  “Oh, dash! It does, too,” Carrie argued. “Samantha was all atwitter last night at the quilting. She couldn’t stop talking about the gala the mayor is giving next Saturday. It’s really the first time he’s hosted anything since Sally died, poor dear.”

  “Gala? What gala?”

  “The one he’s giving to welcome Eleanor home. The invitations are going out today, or so Samantha said.”

  Martha found it odd that Eleanor had not mentioned anything about a party yesterday during their visit, and absently stirred her tea. “It’s been over a year now. I don’t see what the hubbub is all about. Thomas should be having people to the house. Besides, he’s very excited to have Eleanor and Micah staying with him. Having a party of some sort is an easy way to let Eleanor see all her old friends.”