Breakwater Beach

by Carole Ann Moleti

  Elisabeth replaced the soiled linens under Caleb with fresh sheets she’d brought from home. She dumped the fouled ones on the porch. She’d take them home for Sara to clean. Washing and drying them in the damp and cold was difficult, and Addie had enough concerns.

  Bethea whispered to her son, like she was giving a routine bath and telling him a bedtime story instead of watching for the last breath of his life. Eventually, Addie and Clement joined them. They all sat together drinking tea and praying at Caleb’s bedside until the rattling stopped. The all cried while the tiny body turned blue and stiff. It took hours for Bethea to say a final goodbye and allow Clement to go fetch the undertaker.

  Elisabeth couldn’t bear to stay to watch the child removed, but guilt bubbled at leaving her friend alone. “Bethea, would you care to come to my house tonight? We’ll make you comfortable in your own room and let you rest. I’ll bring you back tomorrow.”

  Bethea paced. Her eyes hardly blinked, and she walked as if her legs were made of wood. “Thank you, Elisabeth, but no. I need to be here with Caleb until . . .” She nearly crumpled to the floor.

  Elisabeth fought back her own tears as she and Addie helped Bethea into her bed.

  “Elisabeth, please try and get a message to Kyle.” Bethea turned her back to Caleb’s body, now concealed under a white sheet, and buried her head in the pillows.

  Elisabeth hesitated. She wanted Edward as much as Bethea needed Kyle but there was little she could do to fulfill that promise. “I will send another cable tonight.”

  “Please try and reach them before Caleb is buried. They’ll never be home in time but . . .” Addie’s bravado finally broke, and Elisabeth embraced her.

  The older woman struggled, then regained her composure. “Surely a word from the Captain’s wife will mean something. Clement and I will be here with her. Let us know as soon as there is word from Mr. Somersell. Pray that Kyle returns home soon. Only a husband can soothe a mother that has lost so much.”

  “I will come back tomorrow with more provisions and to see how Bethea is doing.” Relieved to be able to get out of the oppressive heat and grief, Elisabeth put on her cloak and gloves.

  Clement brought Ruddy from the barn. He wordlessly gave her a leg up and tucked the soiled linens into the saddlebags. The sun was just peeking beneath a curtain of black clouds, staining the sky deep purple. Elisabeth took deep breaths of the cold air and gave the mare free rein to head home.

  Her husband had abandoned her, just as Kyle had abandoned his wife. Just like all the men had abandoned their women. There had not been one word, not one letter. Edward had managed to communicate with her in England under even more restrictive circumstances. There was no point sending an additional cable, and silence on the matter would spare her from lying to herself or to the Vauxhalls any further.

  The sheets she’d brought home weren’t yet dry, and the boy hadn’t been under the frozen ground more than one week when Elisabeth heard knocking at the door. Sara and Paul conversed with a voice she didn’t recognise. Anxiety welled up inside. Perhaps there was finally a cable back from The Sea Mist. She ran downstairs.

  A lad who Elisabeth recognized from church stood at the door. “Mrs. Barrett, Doctor Fergus asked me to fetch you. The ladies at Mrs. Howell’s house for her confinement need some assistance.” His earnest enthusiasm for the mission masked the true message. No one called a virtual stranger for help unless they were desperate.

  “Please tell the doctor I’ll be along shortly. Did he say if they need anything?”

  “No, ma’am.” He tipped his hand to his head and rode his horse quickly down Stony Brook Road toward the town center and the Howell’s home.

  I suppose now I’m seen as a bloody nurse. This ministering was beginning to grate on her nerves, fraying them to the breaking point. Because she was managing the house and her affairs alone while Edward was away, everyone must assume she could take care of the whole town. How long before this breaks my heart and my spirit? I will try and make my husband proud, but please, God, let him come home soon.

  “Shall I harness the horses and take you in the carriage?” Concern etched Paul’s face.

  “No, it’s faster for me to ride Ruddy. Could you saddle her for me please, Paul?” She didn’t wait for an answer before running upstairs to change her clothes.

  When she came down a few minutes later, Sara handed her a saddlebag. “Captain Howell is away, Elisabeth. Perhaps Mrs. Howell will have need of these things.”

  “I hope so, Sara. I can’t abide more bad things happening.” Dread weighed her down as Elisabeth mounted Ruddy. Paul secured the provisions. With merely a tap of her heels, the mare took off as if they were going on a pleasure ride along the muddy path.

  Smoke rose from the chimney of the Howell home, a mansard-roofed Victorian just off Breakwater Road. Elisabeth tethered Ruddy in the barn out of the cold and scraped her boots on the steps. No one answered her knock so she entered and went directly upstairs toward muffled voices and a newborn’s squall.

  The door to the master bedroom was open, and relief flooded Elisabeth upon hearing the baby. Perhaps the danger has passed.

  One of the women tried to comfort the glistening newborn whose umbilical cord swayed like a hangman’s rope. She wrapped the baby in a blanket and rocked her. Another sat beside Wilhemina Howell, lying motionless in the bed. Her skin was as pale as the sheets. Bile rose into Elisabeth’s throat when she saw the pile of blood-soaked linen under the bed.

  “Thank you for coming, Mrs. Barrett,” Dr. Fergus said. “You were such a help to the Vauxhalls last week. It’s been a long, difficult labor with much loss of blood.”

  The two women in the room looked at Elisabeth and their tight-lipped, unsmiling gazes sent a warning down her back. The baby had quieted.

  Elisabeth swallowed her fear and went to the bedside. “Congratulations, Wilhemina. Can I get you something?”

  Wilhemina stared like she was looking through Elisabeth, her eyes vacant and dazed. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t form the words.

  “It’s Elisabeth Barrett.” She tried to draw Wilhemina’s focus back into the room, as if that would save the woman’s life.

  “Doctor, look.” The woman, who Elisabeth knew to be a neighbor of the Howell’s, was holding the baby. She pointed to a steady drip of blood soaking through the mattress onto the floor.

  “Let’s give her another draught of the ergot.” Doctor Fergus remained impassive, as unemotional as he had been when delivering the news of Caleb’s impending demise.

  The resignation, the realisation, the horror seeped into Elisabeth like the blood soaking the wood. An earthy, foul odor turned her stomach. The other woman, who Elisabeth didn’t know, spooned some liquid from a brown bottle into Wilhemina’s mouth.

  The doctor tossed the sheets aside. He pushed on Wilhemina’s stomach. The tangle of afterbirth and clots the size of a man’s fist gushed out of her, along with more blood that pooled between her thighs.

  “Oh, dear God.” Elisabeth grabbed a clean sheet and placed it under Wilhemina while the other woman turned her from side to side, removing the soiled ones. Blood continued to flow. The doctor pushed them both aside and turned Wilhemina onto her back. He shoved one hand inside her, pressed the other on her navel, and massaged the womb vigourously. He stepped back and wiped his hands on a towel.

  Wilhemina looked at the doctor and each of the three women in the room in turn.

  “Please, take care of her.” Her voice was no more than a whisper.

  “Wilhemina, your daughter needs you, and we’ll all be here to help until you get strong again.” Elisabeth picked up her ice-cold hand.

  Wilhemina’s eyes closed, and her mouth fell open in a final silent scream. Elisabeth willed her to take another breath, but the symbolic offer to lend the woman some of her
own life force was not accepted. Elisabeth thought all her tears had been shed for Caleb. She had been wrong.

  The doctor lowered his head. “Ladies, thank you for your help. I trust one of you will care for the babe until Captain Howell returns. I will try to get a message to him and let the pastor know about the situation. Off to Mrs. Sedgewick now. I dispatched the midwife there and need to be sure all is well.” He grabbed his bag and ran.

  The baby began to whimper, jarring the three of them to action.

  “I still have milk. My son is nearly a year. I can put him off and wet nurse.” The neighbour sat in a chair, opened her blouse, and offered a breast to the baby who took it with some coaxing.

  The other woman somberly washed the body, put on a nightgown, and carefully combed Wilhemina’s hair.

  Elisabeth stepped forward and covered Wilhemina with a clean sheet. “I’m so sorry, I never had time to introduce myself. I’m Elisabeth Barrett.”

  “Hattie Nash, Captain and Mrs. Howell’s housekeeper.” She didn’t move her eyes away from the task at hand. “See you at church all the time. Doctor Fergus surprised me when he sent for you. Don’t seem like the type to get your hands dirty.”

  Elisabeth held back her emotions. “I do the best I can to help. I’m sorry, you must be terribly distraught after being with Wilhemina for so long.” She defiantly filled the awkward silence by collecting soiled sheets and towels, and poured a fresh basin of water for them to wash their hands. “Hattie, are there any other children or things that need to be attended to?”

  “My husband and I live above the carriage house. He looks after the property and livestock. Their only other child died last year. We’ll stay until Captain Howell returns.” Hattie sloshed the remaining pitcher of water onto the floor, mopped up the mess under the bed, gathered the bloodied linens, and carried them out of the room.

  “I’m Faith Roswell, Elisabeth. I live down the road. Don’t take Hattie too seriously, she’s a cantankerous one. I’ll take the babe home with me now. There is nothing more we can do.” Faith put the now-sated infant next to her mother’s body while she washed her hands in a basin and got her coat.

  Faith’s kindness eased the ache of loneliness and desperation in Elisabeth’s heart, but not the nausea in her gut. “Thank you. I’m sure Hattie is just horribly sad and tired right now.” Elisabeth stared at Wilhemina, who could just as well have been asleep with her daughter next to her. Her head threatened to explode from the silence. The all-too-familiar smell of death filled the room. She held her hand over her mouth and nose and struggled not to retch.

  Faith picked up the newborn and wrapped her in a blanket. “Good day, Elisabeth. Thank you for coming to help us.” She brushed the baby’s face against Wilhemina’s for a final goodbye.

  Elisabeth opened the window and took deep breaths of the cold air. It quelled the nausea somewhat, and she slammed it closed. “Why am I worried? The cold won’t bother you, Wilhemina. You can’t feel anything.”

  Hattie didn’t return, and Elisabeth went downstairs. Dusk was falling, and there were no lamps lit or fires burning. It seemed wrong to leave Wilhemina alone until strange men came to take her for burial.

  Nausea swept over her again. She ran out the front door, to the barn, and opened the door to get Ruddy. The smell of manure overcame her, and she vomited into an empty feed pail.

  Ruddy clopped up the path, and Paul came out to meet them. “Problem, Elisabeth?” He took the reins and helped her dismount.

  “Mrs. Howell is dead. The babe is with a neighbour.” Her legs wobbled like rubber.

  “God bless the poor baby, and poor Missus Howell.” Paul assisted her up the stairs.

  Sara met her on the porch and led her inside. “Look at your clothes, Elisabeth.”

  Katherine took her cloak and cringed.

  Elisabeth hadn’t even noticed the stains. “I have never seen so much blood. It’s odd leaving Mrs. Howell alone until they come tomorrow. I should have stayed there with her.” She swayed.

  Sara embraced her. “You’ve been through quite enough. Staying there won’t help her now.”

  “I’ll go with you, if you’d like,” Katherine said. “I’m not afraid.”

  Relief that someone else understood comforted her more than the promise of a warm tub. “I would like that. While I get changed, could you ask Paul to harness one of the geldings to the small carriage? We’ll go with the body directly to the church tomorrow. I forgot the bag with the provisions there, so we’ll have some food.”

  “I’ll go tell Paul to ready the carriage.” Katherine seemed very anxious to get away. The dismal weather and perpetual bad news was getting to everyone, including the sisters.

  “Let me go up to run a bath for you and pack some things. Sara helped Elisabeth upstairs and helped her out of the soiled garments. “This is a bit harder than you imagined, is it not?”

  Elisabeth immersed herself and tried to scrub away the smell that seemed to have penetrated every pore, every hair. “I never expected to be without my husband for so long. I could bear anything if he was here.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t have come,” Sara said.

  Perhaps Sara is right. “Things will be different when Edward comes home. I’ll simply tell him he can’t go away for so long again.” Enduring the maid’s sullen stare, and the portent of her words, was too much to bear. “I’ll be fine on my own. You can get back to what you were doing downstairs.”

  “Very well.” Sara left.

  The water grew chilly, spurring her out of the tub. Elisabeth toweled off and sprinkled on scented powder to banish the persistent bloody stench.

  By the time she was dressed and went downstairs, Katherine had already brought the overnight bag for the two of them to the carriage. Paul bundled them inside and drove the rutted roads to the Howell’s. Elisabeth stared at the house and its forbidding contents.

  “I’ll stay with you,” Paul said.

  Neither of them offered any argument. He settled the horse in the barn. Katherine brought in their things.

  Elisabeth went upstairs and peered into the bedroom. In the dark, she could see the outline of the body in the bed, but none of the features. “I just wanted you to know you’re not alone, Wilhemina. And the babe is fine.” Her stomach lurched once again at the still mound and cloying, deathly silence.

  Chapter 18

  March 1876

  Elisabeth finished her lesson with the children at the library and packed away her things.

  Paul bounded in the door and to her side. “The Sea Mist just sailed into the harbour. They’ll wait for the tide to rise, but I came to fetch you.”

  The librarian glared at them. “Quiet, please, my dear sir.”

  “Are you sure it’s them?” Elisabeth whispered as she grabbed her cape and tossed it over her shoulders. “Let’s go.” Her entire body trembled, with excitement, or was it fear? All the bad news to share would mar what should have been a joyous reunion.

  “I recognize the ship. I heard the foghorns and went up on the widow’s walk. Careful, it’s slippery.” Paul helped her down the icy stairs.

  Grey clouds spit an occasional snowflake. Elisabeth draped the blanket over her legs in the carriage, but when she saw Paul without one, she handed it to him.

  “You need this more than I do. Please stop near the Vauxhall farm. I need to fetch Bethea.” How would Kyle react? How would Edward handle the terrible news?

  The horses picked their way along the icy road. Smoke rose from the stone chimney like a signal guiding the way. From a distance, Elisabeth saw Clement limp to retrieve some wood and go back inside. She jumped down, tromped through the partially frozen mud, and scraped her boots before she knocked.

  Addie answered the door. “Why, Elisabeth, good day. Bring Paul inside. Would you care for some t
ea?’

  “No, thank you. The Sea Mist has returned. I wanted Bethea to know.”

  “It will be good for all of us to have Kyle back.” Addie put more wood on the fire, then went into Bethea’s room.

  The small farmhouse was far from luxurious, and the combination of the grey day and grief made the room seem even smaller. Being there made her relive the horror of seeing Caleb’s tiny body under a burial shroud. She had sat with her friend for long days and nights since, trying to get her to eat.

  “Elisabeth.” Her friend came out, pale, gaunt, clutching a shawl around her shoulders.

  “Bethea,” Elisabeth said.

  “I heard.”

  “I promised to help you tell Kyle. Would you like to come with me? Paul is outside with the carriage.” There had been nothing but misery and dread for two months.

  “I can’t face him. How can I explain?” Tears leaked down Bethea’s cheeks.

  “I’ll be there with you.” Elisabeth dabbed her friend’s face with a hankie.

  Bethea took her cape off a hook near the door. Even after they ventured out into the daylight, the icy wind bore memories of both Caleb and Wilhemina’s deaths and cast a dark shroud over what should be a joyous homecoming. Elisabeth didn’t know Kyle well enough to know how he would react, and Bethea needed nothing less than total and unconditional love to heal.

  Paul helped the weakened woman into the carriage and tucked the blanket around her. She leaned on Elisabeth, and they set off for Breakwater Beach.

  Bethea insisted on waiting outside the carriage. Elisabeth and Paul supported her on each side while she swayed like a cattail in the cold wind. It seemed to take hours for the water to rise, though on summer days its rapid advance had stranded Elisabeth more than once. Her heart pounded with mixed anticipation and dread—certainly not the joy and relief she had expected to feel. Finally, the boats were lowered and loaded.