by Jane Steen
“It’s her belly.” I realized as the words emerged how stupid I sounded. Of course it was her belly—she was with child. “I mean, is this what it’s always like?” I could hear the tremor in my voice. “I don’t think it’s supposed to be like this. And she’s said the most awful things.” I pronounced the last words in a whisper, my eyes on the midwife. “I’ll tell you later.”
I turned toward Susan again as the girl let out another scream. I was standing so near to Fortier that turning brought the whole of the back portion of me into contact with him. For a brief moment, I felt his arms around me, holding me close. Then the sensation of warmth and reassurance was gone as he stepped back and to the side a little. I turned, following his movement, and looked up into his eyes.
“You don’t need to stay.” His voice was soft, almost caressing. “Mrs. Kenny and I will look after the poor girl.” He nodded at Guttridge, who was trying to help the midwife untangle Susan’s nightdress from the sheets. “Your maid too; she should go. To look after you.”
“I thank you, Monsewer, but I’d rather stay.” Guttridge’s reply was immediate and abrupt. “Unless you need me, my lady.”
“I also intend to stay.” I unbuttoned the cuffs of my black silk dress and rolled up my sleeves in imitation of the midwife. I was foolishly overdressed for the circumstances, I knew that—but I didn’t care. “I’m not leaving her, whatever happens.”
This time Fortier’s grip on my arms was stronger and more insistent. “My dear,” he hissed in a hoarse whisper close to my ear, “this is going to be more unpleasant than you can imagine. Messy, with much blood. And I don’t think we’ll save the child—maybe not the mother either.” He glanced over at the bed. “This is no place for a woman of gentle breeding.”
“To damnation with my gentle breeding.” I wriggled out of his grasp, my cheeks flaming at the endearment I couldn’t deny I’d heard. “Susan—and her child—are my responsibility, and I believe we still have things to say to each other. Will you please stop fussing about me and attend to them?”
I was fairly sure I heard Fortier utter an oath in French under his breath as he moved toward Mrs. Kenny. She was passing a hand over the top of Susan’s belly, muttering to herself, while Guttridge grasped Susan’s shoulders and tried to keep her still.
At Fortier’s approach, the midwife said something to him I couldn’t hear and then stepped back and looked at me.
“I need a clean sheet.”
She spoke as if I’d been a servant, but I didn’t care. What bothered me most at that moment was that I had absolutely no idea where a clean sheet might be located in my own house. I truly deserved the sobriquet “Baby.” I looked helplessly at Guttridge.
“You hold her, my lady.” Guttridge relinquished her post. “I think Mrs. Eason went to fetch clean sheets and water, but I can just get a sheet from the servants’ linen cupboard for now.”
“Two sheets.” Mrs. Kenny had started to pull the soiled fabric from under Susan, exposing the worn ticking of the mattress.
The linen cupboard must have been nearby as Guttridge was back in a moment. The midwife snapped the first sheet open and insinuated it under Susan’s body with considerable skill. I let go of Susan’s shoulders for a moment to help her. She then draped the second sheet over Susan’s legs, which she raised into a bent position before disappearing under the linen. Fortier took the midwife’s erstwhile place and ran his hands over Susan’s taut belly, his head on one side, for all the world as if he were listening with his fingers.
Susan yelped and twisted as Fortier’s hands moved. Mrs. Kenny emerged from under the sheet to give Fortier what I could best describe as a speaking look. Fortier turned to rummage in the large leather bag he had brought into the room, withdrawing a stethoscope. He hooked the shining metal ends into his ears and spent a few moments pressing the tube of the instrument to Susan’s belly.
I could see he was being as gentle as possible and thought Susan was making an effort to lie still. Her eyes were half-closed, her teeth clamped together, her face a sickly pale color. When he moved the instrument higher, she screamed again and raised her hand as if she would snatch the tube away.
Fortier gently grasped the hand to keep it from wrenching at the stethoscope and then turned it over to view the palm. With a gesture at Mrs. Kenny, who was waiting to speak to him, he let go of Susan’s hand and cupped his fingers around her chin.
“Open your mouth, please, Mademoiselle. I would like to see your tongue.”
Susan’s eyes opened a little wider, and she breathed out a puff of derision. But she stuck her tongue out as far as she could. Behind me, I heard Guttridge make a small sound of comprehension.
“She’s poxed, then, as well. Gawd Almighty, the little whore.”
I turned to look at my lady’s maid, startled as much by her language as by the realization that she understood a lot more than I did. The Frenchman simply looked at Guttridge with a tinge of wry amusement overlying his professional gravity. The expression was gone in a second, and he motioned the three of us to the door.
We stepped out into the cream-painted corridor. Fortier began to speak, fast and low so that Susan couldn’t hear.
“The child is almost certainly dead,” were his opening words. “She is bleeding inside. That’s what is causing her so much pain.”
“She’s having contractions—very short ones,” added Mrs. Kenny. “And close together, although she’s not nearly ready to give birth.” She pushed back the scant black curls that had escaped her topknot and attempted to pin them into place. “If she goes on like this for much longer . . .”
“She will die too.” Fortier nodded. “I propose a caesarean delivery to save her.” He shrugged slightly. “She may die anyway, you understand. Blood loss, shock, infection—her weakened state of health.”
“Guttridge said . . .” I didn’t know where to begin.
“She has a syphilitic infection.” Fortier’s voice was flat and expressionless. “It can be very hard to diagnose, but her pallor has made the rash on her tongue and hands more evident.”
“And the soles of her feet.” Mrs. Kenny shook her head. “It’s not often I hope the babe’s dead, but in this case—” She sighed heavily. “If you save her, she’ll die a worse death later.”
“And nevertheless, I must try. At the very least she won’t suffer the agony she’s in now.”
He was speaking to all of us, but his eyes were fixed on me, making me feel self-conscious. Now his gaze shifted to the midwife. “I have chloroform with me. That, too, has its dangers—in the circumstances it may stop the young woman’s heart—but I have studied the dosage well, and I only need a few minutes to do the work. I have morphine, heroin, cocaine—I can relieve her pain once the child is delivered in whatever way seems best.”
Mrs. Kenny nodded. “Just tell me what help you need.”
“And what are Guttridge and I to do?” I asked.
Fortier pinched the bridge of his nose. “I hesitate to place either of you ladies in danger,” was his eventual reply. “Especially you, Lady Helena.”
I lowered my gaze to avoid the tenderness I saw in his eyes. He took a deep breath and continued. “We don’t yet know the causative organism of syphilis, and there will be much blood and—other fluids. At least let me see your hands and arms so that I may be reassured you have no cuts or abrasions where infection may enter.”
We obediently held out our hands, mine looking small next to Guttridge’s. Fortier inspected them carefully, turning them with his fingertips. I couldn’t help looking up into his face; he was absorbed in his task, his luminous eyes hidden behind their lowered lids.
A noise at the end of the corridor coincided with a yell of pain from Susan, and our small group scattered in all directions. Mrs. Kenny hastened back to her patient while Guttridge, seeing Mrs. Eason approach with three housemaids in tow, all laden with various articles, darted toward them. I followed Fortier back into the room and touched his arm.
Fortier’s eyes widened. “She told you that?”
“Yes, and she says Farmer Hatherall wasn’t to blame.”
One thick black eyebrow rose in an expression that was decidedly ironic. “It takes two, Lady Helena.”
“She used some concoction of my mother’s, she said.”
A noise behind me made me turn to find Guttridge staggering under the weight of a pile of assorted linen. Obeying her jerk of the head, I stepped out of her way so she could deposit her load on the dresser. Behind her, Mrs. Eason stood guard over three huge pitchers of steaming water and a stack of enameled basins. More linen was in her hands. The housemaids were retreating down the corridor, talking in hushed voices.
Guttridge, having freed her hands, took something from Mrs. Eason and shook it out. It turned out to be a voluminous apron. She quickly tied it around my person, pleating it to make it shorter. She then pulled sleeve protectors, of the kind used by maids when cleaning, over my arms. To finish, she wound a length of cotton around my hair. Accustomed as I was to being dressed by Guttridge, it didn’t occur to me to object.
“Mrs. Eason,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster as Guttridge tucked in the last fold of cotton with a nod of satisfaction, “kindly send for the rector or one of his curates. Monsieur Fortier believes Susan’s life is in danger, and that of the child.”
“Certainly, m’lady. Are you sure you’ll be all right? Do you really want to do this?” She looked beyond me at Guttridge, who was rapidly donning a costume similar to the one in which she’d swathed me.
“I do.” And I did. The long years of numbness after Daniel’s death were gone. The shock of my more recent bereavement had evaporated, and even Susan’s terrible confession fell into insignificance in the face of the task before us. I felt the strength and curiosity and determination to help of my childhood return to me, rendering me oddly alive—and I could swear I saw a similar spark in Guttridge’s eyes. She was afraid, as was I—I could see the faint tremor in her hands, or perhaps that was merely excitement. It was clear that neither of us was about to turn tail and run.
24
A tiny moment of heroism
Time seemed to behave oddly from then on. It moved both much too fast and much too slow. It stretched and expanded, then snapped back into a sudden rush of sensations.
The one constant was Fortier, most decidedly in charge of the proceedings. At some point, he shed his coat and rolled his shirtsleeves as high as they would go, revealing surprisingly muscular arms stippled with a fine down of black hair. He made us wash our hands and arms with a bar of shiny red soap he said was his own preparation. Mrs. Kenny washed Susan’s belly and nether regions while I held a sheet to shield her modesty and Guttridge did her best to comfort her.
Susan did not seem receptive to any sort of comfort. The nature of her cries had changed; they were weaker yet just as angry. Strangely, her rage seemed to be directed at me. Whenever I looked toward her, I saw her eyes, once a luminous blue with gray centers but now muddy-looking, fixed on me with—what? Scorn? Hatred?
Fortier made some sort of preparatory arrangements using the windowsill and washstand while with part of my mind I tried to follow what he was doing. He concluded his preparations at about the same time Mrs. Kenny finished washing Susan. He moved around the bed until he could lean over Susan and speak directly to her.
“I will put a piece of gauze over your face, and you will sleep. This is so I can make a cut in your belly and remove the child. Do you understand? It’s the only chance of saving your life.”
Susan grimaced, and I saw the hard mound of her belly change shape as a contraction took her. When it had finished, she spoke.
“Seen Father do it to ewes when the lamb’s stuck.” She looked at me again, the same indefinable expression in her eyes. “I know a lot more about birthing than my lady there.”
“I’ll learn,” I said shortly.
“Why do you have to be here?” Susan asked. “You’re not beholden to me. You’re not family.”
“I wish to help.” I knew I sounded defensive. “I care for you and your child.”
“Care for?” Susan ran her tongue over her lips. “After what I’ve told you?”
“Yes.” I paused for a moment, searching for the right words. “I can’t change the past. You’re part of my household, you’re in pain, and I will care for you. Now and afterward. I won’t abandon you.” I spoke perhaps more out of the noblesse oblige everyone always flung at my head than from any other feeling, but I meant what I said.
“Well, if that doesn’t take the bloody biscuit.” Susan stared up at the ceiling and gave a muted bellow through gritted teeth as the pain took her again. Panting, she regarded Fortier, who was approaching with a dropper bottle in one hand, a gauze cloth wrapped around a curved frame in the other.
“I suppose I’m sorry about your husband, when all’s said and done.” She twisted her head away from the gauze so she could speak to me. “Father said he had a noble spirit, your man.”
“He did,” I whispered.
“That wasn’t Father’s fault either,” she said, and I looked at Fortier in puzzlement. What did she mean?
Fortier straightened up and very carefully set bottle and framed gauze on a chair. He looked over at Mrs. Kenny. “Would you leave us for two minutes?” he asked her, and as she complied—a little puzzled, naturally—he bent down to Susan again.
“One does not accidentally hold a man under water until he dies,” he said very quietly.
I felt my hands go cold and numb. Guttridge, whom Fortier had not asked to leave, stood still as a stone, only her eyes moving.
“Father was very sorry he did it; truly, he was.” Susan, too, spoke in an undertone. “He was terrified; that’s what he told me. Afterward, he realized Sir Justin would probably have done his best to make it right—given us the chance to go away or something like that. He said he was doubly damned for killing a good man. But he had to—he had to. And what I’d given Sir Justin in the cocoa made it easier. He sicked most of it up, but it weakened him.”
“What did you give him?” Fortier asked, as if this were an everyday conversation and he was displaying polite interest.
“Foxglove. Another of old Ma Broadmere’s potions, but I got the dose wrong. So Father had to help me because Sir Justin said I put something in his drink.”
I had been looking from one to the other in a daze, but now I found the strength to speak.
“You tried to kill Justin? Why?”
“Did he know, or suspect, about you and your father?” Fortier asked.
Susan, who had been squirming into a variety of positions, stilled for a moment.
“Not a bit of it. I just wanted to get my own back. All my chances of happiness were gone, so why shouldn’t she suffer?” She grinned at me, traces of browned blood visible among the mucus that coated her teeth. “All of you should suffer. All you damned Scott-De-La-Di-Da-Quincys, lording it over us from up high on your hills. It would’ve been you next.”
“You nasty, dirty little piece.” It was Guttridge who spoke—I was too shocked to utter a sound. “If you wasn’t dying already, I’d kill you with me own ’ands.” Her normally correct accent was disintegrating into pure Cockney. “What’s ’er ladyship ever done to you? There’s a special place in hell for you, I’ll be bound.”
“Maybe.” Susan’s expression turned malicious. “Your precious ladyship. Little she cares about either of us—never saw her for years after Ma Broadmere threw me out.”
“I do care.” My voice sounded weak and faint. “I just don’t understand.”
I barely had time to finish speaking before Susan screamed again, bringing Mrs. Kenny back into the room. The midwife’s expression was anguished as she looked at Fortier.
“You can’t put thi
s off any longer, sir.”
Fortier nodded, picking up gauze and bottle again. “Stand well away, ladies. I don’t want to render you unconscious by mistake.”
We all retreated as far as we could and watched as Fortier unstoppered the bottle. He held the gauze over Susan’s mouth and nose and with great care counted the drops he let fall onto the cloth. A sweetish smell perfumed the air, and we watched Susan’s eyelids flutter closed, her jaw relaxed at last.
Fortier called us back and stationed Guttridge near Susan’s head with instructions to watch her breathing and color with great care. She was to alert him if anything looked wrong. The midwife, with astonishing speed, inserted a thick pad of sheeting under Susan, straightened her inert body, and, at a word from Fortier, bared her belly while swathing a clean sheet over the anatomy below.
“Perhaps you shouldn’t look,” Fortier said to me and Guttridge as he lifted a small knife. “I don’t want either of you fainting.”
We looked. And we continued looking as Fortier did what seemed like horrible violence—although with great delicacy and precision—to the young woman’s body. He worked at an incredibly swift pace, his movements deft and assured.
“Is there always so much blood?” The question was forced out of me by a particularly nasty gush of watery red mixed with dark purple clots.
“It’s not all blood.” Fortier turned his head into his shoulder in an effort to wipe away the sweat that ran down the sides of his face. I instinctively grabbed at the nearest piece of clean linen—my apron—and awkwardly pulled one end up so I could wipe down his face as if he were a lathered horse.
“It’s fluid from the womb as well,” he continued as he emerged from my ministrations. “But far too much blood, you’re right about that. It’s difficult to tell how much she’s lost.”
As he said this, his hands disappeared inside the opening he’d made in Susan’s flesh. He rummaged around for a few seconds, reminding me of someone who’d dropped a pocket watch into a carpetbag full of clothing and was trying to find it.