Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [99]
She could wait no longer. It was not a decision to go in so much as a lack of the courage to bolt. She went after Tassie through the door, along a corridor so mean she could touch either side simply by extending her elbows, and up a steep stairway that creaked under her weight. Her uncertain way was lit not by gas but a wavering pool of candlelight carried only just ahead of her. She dared not imagine where she was going.
But the bedroom was desperately ordinary; thin curtains at the windows, sacking on the floor for carpet, a bare wooden table with a pitcher and bowl, and a large marital bed made tidy for the event. In it lay a girl of barely fourteen or fifteen, her face pale and tense with fear, her hair brushed off her forehead and lying in a damp tangle over her shoulders. She was obviously well into labor and in considerable pain.
On the far side of the bed stood a girl a year or two older and bearing so marked a resemblance they must have been sisters. Beside her, sleeves rolled up, ready to assist when the time should come but for now holding her hand, was Mr. Beamish’s curate, Mungo Hare.
A blinding realization came to Charlotte. It was all so obvious there was no question left to ask. Somehow or other Tassie had become involved in helping to deliver the babies of the poor or abandoned. Presumably it was Mungo Hare who had introduced her to this area of need. The idea of the pink and pious Mr. Beamish organizing such a thing was absurd.
And that quick, wholehearted kiss explained itself, and also explained Tassie’s compliant obedience with her grandmother’s command that she should be occupied in good works. Happiness bubbled up inside Charlotte. She was so relieved she wanted to laugh aloud.
But Tassie had no time for such emotions. The girl on the bed was going into another spasm of contractions and was racked almost as much by fear as by the pain. Tassie was busy giving orders to a white-faced youth in a cloth cap, presumably the urchin who had fetched her with the stone against the window, sending him for water and as much linen as he could find that was clean, perhaps to get him out of the room. Had it not been for the girl’s fear and the close possibility of death, Mungo Hare would also have been banished. Childbirth was women’s business.
Charlotte could remember her own two confinements, especially the first. The awe and the pride of carrying had given way to a primitive, mouth-drying fear when the pain came and her body began its relentless cycle which would end only when there was birth—or death. And she had been a grown woman, who loved her husband and wanted her child, and had a mother and sister to attend her after the doctor had done his professional work. This girl was barely more than a child herself—Charlotte had been in the schoolroom at her age—and there was no one to help her but Tassie and a young Highland curate.
She stepped forward and sat on the bed, taking the girl’s other hand.
“Hold on to me,” she said with a smile. “It will only hurt worse if you fight against it. And cry out if you want to—you are entitled to, and no one will mind in the least. It will all be worth it, I promise you.” It was a rash thing to say, and as soon as the words were out her mind half regretted them. Too many children were born dead, and even if it were perfect, how was this girl going to care for it?
“You’re very kind, miss,” the girl said between gasps. “I don’t know why you should take the trouble, I don’t.”
“I’ve had two myself,” Charlotte replied, holding the thin little hand more tightly and feeling it clench with another spasm of pain. “I know just how you feel. But wait till you hold your baby, you’ll forget all about this.” Then again she cursed her runaway tongue. What if the girl could not keep it, what if it went into adoption, or some anonymous orphanage, a charge on the parish to grow up in a workhouse, hungry and unloved?
“Me an’ me sister,” the girl answered her