Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [41]
“We have a number of ways you and your maid can occupy yourselves before Sally’s time comes.” Mrs. Belote gestured toward the windows shrouded in heavy, dark draperies. “We have outdoor servants, but perhaps you know more about gardening than they seem to.”
Tabitha exchanged a half-irritated, half-amused glance with Patience. “Quite a bit, ma’am.”
She understood clearly that she was to make herself useful, rather than amuse herself, sit about resting, and eat their food for nothing.
If Tabitha prayed anymore, she would have asked the Lord to set the unknown—and unmarried—Miss Sally Belote into labor sooner rather than later.
If Tabitha had prayed that prayer, she would have been disappointed in the lack of an immediate response. Which was why she didn’t vex herself with praying and expecting answers. God simply didn’t listen to her.
Nor did any of the Belotes. Tabitha discovered that she was supposed to remain invisible to the family, including the patient she was intended to deliver of a healthy infant—
presumably. The girl seemed to be confined to her bedchamber. Mr. Belote owned several coastal trading crafts and spent most of his time cruising from New York to Baltimore to Norfolk. He was home, but Tabitha caught only glimpses of a slight, quiet man with a pinched face that should have been darkened by the sun if he were a typical man of the sea, but which appeared pale. Tabitha suspected he was ill, but she couldn’t treat him if he didn’t request it. Perhaps he used the services of a man in town for himself but not his disgraced daughter.
So, while Tabitha fretted at being away from home for so long, leaving her patients without a medical person close, and while no doubt her own plants grew weedy, she and Patience worked in the kitchen garden, weeding and harvesting herbs and vegetables. They earned remarks of gratitude from Abigail, the maid of all work, and her mother, Cookie, a chubby, cheerful woman who looked too young to have a daughter of at least sixteen. The women made better companions for meals than Tabitha suspected the Belotes would have.
Two days into their stay, Tabitha spotted Reverend Downing strolling along the beach, his head bowed and his hands clasped behind his back. Despite grass stains around the hem of her plain gray gown, she straightened her straw hat atop her coiled hair and headed in a path that would intersect the pastor’s out of sight of the house.
He glanced up at her approach, noisy through the tall sea grass, and smiled. “How good to see you, Tabitha. I arrived a bit ago and am sorry you’re being treated like . . .”
“One of the slaves?” She shrugged. “Abigail and Cookie are lovely women, and Patience is more my friend than my paid servant. I don’t in the least mind remaining in their company.” She fell into step beside the pastor. “But I’d like to see my patient, examine her to see if she truly is ready to deliver.”
“She is.” Downing looked out to sea, his face a bit flushed above his stiff collar. “She knows exactly when . . . er . . . it must have occurred, and her mother has calculated from there based on her own experience.”
“Then she’s probably right. Still . . .” Realizing Downing wasn’t comfortable discussing a female condition with a young woman, she turned to less physical aspects of the situation. “So they sent for you from afar, as they sent for me?”
“They’re trying to preserve the family honor and hers.” Downing scowled. “I suspect more for the Belote shipping interests than . . . Well, I suppose I shouldn’t speculate on that score.”
Her own conclusions running along the same lines, Tabitha let the matter drop. “Are they keeping Miss Belote confined?” she asked instead. “Or is she remaining secluded voluntarily?”
“I’m afraid they’re keeping her confined.” Downing’s jaw hardened. “Mrs. Belote says they will until she tells them who the father is.”
“They don’t know?” Tabitha’s heart sank. “Sir, you know I have