Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [43]
“It’s my responsibility to do so.” Tabitha approached the bed. “Everyone out of here. I need hot water and strong soap and all the cloths you’ve prepared for the baby.”
No one moved.
“Now.” Gently she nudged Abigail away from the bedside and clasped Sally’s hand. “I’m the midwife. I’m here to help you, but you’re going to have to help yourself too.”
“I can’t do this.” Sally’s fingers squeezed Tabitha’s hard enough to crunch them together.
Ignoring the pain she’d felt more than once in her career, she smoothed damp hair from the girl’s brow. “I’m afraid you’ll have to, child. You got yourself into this fix, and now you’re the only one who can get yourself out of it.”
“You shouldn’t talk to her that way,” Mrs. Belote protested. “She’s frightened.”
“Of course she is.” Tabitha gave the mother a hard stare. “I didn’t have time to prepare her or examine her to ensure things were going well. Now leave the room so I can do so.”
“You’ll bully her.” Though her tone was harsh, her chin quivered.
So the mother was scared too.
Tabitha softened her tone. “Ma’am, I have to find out who the father is. It’s required of me. But I promise to go about it as gently as possible. Now, if you please, get the things I need.”
“Don’t just stand there,” Mrs. Belote snapped, turning her anxiety on the servants, “do what Miss Eckles ordered.”
The maid and cook fled.
“Now you, Momma,” Tabitha said with a smile.
“But . . . my baby.”
“Will be in good hands, Mrs. Belote,” Reverend Downing said from the doorway. “Tabitha has delivered more babies than you’ve probably seen in your lifetime.”
“And the last one di—” Mrs. Belote slapped her hand over her mouth.
Tabitha felt sick. Even this far away Wilkins had managed to malign her skill.
“Sally will be—” A shriek from the girl drowned out Downing’s words.
Hands to her ears, Mrs. Belote charged for the door. From the color of her face—a pea green—she looked as though she might be better off keeping her hands over her mouth to hold in the sickness.
Downing slipped out behind the mother and closed the door.
“Whew.” Tabitha heaved a sigh of relief and gave her patient her full attention. “As soon as they bring me hot water so I can wash my hands, I’ll give you a thorough examination. That means I’m going to . . .” She proceeded to explain exactly what she was going to do to see what was going on with Sally and the baby. Some of her explanations had the girl staring bug-eyed and gasping instead of screaming as her womb contracted.
“That’s . . . that’s . . . indecent,” she croaked.
“Not at all.” Tabitha tried to keep her tone light. “I’m specially trained. Women in my family have been midwives for generations.” Tabitha frowned. Labor was intense, but this looked worse than usual. She feared a breech. If she couldn’t turn a breech, few babies and nearly as few mothers survived.
But you’re good at turning babies, she reminded herself.
She began to manipulate Sally’s belly through the sheet since she hadn’t yet washed her hands, a stricture passed down through the generations of Eckles women. From what she could feel externally, all was not well.
“Sally,” Tabitha asked, “when did your pains start?”
“In the morning. Right after breakfast. It made me sick.”
Tabitha glanced at the clock on the mantel. Nearly twenty-four hours ago, and no one had thought to tell the midwife.
Please, God, don’t let anything go wrong because—
Realizing she was praying, she stopped and, her hands on Sally’s belly, looked her patient in the eye. “Who is the father, Sally?”
Sally closed her eyes.
“You have to tell me.”
“No.” Sally’s abdomen contracted, and the girl cried out. “Help me.”
“I can’t until you tell me who the father is.”
The girl called her a rather rude name.
Tabitha set her jaw. She’d been called worse by laboring mothers and husbands alike.
“Who is—”
Cookie slipped in with a copper can, steam rising from the top. Abigail followed, her arms loaded with clean cloths.
“I’m to stay and help,” Cookie said. “Abigail be too young to watch.