Lady in the Mist - Laurie Alice Eakes [83]
“Everything is well.” Tabitha washed her hands yet again and examined the woman to ensure she still spoke the truth.
She did. This lying-in was progressing as it should. The woman’s pains were powerful, but not too much so. The baby lay in the correct position. When necessary, Marjorie’s body dilated, and little blood showed.
“We can’t predict these things too closely,” Tabitha assured her.
“I can.” The response emerged in a wail as a more powerful contraction racked the mother’s body.
“Oh?” Tabitha looked again. “Wonderful. I can see the head.”
“My husband’s a sailor. He was home for only three days last September.”
“Ah, yes, of course.” Tabitha straightened to smile at Marjorie. “That’s really all right then. It’s not too early.” She moved around to the side of the bed and wiped the other woman’s perspiring brow with a cool, damp cloth. “Only a few—”
Marjorie’s shriek interrupted Tabitha. She scooted to the end of the bed without a show of haste and lifted the sheet. “Yes, I see the crown. Now push.”
“I can’t. It—” More of the baby’s head appeared along with a gush of fluid. The shoulders caught. Marjorie screamed.
“Easy, easy.” Tabitha never raised her voice in the birthing chamber, no matter what the circumstances. “Another push . . . There.”
The wrinkled, red, slimy infant slid into her hands.
“A beautiful boy.” Quickly, but with movements so practiced she looked as though she worked with deliberate slowness, Tabitha wiped mucous from the baby’s mouth and nose, then gave him a quick smack on his bottom to set him breathing. All the while, she kept up a flow of talk. “Look at those shoulders. He’s going to be a big one. And those feet. My, are they ever big. There.”
The baby’s first mewing wail filled the room. For a moment, Tabitha held the infant close to her heart, never failing to marvel at the perfect fingers and toes in miniature. Her heart filled. Her womb ached with emptiness.
Then the mother, grandmother, and two of Marjorie’s sisters burst into the room. The mother whisked the baby from Tabitha’s hands and wrapped it in cloths warmed by the fire. One sister began to wipe Marjorie’s brow. The other sister poured a glass of water for the new mother, and the grandmother began to sing a psalm of praise. Love and joy filled the chamber as Tabitha took care of the least pleasant part of the birthing process—the afterbirth, cleaning up the new mother, and removing the oiled cloth spread out to protect the bed.
Then she was done. After only three hours of work, her mission was complete. Marjorie slept, her mother, mother-in-law, sisters, and grandmother protecting her and the newborn, who slept beside her.
“I’ll take my leave now.” Tabitha stood by the door, loath to interrupt the tableau. “If you have any difficulties, please send someone for me immediately.”
“We will, Tabitha.” Mrs. Denton, Marjorie’s mother, followed Tabitha into the hall and paid her. “As always, you did well.”
The baby began to cry.
“I must go. Thank you.” Mrs. Denton vanished into the bedroom.
Tabitha crossed the corridor to the room the ladies always provided for her. She washed and changed into the clean gown she always kept packed in her satchel. Then she hefted her bag and headed downstairs to let herself out the front door, to her solitary walk home, to the mist.
It lay like a chilly blanket over the village, droplets suspended in the air. Though she heard other people walking, a dog bark, and some chickens cackling, she felt the mist settling on her like her earlier burden—the staggering pain of her empty arms—isolating her from the world around her. This was the part of her work that hurt, the aftermath of the joy of birth. The new mother took her infant from Tabitha’s arms. Mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts, friends surrounded both of them.
And Tabitha went home alone.
She could marry Raleigh. She could marry him tomorrow and go home to him—if he didn’t take it into his head to wander again and leave her alone. Too many