A Good Woman (25 page)

She writhed with each contraction, clutching at the sheets. She saw the sun come up at dawn, and was bleeding heavily by then. The pains were agonizing, and she was beginning to feel as though she were drowning and might die. It made her think of the horror stories Hortie had told her, and the terrible births she had endured. She was just beginning to panic when Florine appeared in her bedroom doorway. She had heard her from downstairs, and ran up the stairs. Annabelle was lying in bed looking wild-eyed, unable to speak with the pain that had gone on all night. She had been in labor for eight hours.

Florine walked quickly into the room, and gently lifted the covers from her, and spread old sheets under her that they had put aside for this purpose. She made gentle cooing sounds to Annabelle and told her things were going well. She looked and said she could see the baby’s head.

“I don’t care,” Annabelle said miserably. “I want it to come out…” She let out a scream then, as the baby seemed to move forward for an instant, and then back. Florine ran downstairs to find Gaston, and told him to bring the doctor quickly. But nothing she was seeing alarmed her, it was going well. And she knew from other births she’d seen that it could go on for a long time. The worst was yet to come, and the spot of the baby’s head she saw was no bigger than a small coin.

Annabelle lay in bed crying, as Florine bathed her forehead in lavender-scented cool cloths, and then finally Annabelle wouldn’t even let her do that. She wanted no one to touch her, and she was crying out in pain. It seemed a lifetime before the doctor came. He had been at another birth, with a woman having twins. He came to Annabelle at two in the afternoon, and nothing had progressed, although the pains were getting worse.

He looked very pleased when he checked her, after he washed his hands. “We’re doing very well,” he said, encouraging his patient, who was screaming with every pain. “I think we’re going to have a baby here by dinnertime.” She looked at him in utter panic, knowing she couldn’t stand another minute of the agony she was in. And finally, as she sobbed miserably, he asked Florine to prop her up on pillows and then brace her feet. Annabelle was fighting them every inch of the way and calling for her mother, and the doctor spoke to her sternly then and told her she must work. The top of the baby’s head was much bigger now, and again and again he told Annabelle to push. She finally fell back on her pillows, too exhausted to do it again, and with that he told her to push even harder than before and not stop. Her face turned beet red as suddenly the top of the baby’s head came through, with a tiny wrinkled face, as Annabelle screamed, and looked down at the child emerging from her womb.

She pushed with all her might, and finally there was a long thin wail in the room, and a tiny face with bright eyes looking at them, as Annabelle laughed and cried, and Florine exclaimed in excitement. The baby lay in a tangle of tiny arms and legs amid the cord, as the doctor cut it, and Florine wrapped the baby in a blanket and handed her to her mother. It was a girl.

“Oh…she’s so beautiful!…” Annabelle said with tears streaming down her cheeks. The tiny little being was perfect, with exquisite little features, graceful limbs, and tiny hands and feet. The doctor had been right, and it was just after six o’clock, which he said was very quick for a first child. Annabelle couldn’t stop looking at her, and talking to her as the doctor finished his work. Florine would clean Annabelle up later, and for now they covered her with a blanket. And with infinite tenderness, Annabelle put the baby to her breast, with perfect maternal instinct. The tiny angel in her arms was the only relative she had in the world, and had been worth every instant of pain, which seemed insignificant now.

“What are you going to call her?” the doctor asked her, smiling at them, sorry for her that she was a widow, but at least she had this child.

“Consuelo,” Annabelle said softly, “after my mother,” and then she gently bent down and kissed the top of her daughter’s head.

Chapter 19

T
he baby was perfect in every way. She was healthy, happy, easy for her mother to manage. She was like a little angel fallen to earth that had landed in her mother’s arms. Annabelle had never expected to love this baby so much. Any ties to the father who had spawned her vanished at the moment of her birth. She belonged to Annabelle and no one else.

Annabelle went to visit Dr. Graumont at the medical school in July, just after the Second Battle of the Marne began. The death toll had continued to mount shockingly since Annabelle had left Villers-Cotterêts. And once Consuelo was born, she realized that she couldn’t go back to the front. She didn’t want to take the baby with her, be away from her so much, or risk her exposure to illnesses or epidemics. Although she felt guilty for no longer helping the war effort, Annabelle knew her place was with her baby now. Florine had offered to keep her for Annabelle if she did go to the front, but she couldn’t bear to be away from the baby for an hour, let alone leave her for months with someone else. So she had decided to stay in Antibes, for the time being.

She still wanted to go to medical school, and hoped she could arrange to return. She had her story firmly in place when she went to see Dr. Graumont. She told him she had married a British officer shortly after she got to Villers-Cotterêts. They had kept it secret from his family until they could go to England to announce it, and before they could, he had been killed. And because no one knew of the marriage, she had decided to keep her own name, particularly as her family had no heirs now, so she didn’t want to give up the Worthington name, to honor them. It was a stretch, but he appeared to believe her, or was willing to accept whatever story she told. He said the baby was beautiful, and agreed to let her use a small cottage on the grounds for the baby and herself when she returned for the beginning of the next term in September. There were nine students at the medical college, and three new ones who were starting in September. Sadly, he told her that seven of her original classmates had died since they all left. He was relieved to find Annabelle healthy and hearty, and more beautiful since the birth. She looked even more womanly now, and had turned twenty-five that spring. She was clearly prepared to undertake her studies again, and undaunted that she would be thirty by the time she graduated and was fully a doctor. All she wanted now was to get started. The beginning of the term was only six weeks away.

She decided to keep the house in Antibes to go to whenever possible. But she needed someone to take care of Consuelo when she was in class, so she hired a young girl, Brigitte, to stay with them. The three of them would live in the cottage Dr. Graumont had assigned her, for a nominal fee. Everything was falling into place.

And on the appointed day in September, Annabelle, the baby, and Brigitte arrived at the château. They settled into the cottage, and Annabelle began classes the next day. It was more exciting than ever for her, and she was happier than she had ever been. She had Consuelo, whom she loved so dearly, and she was steeped in her studies of medicine again. And working at the hospital in Nice was easier for her now. After all she had learned at the Abbey, and at the hospital in Villers-Cotterêts, as a medic, she was far advanced from where she had been when she left.

The war raged on through September, and at the same time, a fearsome epidemic of influenza began that raged in both Europe and the States, decimating civilians and military personnel alike. Thousands, especially children and old people, were dying.

And finally, at the end of the month, French and American troops began the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Within days General Douglas Haig’s forces stormed the Hindenburg Line and broke through it. Six days later Austria and Germany contacted President Wilson to request an armistice, as British, American, and French forces continued to crush the opposition and turn the tide. The fighting continued for five more weeks, during which Annabelle and her classmates at the medical college could talk of nothing else.

At last, on November 11, at eleven
A.M.
, the fighting stopped. The war that had ravaged Europe for more than four years and cost fifteen million lives was over.

Annabelle stood holding her baby when she heard the news, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Chapter 20

W
ith the war over, people began to drift back to their normal lives. Soldiers returned to their hometowns, married the women they had left there, or new ones they had met in the years since. They returned to their former lives and jobs. The maimed and injured were seen everywhere on the streets, on crutches, in wheelchairs, with missing or artificial limbs. It sometimes seemed as though half the men in Europe were crippled now, but at least they were alive. And those who didn’t return were mourned and remembered. Annabelle often thought of her old classmates who hadn’t come back. She missed Marcel every day, and even Rupert, who had tormented her so mercilessly in her first months at the château, and had become such a kind friend in the end.

New arrivals appeared regularly, and there were sixty students at the château by spring, earnest, determined, wanting to become doctors and serve the world. Annabelle remained the only woman student, and everyone was in love with Consuelo. She had a first birthday party shared by sixty-one adoring medical students, and walked for the first time the next day. She was everyone’s darling, and even touched the heart of the sometimes stern Dr. Graumont. She was seventeen months old as her mother began her third year of medical studies. Annabelle was particularly careful to keep her away from strangers, as the fierce worldwide influenza epidemic raged on. By then several million people had already died.

The medical school became the perfect home for both Annabelle and Consuelo, with sixty loving uncles fussing over her every chance they got. They brought her little presents, played with her, and one or the other of them was always holding her or bouncing her on their knee. It was a happy life for her.

Annabelle eventually had to give up the house in Antibes, when the owners decided to sell it, and she was sad to say good-bye to Gaston and Florine. But Brigitte stayed with them, and the cottage on the château grounds was comfortable enough for them.

Once in a while, as she watched Consuelo flourish, Annabelle thought of contacting the viscount’s family. Now that she had her own child, she wondered if his parents would want some sort of last link to their son through his daughter. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it. She didn’t want to share Consuelo with anyone. The baby looked exactly like her, as though no one else had contributed to her birth. Everyone who saw her said that she was the portrait of Annabelle in every way.

The years of Annabelle’s medical studies drifted past her at lightning speed. She was so busy and engaged in what she was doing that it felt as though in the blink of an eye it was over, although she had worked so hard to get there.

Annabelle turned thirty the month she graduated from Dr. Graumont’s medical college as a physician. And Consuelo had just turned five in April. Leaving the college, and the cottage where they had lived, was like leaving home again. It was both exciting and painful. Annabelle had decided to go to Paris, and had applied for an association with the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris Hospital near Notre Dame on the Île de la Cité. It was the oldest hospital in the city. She was planning to open an office of general medicine. She had always hoped to work for Dr. de Bré, but he had died the previous spring. And her last tie with home had been severed a month before she graduated. She got a letter from the president of her father’s bank, to tell her that Josiah had died in Mexico in February, and Henry Orson shortly afterward. The man who handled her affairs at the bank thought she would want to know and had enclosed a letter Josiah had left for her. Josiah had been forty-nine years old.

His death, and his letter, brought a flood of memories back to her, and a tidal wave of sadness. It had been eight years since he had left her, and she had come to Europe, seven since their divorce. The letter from him was tender and nostalgic. He had written it close to the end. He said he had been happy in Mexico with Henry, but that he always thought of her with love, and regret for the terrible things he had done to her, and that he hoped she had found happiness too and would one day forgive him. As she read it, she felt as though the world she had grown up in and shared with him no longer existed. She had no ties to any of it anymore. Her life was in France, with her baby, and her profession. Her bridges had long since been burned. The only thing she had left in the States was the house in Newport, which had stood empty for eight years, still tended by her parents’ loving servants. She doubted she would ever see it again, but hadn’t had the heart to sell it yet, and she didn’t have to. Her parents had left her more than enough to live on and assure Consuelo’s future and her own. One day, when she got up the courage, she would sell their old summer cottage. She just couldn’t bring herself to do it yet. Just as she couldn’t bring herself to contact the errant viscount’s parents. She and Consuelo existed in their own world alone.

It was painful leaving the medical college and the friends she’d made there. All of her fellow graduates were dispersing to various parts of France. Many were staying in the South, and she had never been close to the only one going to Paris. For all the years she’d been in Europe, she had made no romantic alliance. She was too busy working for the war effort, and then with her studies and her daughter. She was a dignified young widow, and now she would be a dedicated doctor. There was no room in her life for anything else, and she wanted it that way. Josiah had broken her heart, and Consuelo’s father had destroyed the rest. She wanted no man in her life, and no one other than her daughter. Consuelo, and her work, were all she needed.

Annabelle and Consuelo took the train to Paris in June with Brigitte, who was thrilled to go to the city with them. Annabelle hadn’t been to Paris in years, and it was a bustling city now. They arrived at the Gare de Lyon station, and took a taxi to the hotel on the Left Bank where Annabelle had made a reservation. It was a small establishment Dr. Graumont had recommended to her, which was suitable for two women and a child. He had cautioned her about the dangers of Paris. Annabelle noticed that their cab driver was Russian, and had a distinguished look. Many of the noble White Russians were in Paris now, driving taxis, and working at menial jobs, after the Bolshevik Revolution and the murder of the czar’s family.