A Laird for All Time (25 page)

Emmy handed Ian a glass of ice chips to feed to his wife before resuming her position at the end of the table.  No need to check for anything new just yet.  An examination five minutes before had shown her that nothing had changed.  Dory had been in labor for many hours already, nothing outlandishly long, but painful nonetheless.  What I wouldn’t give for an epidural, Emmy sighed as she wa
tched her new friend suffer.  Emmy wasn’t a fan of natural childbirth and had always been a promoter of drugs during childbirth.  To her way of thinking, it never did a mother any good to suffer through her ordeal or for a baby to arrive in this world to the screams of its mom.  A pain free labor allowed the mother to enjoy the aftermath so much more.

But there was nothing she could do for Dory.  Ether or laudanum, the only drugs readily at hand, would only cloud the minds of Dory and the babies and were likely to slow the labor.  Chloroform was effective – she remembered that Queen Victoria had given birth to two of her babies with
the use of chloroform - but it could be fatal.

Emmy took up the vintage stethoscope and listened carefully again, hoping the babies weren’t in any distress.  She had seen labors
last longer, much longer, but with Dory’s water already broken and the fact that she was carrying twins, Emmy was starting to worry. 

An hour of having Dory walk the room had done little to speed things along.

“You know, Ian,” she began nonchalantly. “You’ve been up here a long time.  Nothing is going to happen soon.  Why don’t you go get something to eat?”

“I’m
nae hungry,” he replied, squeezing Dory’s hand, who in turn looked up at Emmy with pleading eyes.

“Well, I am,” Emmy continued.  “Maybe you could get something for me?”

“Call a maid,” was his terse response.

Emmy raised her brows and mouthed ‘okay’ to herself.  Going to the door, she opened it to find Connor in a chair he had pulled into the hallway.  He was reading a paper and drinking a cup of tea.   “Connor?”
She waggled a finger as  he rose and came closer.

“Is everything all right?  I’ve heard her crying out.”  On closer inspection, she noted his pallor.  What a sport.

She grabbed him by the shirtfront and pulled him down to meet her face-to-face.  “I need you to get your brother out of here,” she hissed.

“Why, is something wrong?” he said, a worried look appearing on his face.

“He is driving us crazy!” she bit out.  “I might just have to cosh him over the head if he doesn’t stop fussing.  I have never seen a father act like such a ninny before.”

Connor released a breath and allowed himself a chuck
le.  “That is why men should ne’er be allowed in the room during childbirth.”

“I always have the fathers present when possible, but he’s just getting on my nerves and Dory’s as well,” she insisted.  “Please help?  Get him outside for a while or feed him.  Something!”

It took several minutes to get Ian to leave but Emmy was finally able to shut the door behind him with a sigh.  She leaned back against it and shared a look with Dory across the room.  “Thank God,” Dory panted against the pain, “I thought you’d never get him to leave!”

Emmy, Susan and Margo all shared a laugh as Emmy went back over to her delivery area.  She examined Dory again briefly and found no change in the dilation. 

“There is something wrong, isn’t there?” Dory asked through gritted teeth an hour later when what seemed like Emmy’s hundredth exam was followed with a frown.

“No, no,” Emmy soothed, “not wrong, it’s just not going as fast as I would like, Dory.  You’ve had no change in dilation at all and there is nothing here that I can use to make that happen quicker.  Babies just like to be born quickly and sometimes a mother’s body can’t keep up with that.”

“So what do we do?”

“We need to get them out, Dory,” Emmy told her in a low voice. 

“But they won’t come out! Oh, God,” Dory moaned as another contraction started.  “It’s punishment, that’s what it is.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Emmy scolded lightly, used to the ravings of a woman in labor.  “I’m sure you’ve never done a thing in your life to be punished for.  It just takes time.”

“Yes, I have!” she wailed as the contraction peaked and started to fade away.  “I don’t deserve healthy babies.”

Emmy watched the tears pour down Dory’s face.  She had been in hard labor for more than half the day and was worn out.  She was obviously nearing delirium.  She would never have the strength to push for hours if necessary when the time came.  And oddly, where most women blamed a husband for getting them in such a condition by this point, Dory appeared determined to take the blame on herself.  That wasn’t going to help at all.  The moment Dory felt defeated was the moment they lost the entire battle.

Making the decision, Emmy moved to the woman’s side.  “Dory, I want to perform a caesarean section.  Do you know what that is?”  Emmy spoke in her most professional voice.

“You want to cut them out,” Dory panted and moaned.  She nodded.  “It’s all right; I don’t deserve to live.  Save my babies any way you can.”

“Well, I don’t plan on you dying,” Emmy said sternly.  “So stop thinking that way, will you please?  I have never lost a mother during delivery and you won’t be the first.  I will deliver your babies and you will be around to see them when I’m done.  Understood?”

Dory’s eyes focused on her face and she frowned in confusion.  “I’ve never heard of a woman surviving a birth that way.”  Her eyes were huge with fear.

“Well, we do it all this time where I come from so you’ll just have to trust me.  Can you do that?” Emmy asked.

Dory hesitated but nodded through her pain.  “This is God’s punishment for my sins,” she wailed as another contraction convulsed her body.  “I have sinned against Him and He is taking His revenge on me,” she rasped out, near exhaustion.

“Dory!”  Emmy patted her cheeks and got her attention.  “A little positive thinking wouldn’t be amiss at this point.  Stop thinking about yourself and focus on your babies, okay?”  She turned to Margo and Susan who hovered nearby to help her, their faces drawn with distress.  “I’ll be right back; I need to talk to Ian.  Take this and these,” she pulled a scalpel, a needle and some clamps from the medical bag.  “Boil them while I’m gone and get some freshly washed bandages, too.”

Emmy found Connor and Ian in the study.  Ian was pacing frantically in front of the fireplace, his hair standing on end.  Wary of approaching such a hysterical looking father with the news that she was about to cut his wife open, she  caught Connor’s eye and indicated that he should come outside.

“Are the bairns delivered?” he asked but frowned when she shook her head and told Connor what she planned to do.  He nodded gravely.  She had spoken about the possibility before and he had promised to keep Ian away.  “This is it then?  What ye think Donell was speaking of?”

“I knew it was going to happen,” she confessed.

“How is Dory?”

“She’s a trouper but she’s losing it, I think.  Keeps trying to beat herself up about something she thinks she’s done.”  Emmy embraced Connor and turned to go back to her patient.

“I wish I could give you something for the pain, Dory,” Emmy said, her voice muffled by the cloth she had tied across her mouth.  There was some chloroform available that the doctor had left behind at some point, she had been told.  But in all honesty, Emmy wasn’t sure how to use it.  It wasn’t something they taught anymore and she didn’t want to end up killing Dory with too much.  There was just no time to wait for the doctor.  Susan and Margo pulled their cloths over their faces as well though they did not understand why and Emmy had little time for explanations.  “It’s going to hurt.”

“It already hurts!” Dory moaned weakly.

“I know,” Emmy patted her hand and looked about her, making sure she had everything she needed.  She was nervous and sweating herself.  Emmy didn’t want to have to do this but knew there was no choice.  “Ready?”

“I need a priest,” Dory gasped, bracing herself.

“You don’t need a priest.”  Emmy nodded to Margo and Susan, who took Dory by the shoulders and legs to keep her still, and cut.

Mercifully, Dory fainted.

Emmy looked down at the two infant boys, unable to stifle a smile.  One was bright red all over from screaming while the other stared up at her with as much fascination as she gazed back at him.  Two wonderful, healthy – and fully developed
, if small – babies were a fair trade for any amount of pain suffered, she thought.  She reached and caressed a downy cheek.  Perfect, each one, with heads of thick dark hair.  Emmy was certain that Dory had been a bit off in her calculations.  These boys were no premmies.

If Donell’s hints about second chances were the true reasons for her time travel and her interpretation was right, her work here was done.  She had saved Dory and her sons.  There was little doubt in Emmy’s mind that Dory would have died without the surgery.  It may have taken a day or more, but the babies would never have delivered naturally and all three would have perished.  If she had been brought here to save them, then she was finished and could return home.

Since nothing had happened yet, Emmy was left wondering.  Damn!  Where had Donell disappeared to?

Ian came into the room and rushed to his sons with a joyful
shout. He stroked their cheeks and hands but looked terrified when Emmy suggested he pick one up, although the two nursemaids Dory had hired encouraged him to do so.  Instead he just looked down at them with awe and wonder.

Turning, Emmy went back to her main patient and checked Dory’s pulse as she slept the sleep of the exhausted.  Dory had roused herself not long after her faint and had gone on and on as though she were in a confessional, begging forgiveness for her sins and such.  It had gotten to the point that Emmy could barely make out her words, so incomprehensible were they.  She had concentrated on delivering the babies, handing them off in turn to Susan and Margo to bathe and wrap.  As she had been stitching the incisions though, she thought Dory had said something in her semi-conscious delirium that had stopped Emmy in her tracks.

Now she stared down at Dory in confusion as she had in that moment before she had recalled herself and continued her work.  Could she have possibly meant what she said or had she been hallucinating?  Emmy studied Dory’s face, its similarities to her own and wondered if she had heard correctly and, if she had, what it meant to everyone in this house.

“Is she going to be all right?” Connor whispered, coming to stand by her side.

“I think so,” Emmy sighed and leaned back against him.  “She’ll need to take it easy for a long time and hope there is no infection.  I have a few Tylenol in my bag I can give her for a fever, but there’s not much I can do for the pain.  Did you see the boys?”

He grunt
ed noncommittally.  “They’re nae much to look at.”

Emmy gaped at him.  “How can you say such a thing?  They are beautiful!”

“Ye’re beautiful,” Connor dropped a kiss on her forehead.  “I am so proud of ye.  Ye look worn out, though.  Should ye get some rest?  Ye’ve been in here for almost a whole day.”

“I am beat,” she admitted, “and hungry.  Maybe we could raid the kitchens before we go to bed?”

“I will ha’ Chilton send someone up with a tray.”

“Dory needs someone to sit with her as well,” she told him.  “I sent Margo and Susan to bed a while ago.”

“I will have Chilton send someone up to sit wi’ her.”

“What about Ian?”

“Shall I send Chilton up to see to him as well?” Connor teased.  “Our valet will see that he gets some rest.  He mothers Ian excessively.”  McBride, the men’s shared valet, had been with them since they were boys, Connor had told her, but Emmy had not seen hide nor hair of the man since she had been at Duart.  She often wondered where he hid himself.

Emmy looked back at Dory and finally nodded.  She turned and went over to where Ian stood by the bassinet the two babies shared.  “What do you think?”

“They are amazing,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.  “Thank you, Em.  Connor told me what ye had to do.  Thank ye for saving their lives and my wife’s.”

Emmy gave him a tired smile.  “Just fulfilling my destiny,” she told him, wondering again if it were true and if she would wake up in the morning back in her own bed in Baltimore.  “If Dory wakes, do not allow her to move around, she might rip her stitches.  The babies will probably fuss as well
…”

“We have a full nursery staff ready for them,” he assured her and she nodded.

“I’ll be back to check on her in the morning.”

He leaned over a
nd kissed her cheek.  “Thank ye,” he repeated.

“You’re welcome.”

Emmy ate by rote when returning to her room, and bathed quickly before climbing into bed to wait for Connor.  What if this was it? she thought again.  What if in giving Dory and her children a chance at life, I am done here?  What if Connor had absolutely nothing to do with it?  But didn’t he deserve a second chance too?  What else was she to do?

Emmy didn’t want to wake up in the morning and have it all be gone.  Connor slid into bed and Emmy rolled into him, clutching him desperately.  “Tell me again how it is my destiny to stay here with you,” she begged.  “Tell me you won’t let me go
…”