Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (39 page)

“The shawl, Thomas. I knitted a shawl for the baby,” Miranda explained, sitting gingerly on the edge of the mattress, arms stiff and fingers squeezing down tightly into the soft bed covers as another contraction forced her eyes shut and clamped her teeth. When she could breath easy again she looked at Tam who was rinsing his hands in the porcelain bowl on the mahogany washing stand. “When Sophie was put to my breast, she was not wrapped in the shawl. You must remember—”

“Yes. Yes, I remember,” Tam answered quietly and went down on his haunches before her. When she nodded, tears in her eyes, he swallowed hard and squeezed her hand. “But I don’t remember everything, Ma’am. To be honest, I’ve tried hard to forget that night ever happened.”

“So have I,” Miranda confessed. “But I never forgot your kindness. You—
we
were not more than children. No one should bear witness to such horrors. Have you since—”

“No. Never,” Tam said quickly. “I’ve assisted at other lying-ins but nothing so awful as that night.” He smiled, hoping to project confidence; inside he was a quaking mass of nerves. “This will be different. It will be as childbirth is: Painful and slow, because this is your first, but you and the baby will come through it. I promise.”

He straightened his legs as another contraction caused Miranda to cry out and put one hand to her belly. She moaned and when able to control her breathing said fearfully,

“I want to believe you, Thomas. But the pains are...
unbearable
... I am... I am so scared. So
very
scared.”

“Mr. Blackwell took the shawl,” Tam said, because it was true and to distract her from her fear.

“Charles Weir told me Mr. Blackwell is dead. Is he?” When Tam nodded, Miranda bowed her head. Tears dropped onto her stained chemise. “He was a good man, Thomas. A
very good
man.”

“Yes. Yes, he was, Ma’am,” Tam replied, tears welling up.

He quickly dashed a hand across his face and sniffed loudly. It would not do to start bawling like a baby! Where would her confidence in him be then? When she made motions to stand he was quick to help her up, an arm about her shoulders.

They shuffled about the room; from the four poster bed to the windowseat where Tam had drawn back the curtains and thrown up the sash windows to let in light and air; from the window seat to the wash stand and back to the bed. He could not be certain until he had examined her properly, but from past experience he reckoned the baby would not be born for many hours yet, if at all today.

He waited while she coiled in pain from another contraction, breathing ragged, and then quietened before he said gently,

“Mr. Blackwell wanted Sophie’s ma to be buried with something belonging to the baby. I heard him say so to Mr. Dobbs. You remember Mr. Dobbs?” he prattled on, trying to keep Miranda calm, as much as himself. “He was my master and an apothecary and when called to it, a man-midwife. He delivered many babies in St. Judes. I went with him many times. Mr. Blackwell said the shawl was something personal that would join mother to child. He didn’t want her buried alone. He said she could use the shawl in Heaven. So he took it.”

Miranda nodded, satisfied. “I am glad. He loved Miriam in spite of all her waywardness. He was a good father to her.”

“Father? Then she wasn’t your sister? She was Mr. Blackwell’s
daughter?
”

Another contraction and Miranda shuddered and groaned and clung heavily to Tam.

“Apologies, Ma’am. It’s not my place to ask. It’s just... If there is one thing I do remember clearly as if it was yesterday, it’s that the two of you were so alike. And when the babe needed nourishment she took to your breast and you were able to feed her. But if Mr. Blackwell was her father...”

“Your master—Dobbs? Dobbs encouraged me. He said that if I did not let the babe suckle it would die. He said all the wet nurses he knew were gin-soaked doxies.” She laughed at the memory and Tam did too. “I had forgotten that until now.” She smiled at Tam. “Your master was also a good man, Thomas.”

Tam felt tears prick his lids and he cursed himself for acting the girl; some fine apothecary he would make! He cleared his throat and nodded.

“Yes. Yes, he was. And a fine apothecary. None better.”

“Her name was Miriam. We grew up as sisters and for the longest time we believed we were natural sisters. We were so similar,” Miranda said, smiling at a memory, “that we could pass for one another, and did upon occasion. So close. So alike. But such different temperaments... We realized in our teens that for us to be sisters meant my father or my mother had had an affair. A singularly foolish thought. I know it is disrespectful, and you may be shocked by a daughter’s words, Thomas, but my mother is a cold-hearted unloving creature, and my father, if he had had children out of wedlock would certainly not have brought them home. And then, one day, Miriam confided in me that her father was Mr. Blackwell! Just like that, she told me. She had no knowledge of her mother, and Mr. Blackwell would not tell her, no matter how many times she pleaded with him. I would like to sit again, Thomas. And you must do what you must.”

“Yes, Ma’am, I must,” Tam apologized, voice steady, though her revelations about Mr. Blackwell sent his mind spinning. “If you would lie down this end of the bed with your head on the pillows where I have them arranged, I will examine you to determine how far along the babe is and when your maid returns with my medicine cabinet I’ll give you something for the pain. The physician—”

“
No.
No physician. ’Twas the physician who
killed
Miriam. If he had listened to your master... If Mr. Blackwell had not sent for a-a sawbones...”

“He was obliged to; he thought it was the right thing to do. She was so weak... Even Mr. Dobbs had given up hope... You can’t blame him for that. Two days of difficult labor—”

“But to cut into her the way he did... He
hacked
into her. He was bloody and brutal...” She lifted her head from the pillows to look over her rounded belly at Tam. “Promise me, Thomas. No physician.”

“I promise. But I will fetch a physician if your life or the babe’s life is threatened,” Tam stated bluntly. “Not to do so would be a breach of my duty and I will not break the oath I have taken.”

“He is not to cut into me. Not unless I am truly dead.
You
must make certain I am dead. Promise me.”

“Yes, Ma’am. I promise.”

Miranda let her head drop back onto the pillow, satisfied, and stared up at the pleated canopy above her head, trying not to think about Tam between her open legs, though she could not stop the blush to her cheeks. But the next contraction, more powerful than the last, dissolved her modesty and she screamed out and cursed long and loud in French.

“That’s the way, Ma’am,” Tam encouraged her. “Scream as loud as you please if it helps.”

Miranda managed a half-hearted giggle between pants.

“I am sorry, Thomas. Do you speak French?”

“Well enough to know that what you just said would turn a dowager’s ears puce, if that’s what you’re asking. Lord Halsey is an exceptional linguist and so I’ve managed to pick up a few choice French phrases.”

“Lord Halsey..?”

Tam was quick to see this as an invitation to prattle on about his history and how he came to be Alec’s valet, acutely aware how uncomfortable it must be for her with him in such intimate quarters, so he obliged her; anything to take her mind off the indelicacy of their present situation; anything to take his mind off the enormity of the task that was ahead of him.

When Janie came into the bedchamber it was to find Tam between her mistress’s wide-open legs. But what made her almost lose her grip on his travelling apothecary case was not the shock of the sight that presented itself to her, which was a shock indeed, it was that her mistress and the young apothecary were on such familiar speaking terms, as if it was the most natural thing in the world and they, conversing over a cup of tea and slices of bread and butter.

When Tam sat back, gently pulled a sheet up over her mistress’s bare legs and went to the basin to scrub his hands, Janie deposited the travelling apothecary case, and followed him.

“Is everything as it should be, Mr. Fisher?” she whispered.

“Yes. But she is not far enough along to begin pushing hard. There’s a ways to go yet.”

Janie nodded, a glance over her shoulder at Miranda who moaned quietly amongst the pillows. She emptied the dirty water into a pail and replenished the porcelain patterned bowl with fresh water to soak a cloth to place on Miranda’s forehead.

“I’ve had ale and a cold collation brought up for you. It’s in the sittin’ room. I thought you would prefer it there.”

“Thank you, Miss, that was very thoughtful.”

“It’s Janie. I thought you should know,” she said, unable to stop her face flaming, “there’s a handsome gentleman sittin’ in the sitting room windowseat. Black curls and looks like one of them statues Mr. Talgarth has in a jotter he showed me once. Do you know him?”

“A Greek statue?” Tam grinned. “Yes. That would be his lordship. Lord Halsey. I’ll give Mrs. Bourdon something to ease the pain and then I’ll step out and see his lordship for a moment but return directly. Will you be all right left alone with your mistress?”

“A’course! I’ve had the lookin’ after of her since—”

“No. No. I meant no offence, Janie. I just thought in the present circumstances—”

“Make up your potion and then go and eat, Mr. Fisher.”

“Thomas. Thomas,” Miranda called, thinking Tam about to leave the room when he disappeared from her line of sight. “I have another promise to ask of you...”

From the end of the bed, where he was rummaging in his apothecary cabinet, Tam looked up and nodded at Janie who was mopping Miranda’s head with a damp cloth, and said, “He’s listen’ to you, Ma’am. He’s makin’ you up a potion to help you with the pain.”

Miranda squeezed Janie’s hand and smiled at her, thus including her in her request when she said to Tam, “No one is to know the true sex of the child. You must pronounce the baby a girl. It matters not if it is a boy, you must say it is a girl. I beg you. For the sake of the baby. It’s what Mr. Bourdon would wish. Promise me, Thomas. Janie?”

Tam and Janie exchanged a worried look before both nodded in mute acceptance of a request both privately thought odd in the extreme yet Tam’s further verbal acceptance and Janie’s quick nod satisfied Miranda and she returned to staring at the quilted canopy above, tense with anticipation as to when the next contraction would seize her, praying the baby would come sooner rather than later.

“Have you been present at a delivery before, Janie?” Tam asked.

“A’course I have! I was there for two of me Ma’s lyin’-ins.”

Janie put a tumbler of cordial beside the apothecary case, a look over Tam’s shoulder, intrigued by its contents which were on display with the two little mahogany doors wide on their polished brass hinges. Two drawers were pulled out, both crammed with what she supposed were various medical instruments: candles, a small china dish, a folded brass weights and measure scale, and several small porcelain ointment pots. Tam removed the false back to the case revealing a secret compartment lined with small glass bottles of uniform shape and height, small labels carefully written up and tied with string about the glass stopper of each bottle read Mandrake, Mithridate, Laudanum, and Theriac; but to Janie, who could not read or write, the writing held no meaning. It was at the liquid she stared, some bottles were filled with herbs steeped in liquid, one was of white and blue porcelain, another clear glass; all were marked with a word in big red letters: Poison. She recognized the shape of this word. Aunt Rumble kept a bottle with just such a word on it in the back of the flour cupboard in the pantry.

When Tam selected a particular bottle and carefully droppered a measured dose into the cordial and swilled the tumbler gently so the medicine would dissolve Janie could not contain her curiosity or her trepidation; medicinals made her uneasy.

“What are you mixin’ in there, Mr. Fisher?”

“It’s called mithridate. It will ease her pain.”

Janie tried to sniff the tumbler. There was a mustardy smell about it. “What’s in mithri—mithri—What’s in it?”

Tam smiled at her tone; he didn’t blame her for being wary. “Too many ingredients to list. Opium, myrrh, ginger, cinnamon, and such. It’s standard fare for an apothecary to use it to help with pain. So don’t worry yourself it will cause your mistress harm.”

Janie took the tumbler when held out to her but did not move from the end of the bed. “It won’t make her sick, will it?”

“No. Just more restful,” he said calmly, securing the poisons by fixing the false wooden partition back into place on the apothecary case. When Janie still did not move he added in a voice he hoped held a note of sternness,

“If you want to help me help your mistress through this labor, Janie, you must do as I tell you.” And as if on cue, Miranda let out a great cry filled with pain and anguish and it sent Janie scurrying to her aid. “For God knows,” he said to himself as he closed over the cabinet’s mahogany doors, “I need all the help I can get.”