Silver Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #1) (14 page)

             
"It is.  I'm going to be making my dress, but I'd welcome any advice."

             
Her eyes took on the feverish gleam of the truly obsessed and for the next quarter hour, she filled my ears and my head with details I couldn't possibly remember and suggestions for things I couldn't possibly accomplish, and accosted strangers to ask their opinion of fabrics, buttons, threads, and flosses. 

             
It was a lovely quarter hour, interrupted by a sudden shout from the doorway.  I was standing, by then, in a clutch of women, from grandmothers to girls, all of them offering thoughts on one thing or another to do with my wedding, when a man appeared, sudden and loud, calling in.

             
"Is Jennie here?"

             
"She's gone for the day, visiting friends in Dayton," the shop keeper called back and then, "Oh, Lord, Frank, it isn't Caroline's time, is it?"

             
Panic, as complete as that washing over the man named Jack, washed over me.  I couldn't.  Not after what had happened.  Not just when I'd found a place where, however temporarily, I belonged.  I bit my lip, ready to speak.

             
"What about the doctor?" one of the women called.  She was graying, older, already hustling toward the door.

             
"I've called for him, he'll probably come but she wants a midwife, she's scared, it's her first," which everyone there, nodding, seemed to already know.  "Thank you," he was already withdrawing from the doorway, "I'll go and find – "

             
"I'm a midwife," I said.  My voice sounded overly loud and overly calm and I was almost surprised to hear it.

             
The women around me turned instantly.  I expected scorn or censor, or that they would have heard of the blond midwife who had moved to Gold Hill. We weren't so far away, my notoriety could have spread.

             
But all I found was hope in those faces, excitement in those women already mothers, a kind of awe in the younger women, and impatience in the grandmotherly sort.

             
"Don't keep him waiting, girl.  I'll hold your packages.  After dark, come round back and ring the bell.  I'll get them to you."

             
I'd only bought some floss this day, and a roll of calico to make new curtains for Annie's kitchen but I didn't want to be hampered by the packages, and I didn't want to turn away from any offer of friendship.  I thanked her, turned and ran toward the man in the doorway, who led the way to his buckboard.

             
When we started down one of the precipitous streets of Virginia City, I thought once, almost startled at the thought, that no one knew where I was, and that, if in fact someone did know who I was, perhaps this man wasn't who he said he was, and we weren't going where he said we were. 

             
In the last few days, I'd learned to trust where I hadn't expected to, and learned far more when not to trust at all.

             
But he fetched up in front of a modest home with bright wild flowers in the front behind a simple wooden gate.  He saw me to the door, then hesitated, his face ashen.

             
"You're her husband?" I asked.  For all I knew he was brother, son, father.  The pale greenish color of nausea made me guess husband.  Men become so very uneasy in the face of life.

             
"I have none of my usual equipment.  Please come in with me and fetch what I need, and see your wife."

             
He went even more green.

             
I tried to smile but felt like kicking him.  She was the one doing the work.  Surely he could stand a moment in the room with her. 

             
"Just for a minute.  To let her know you're here.  Then after you fetch me the whisky to clean, you can take a glass of it out into the sun."

             
The promise of whisky seemed to cheer him.  I resolved to tell Hutch that when we started our family, I expected him to remain at the house as I delivered our offspring.

             
Then realized simultaneously both that I had come to accept we would marry and would have a family, and that I had just outlined what likely was his worst fear.

             
He would have to face that fear, almost definitely.  Much as I would have to face mine.

              Caroline Drake was young and pretty.  I hadn't paid much attention to her husband, except to notice the air of panic around him.  She sat up in the bed, as if determined not to get into it and thus start something she wasn't certain she could finish.

             
"I'm not ready for this," she told me.  Her brown eyes were very wide.

             
"You're more ready than you know," I said and turned to smile at her husband, who had brought the whisky, clean towels, and himself. 

             
"Frank," she said with relief.  "You don't have to stay."

             
"It's all right," Frank said, clearly lying, but he was making an effort.  He handed me what I'd asked for, gave his wife a kiss on the cheek, and moved very quickly to the bedroom door.  "I'll be right outside," he said, glancing at me to judge if he'd done enough.             

             
When I turned back to Kitty, her eyes were even wider.  "How did you get him to do that?"

             
"Guilt," I said.  "And he loves you.  Ready now?"

              She was.  She had been.  But alone and afraid.  Now that her husband had visited her and a midwife come, she relaxed enough to let her laboring move along.  It would have, without her permission, before much longer but relaxing helped.

             
We talked away the time, about canning and books and her pet cat, who wanted nothing to do with what was going on in that room.  I checked my watch periodically, hoping she would deliver before nightfall.  Hutch would be worried to come and find me gone.  Just before sunset, her daughter made her way into the world, an easy birth, far more so than I would have expected for a first time mother.  I cleaned them both and wrapped the infant in swaddling and gave her to her mother before going to find her father who had taken my advice rather more to heart than necessary. 
Very
relaxed, he was tearing up over mother and daughter when I took my leave, payment in my pockets and joy in my heart.

             
The dress shop hadn't closed, though it was apt to do so with me in it if they didn't let me go before too much longer.  I was introduced around, instantly forgetting so many names, but glad of the smiling faces and offers of friendship.  At last, I took my parcels and made my way back to the buckboard and patient Scamp, and made my way back to Gold Hill. 

              Riding back through our own town felt like riding out of summer and into a snow storm.  There were still neighbors on the street, still shops open at the north end of town that I passed before turning and going up to the Longren house, and every step of the way there were people watching.  Not so much whispering now, not so many people actually speaking, but a speculation, an awareness.

             
I was home in time to prepare a simple supper and to put away my groceries, to start to draw the dress I hoped to sew for my own wedding, to plan for the future.

             
And to think of the difference between where I had been, and where I had returned to.

             
When Hutch got home, he wasn't alone.  I heard voices in the drive and a chill passed through me before I recognized Hutch's voice.  For a horrible instant, I had imagined the Sheriff, come to foreclose and evict 29 days early, or Mr. Bradleigh, come to avenge his son, or Mr. Seth, come to avenge his cousin.  The afternoon's relief was borne away as the present came back to me.

             
But the voices continued on to the barn and I went to the kitchen window to watch them pass by, and smiled with relief.  Hutch, leading a horse with Annie perched on its back and  Matthew leading his own horse.  I watched for barely a breath, then turned back to consider what I could do to extend dinner, to offer hospitality, and to manage not to break down in tears at the sight of friendly faces, and the sight of Hutch and Matthew turning such friendly faces to each other.                           

             
By the time they came in from the barn, I had added to supper and was setting the table for guests.  Hutch came in first, and crossed the kitchen to kiss my cheek.  Matthew followed him, ducking his head in understated greeting.  It was Annie who made a beeline to me, wrapped me in her arms, kissed both my cheeks, then took my hands in hers.

             
"Is there anything cooking that may burn?  If so, Hutch, see to it," and she was already hustling me into the sitting room, followed by protests from both men, which she shut off by simple expediency of shutting the connecting door.

             
"My dear."  Her blue eyes were warm.  "I heard."

             
My own eyes watered.  I started to shake my head. I'd dealt with it so far, and intended to continue to fight, whatever I had to do to keep this from Hutch's door – but she didn't wait.

             
"Mrs. Bradleigh married well.  Her husband struck silver early and kept striking it and may still be striking it for all I've paid attention.  They have more money than they have sense and although she may have station now, she did not always have it."

             
I frowned.  "What are you trying to tell me?"

             
Annie took a breath and blinked, said slowly, "She's not – she didn't."  She cleared her throat.  "She never sold herself for money, but she had questionable morals and she was happy to let the men buy her a drink."

             
"Alcohol?" I asked.  From my perspective, for women it was better on the outside than on the inside.

             
"Alcohol," she confirmed.  "Since she married, she had two children who lived and since then, she has struggled to carry another child and have it live.  She has failed, every time."                I stood without meaning to, took several steps away from her, whirled and returned.  "What are you saying?"

             
"I'm saying the woman can no longer carry a child to birth and if she does, the child is born dead.  The doctor has attended her at least three times before this and she has been married half a dozen years.  You should have been told.  And those
fools 
in town, they should know better."

             
I bit my lip, paced the same way Hutch did, ran a hand through my hair, managing to spill most of it out of its pins and all over my neck. 

             
"The grocer's wife, she said they need people like the Bradleighs in town."  I looked at her, imploring, meaning it very much as a question.

             
Annie made an exasperated sound.  "We need their money, I'll grant that, but they're not going to go away because Mrs. Bradleigh lost another child.  It's sad, for her, for him, though he doesn't have the sense God gave a goose if he keeps on with her and expects he's going to have a son to leave his fortune to." 

             
She rose and came to where I'd retreated near the fireplace mantle, biting my lip, chewing on my nails.  She pulled my hand from my mouth, took both hands in hers.

             
"You did nothing wrong, Maggie.  You couldn't have known, and you would have gone even if you did.  You're
good
."

             
"How can you say that?  After – " I waved toward the kitchen.

             
She dismissed it easily.  "Lots of girls get silly over Matthew.  Many mothers who have lived hard lives before they're expecting lose their children.  You have set out to harm no one, Maggie," she said, releasing me and turning to move toward the windows.  "Forgive yourself.  Everyone else has."

             
And there she'd gone too far.

             
"No, they haven't."

             
When she turned back, it was with surprise.  "I don't understand."

             
I told her.  About the visit to the Gold Hill grocer, about the people on the street, about going to buy sundries and finding I couldn't even be waited on.  I didn't cry, didn't drag out the story.  I just told her.

             
When I finished, she shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose between thumb and forefinger.  "Small minded people.  But I think Matthew has news that will make a difference."

             
"Matthew," I said, not understanding.

             
"Matthew," she agreed.  "Come, let's eat the dinner you've prepared."