The Midwife's Tale (23 page)

Perhaps for the first time, she understood Samuel’s disdain for townspeople in general, and she even envied his ability to withdraw into a world of his own, if only for the time it took for her to realize living the life of a hermit would be as constraining as it would be empowering, especially given her duties as a midwife and healer.

She tightened her lips, poured boiling water into the mug, and stirred the contents until the root began to color the water into tea. “I’m going to see if Adelaide is awake,” she murmured, and left the room without meeting his gaze.

Her steps were sure, her hands were steady, but her heart was pounding with indignation that the sheriff, along with the others, had sent Thomas—of all men—to ask her for help. Not Thomas, the mayor. Thomas, the man. The man who had once claimed her heart.

Adelaide was well on her way to healing very nicely, with Aunt Hilda hovering nearby and Daniel once again smiling, but the atmosphere in the buggy later that evening was explosive.

“I apologize.”

Martha glanced at Thomas, seated only inches away from her, and let out a sigh. “And for the third time, I accept your apology.”

He captured her gaze and held it. “You don’t sound very sincere.”

“I’m very sincere,” she insisted, although her words sounded a bit shrewish, even to her own ear.

“You’re angry with me.”

“I’m not,” she quipped, but his teasing smile snapped the last threads of her patience and self-control. “Yes, I’m angry, but more than that, I’m disappointed in you and your . . . your cronies. People here expect me to keep their confidences, and yes, once in a while I regret that when it causes undue hardship or adds fuel to malicious gossip because people misconstrue my silence for affirmation, but I deeply dislike . . . no, I resent being approached by you to ask me to break those confidences . . . especially you,” she added while pausing to draw a quick breath, “because I thought you knew me better than to think I could be swayed into divulging information clearly meant to be confidential or set to . . . to spying on folks because they happen to need me.”

Out of breath again, she was shocked by her uncustomary diatribe. She never lost control of her temper. Well, almost never. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, but she was honest enough with herself to recognize anger and regret as well.

Then he grinned at her. He grinned!

She slapped at the bag on her lap. “If you say one word right now . . . one word . . .” she warned. She willed her breathing to return to normal and her heart to stop racing.

He held up one of his hands in mock surrender, but wisely held silent.

She dropped her gaze for a moment to settle her thoughts. When she looked back up at him, he had both his hands on the reins again. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

When he looked at her, his eyes were twinkling and he had just a hint of a smile on his lips.

“And for raising my voice.”

He cocked a brow.

She dug as deep as she was going to go. “And for . . . for not kowtowing to the illustrious town elders who think they can intimidate me into doing their work for them.”

He nodded, but held silent.

She counted five heartbeats, then ten. When he still remained quiet, she waved at him with the back of her hand. “Go on. Speak.”

“I accept your apology.”

She narrowed her gaze. “You don’t sound very sincere.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe I’m not. Maybe, just maybe, I think you said exactly what I deserved to hear in exactly the tone of voice I anticipated, which, by the way, is precisely what I told the others you’d do when they asked me to speak with you.”

Martha looked up, and her eyes widened. “You told everyone I’d lose my temper?”

He grinned again. “Just a little.”

She sniffed. “And that I’d raise my voice?”

“Just a tad. They didn’t believe me, of course, but they did suspect you might balk at being cooperative. I think the very word they used was
stubborn.
”

“
Stubborn?
”

“I’d prefer to say highly principled and devoted to your calling, thank Providence. I also think I know you well enough to be fairly certain you’ll try to ferret out the thief or thieves on your own, if only to help Reverend Hampton save the academy for the boys.”

She stared at him, both awed and amazed. Guilty as charged, she blushed because he had voiced what she was going to do before she had even admitted it to herself. She had not been married to the man all these years, but he still knew the workings of her mind better than anyone ever had or could.

Perhaps it was that single issue that had frightened her, more than his wealth or his social position in the community, all those years ago when he had asked to court her. It had been disconcerting and extremely uncomfortable to have him know how she might feel or react before she even realized it herself, denying her any freedom to respond to her own impulses, to profit when she was right, or to learn from her mistakes when she was wrong without having the added burden of knowing he would have supported her whether she succeeded or failed, regardless of whether or not she had earned such total devotion.

When the buggy slowed to a halt, the door to her room was only several feet away. “I suppose you still want me to go to Clarion?” she asked, hoping he would have the good grace to be embarrassed that he had asked her to do a personal kindness for him when he knew full well what he would be asking her to do in his official role as mayor.

She had a good notion to express her disapproval by refusing his request.

He shifted in his seat. “Not for my sake. For Eleanor’s,” he murmured.

“I’ll go. For Eleanor,” she murmured, although she knew she was going to Clarion before she had asked him the question or entertained any idea of refusing his request.

And he knew it, too, confounded man that he was.

“I’ll leave at first light, but there’s something that needs to be taken care of while I’m gone. It won’t take up much of your time. If you can wait a moment, I just need to get something . . . unless you’ll be too busy with your duties as mayor,” she needled.

“I’ll make time.”

“Good.” She disembarked and went inside. Before she even lit a lamp, she knew what she would find as soon as the room came to life.

Sure enough, Bird was fast asleep on top of Victoria’s pillow.

She worked quickly and returned to the buggy, where she set a bulky package on the seat next to Thomas.

Eyes wide, he looked at her with curiosity and more than a little suspicion.

She grinned as she put a small sack into his hand. “This should last until I get back, but try to find a crust of bread now and then. Fresh water every day, and don’t worry if he lets himself out. He’ll make a nest somewhere and be back in the cage by morning. His name is Bird, by the way. Don’t ask. I don’t have time for details. I need a good night’s sleep if I’m going to be in Clarion in time for supper.”

She grinned again, went back into her room, and closed the door.

“Martha Elizabeth Alexandra Cade!” His voice bellowed. Bird began to squawk his little heart out.

Humming softly, she secured the inside lock on her door, went to her window, and opened it. “If you two keep making that racket,” she warned, “you’ll wake half the town.”

Thomas glowered at her. “You’re testing my patience,” he spat.

“I always did,” she whispered, and promptly closed her window.

18

L
ike all gardens and fields ripe for harvesting, sickrooms had a distinctive, sadly familiar scent. Martha smelled it as soon as she entered the dim bedchamber. Instead of flowers or crops, illness and suffering blossomed with fear that permeated the very air while weeds of death gained a stranglehold on life itself.

Eleanor Dillon Landis was asleep in bed with a heavy quilt pulled up to her chin so only her face was visible, even though the room was so warm it was suffocating. Heavy drapes that covered the windows muted the busy sound of commerce on the street below and obliterated what daylight still remained. The light from two small lamps on the bureau was weak, but enough to let Martha maneuver her way into the room and edge herself between a trunk at the foot of the bed and the low bureau where bowls, linens, and a number of medicine bottles filled the space between the lamps.

She paused and lifted each bottle toward the light to read the label. By the time she finished, her worst fears about the method
of treatment Dr. Park had pursued set her blood boiling and her heart began to gallop.

Dr. Park used emetics and purges, along with a sedative, that were powerful enough to put Eleanor and her unborn babe in such imminent danger that Martha feared neither one might survive unless the drugs were stopped. Immediately. Dismayed, yet heartened by her own chance to intervene and offer an alternative that might save them both, she made her way to the chair at the head of the bed and eased into the seat.

She studied the face of the young woman she had watched grow from infancy to adulthood, and her heart constricted. Eleanor’s face was pale and drawn, her lips cracked and crusted with bits of dried blood. Dark circles beneath her eyes added a ghoulish appearance to her features. Limp blond hair, once a glorious mane of curls that fell to the middle of her back, now barely skimmed her shoulders.

Yet surrounded by all these signs of devastation, the promise of new life flourished in the small mound on Eleanor’s stomach.

While she waited for Eleanor to stir, Martha leaned back and closed her eyes to pray. First, for Eleanor, that she might be given the gift of health, and then for the child who struggled for life. Only then did she pray for herself. For wisdom. For courage. And most of all, for patience enough to ease the anger churning in her very soul.

She let the anger build, adding fuel to her determination to battle the doctor responsible for Eleanor’s deteriorating condition. Although he was only acting as he had been trained, everything Martha had learned about Eleanor’s treatments, designed to guarantee delivery of a healthy, living child, was in direct contradiction to what any midwife worthy of the name would have recommended.

At the root of her anger lay two divergent views on pregnancy
and birthing, philosophies that set doctors and midwives at polar opposites, with their patients’ lives and futures lying in between.

“W-widow Cade?”

Though the voice she heard was weak, Martha’s eyes snapped open, and she turned immediately toward her patient. “I’m here, Eleanor,” she murmured. She caressed the young woman’s brow and used her fingertips to lift strands of damp hair off her forehead. No fever. Good sign.

A pair of wide, deep-set blue eyes gazing up at her misted with tears. “It is you! I prayed you’d be able to come to help me, but Father hasn’t written back to me yet to tell me you’d agreed to come, so I wasn’t sure it was really you.”

Martha chuckled. “He’s writing to you today, as a matter of fact. I thought I might be delayed for a few days, but things all worked out sooner than I expected, so here I am.”

Eleanor moistened her lips and stirred. She lifted one thin arm from beneath the quilt, took Martha’s hand, and laid it on top of her swollen belly. “Isn’t he wondrous?”