The Touch (27 page)

“What happened to his parents?”

“They lived long enough to enjoy the fruits of Edward’s success. God has been very good.”

“How old are your children?” Elizabeth asked.

“Ruth is almost thirty, married to another Jewish doctor, and Simon is in London at Bart’s. He’ll join his father’s practice when he’s finished.”

“I’m very glad you’re here, Margaret.”

“So am I. If you can put up with me, I’d like to stay until your confinement and go back to Sydney with Edward.”

A smile curled around Elizabeth’s lips. “I think Alexander and I can both put up with you very well, Margaret.”

TWO DAYS LATER Elizabeth’s condition suddenly deteriorated; the eclampsia was back together with the onset of an early labor. Alexander sent an urgent telegram to Sir Edward in Sydney, but knew that the obstetrician couldn’t possibly arrive in under twenty-four hours. Saving Elizabeth and the baby devolved upon Lady Wyler, who chose Ruby as her chief assistant. The same urge that had prompted Sir Edward to come to Kinross had also caused him to pack everything his wife might need in the event that he himself wasn’t there. So Margaret Wyler took his place to give Elizabeth the injections of magnesium sulfate and cope with her seizures, while Ruby dealt with the birth process, barking questions to the official midwife and obeying barked replies.

There were more seizures this time, and closer together; Elizabeth was still fitting when the baby was born, a tiny, thin creature so blue and congested that Margaret Wyler was forced to leave Elizabeth to Jade and help Ruby try to resuscitate this second girl. For five minutes they toiled, slapping and massaging the frail little chest, before the baby gasped, jerked, began to wail faintly. Then it was back to Elizabeth, leaving Ruby to do what she could for the child. Two hours later the seizures came to an end, however temporarily; Elizabeth was still alive, and not quite passed into the terminal coma.

The two women paused to gulp a cup of tea Silken Flower brought, tears streaming down her face.

“Will she live?” Ruby asked, so exhausted that she sank into a chair and put her head between her knees.

“I think so.” Margaret Wyler looked down at her hands. “I can’t stop the tremor,” she said, wonder in her voice. “Oh, what a terrible business! I never want to go through anything like this ever again.” She turned to smile at Jade, beside Elizabeth. “Jade, you were marvelous. I couldn’t have managed without you.”

The little Chinese girl glowed, her fingers on Elizabeth’s wrist to feel a pulse. “I would die for her,” she said.

“Have you time to look at the baby?” Ruby asked, getting up.

“Yes, I think so. Jade, if her condition changes by so much as a whisker, yell.” Lady Wyler moved to the crib, where the wizened scrap lay mewling, her skin gone from blue-black to a pinkish mauve. “A girl,” she said, removing the linen Ruby had wrapped loosely about her. “About eight months, perhaps a little more. We have to keep her warm, but I don’t want Elizabeth any warmer. Pearl!” she said loudly.

“Yes, my lady?”

“Have a fire lit in the nursery immediately, and put a warming pan in some kind of small bed. Then heat a brick and wrap it in plenty of cloth so it won’t burn. And hurry!”

Pearl flew off.

“Jade,” said Margaret Wyler, moving back to the bed, “as soon as Pearl says the baby’s bed is ready, I want you to take her to the nursery and put her in it. Keep her warm, but make sure the bed isn’t too hot. She’s your responsibility now, I can’t leave Elizabeth, and nor can Miss Costevan. Look after her as best you can, and if she turns blue again, call us. Nell will have to sleep in Butterfly Wing’s room, so tell Pearl to move her cot out as soon as you bring the baby to the nursery.”

It seemed to be done in the twinkling of an eye; Jade changed places with Lady Wyler and went to the crib, where Ruby gathered the baby up and handed her to Jade. Who looked down into the agonized tiny face with profound awe. “My baby!” she crooned, cuddling the bundle delicately. “This one is my baby.”

Off she went, leaving Lady Wyler and Ruby to station themselves on either side of the narrow bed to which they had transferred Elizabeth the moment her travail had started.

“I think she’s just sleeping,” said Ruby, looking across the inanimate form at the midwife’s drawn face.

“So do I. But be ready, Ruby.”

“No more children for Elizabeth.” Ruby made it a statement.

“That is so.”

“Margaret, you’re a woman of the world, aren’t you?” Ruby asked, trying to make the question sound inoffensive. “I mean, you’ve seen a lot in your time, you must have done.”

“Oh, yes, Ruby. Sometimes I think I’ve seen too much.”

“I know I have.”

Having put this gambit forward, Ruby fell into a silence, sat chewing her lip.

“I can assure you that nothing you say will shock me, Ruby,” said Lady Wyler gently.

“No, this isn’t about me,” said Ruby, taking all propensity to shock as her province. “It’s about Elizabeth.”

“Then—tell me.”

“Um—sex,” Ruby blurted.

“Are you asking if sex is now prohibited to Elizabeth?”

“Yes—and no,” said Ruby, “but it’s a good place to begin. We know Elizabeth can’t possibly run the risk of having more children. Does that mean she must avoid the sex act as well?”

Margaret Wyler frowned, closed her eyes, sighed. “I wish I had the answer to that, Ruby, but I don’t. If she could be sure that the sexual act didn’t result in conception, then yes, she could lead a normal married life. But—”

“Oh, I know all the buts!” said Ruby. “I ran a brothel, and who better to know every trick in the book to avoid conception than a madam? Douches, the right days in the cycle, the man’s withdrawing before he ejaculates. But the trouble is that sometimes none of the tricks works. Then it’s a dose of ergot at six weeks and pray the stuff does its job.”

“Then you know the answer to your question already, don’t you? The only absolutely sure way is not to have intercourse.”

“Shit,” said Ruby, then straightened her shoulders. “Her husband’s downstairs waiting. What do you want me to tell him?”

“Let him wait another hour,” said Lady Wyler. “Then if Elizabeth’s condition hasn’t changed, you can tell him that she will be all right.”

SO ANOTHER hour elapsed before Ruby entered the dull green Murray tartan room with a soft, warning knock.

He was sitting where he usually did, at the big window that looked across Kinross toward the distant hills. Night had not yet fallen; severe though Elizabeth’s crisis had been, time had telescoped the past nine hours into an eternity. His book had fallen into his lap and his face was tinged with the dying gasp of the setting sun as he stared sightlessly at the angry sky. Her knock made him jump; he turned, got to his feet awkwardly.

“She’s come through it,” said Ruby gently, taking his hand. “Not out of danger yet, but Margaret and I believe she’ll be all right. You’re the father of another little girl, my dear.”

He sagged, sat down abruptly. Ruby took the chair facing him and managed to smile. He looked older, greyer, as if, for all his strength and power, he had finally confronted a greater foe, and lost the battle.

“If you can summon up the wherewithal, Alexander, I am in desperate need of a cheroot and a huge snifter of cognac,” she said. “I can’t close the door because I might be needed again, but I can drink and smoke with one ear cocked.”

“Of course, my love. You are my love, you know,” he said, producing a cheroot and lighting it for her. “There can be no more children,” he went on as he walked to the sideboard and poured two balloons of cognac, “that is manifest. Och, poor wee Elizabeth! Perhaps now she’ll know some peace. Perhaps now she’ll start to enjoy her life. No Alexander in her bed, eh?”

“That’s the consensus of opinion,” said Ruby, taking the glass. A big swallow and she exhaled deeply. “Jesus, that’s so good! I never want to go through this again. Your wife suffered terribly, yet knew no pain. Isn’t that extraordinary? It’s all that kept me going. When one has a baby oneself, one doesn’t see what it’s like. Though Lee’s birth was easy.”

“He must be—what? Twelve? Thirteen?”

“Changing the subject, Alexander? He’ll be thirteen on the sixth of June. A winter baby. Easier to carry through autumn, though God knows Hill End was hot enough.”

“He’ll be my major heir,” said Alexander, sipping his drink.

“Alexander!” Ruby sat up straight, eyes wide. “But you have two heirs now!”

“Girls. Who, as Charles says, may well end in bringing far better men into the family than my own sons might have been, men who would even be willing to change their names to Kinross. But I think I’ve always known that Lee would end in being more to me than simply the son of my most beloved mistress.”

“And which horse is he going to ride?” asked Ruby bitterly.

“I beg your pardon?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Ruby buried her nose in her snifter. “I love you, Alexander, I always will. Yet we shouldn’t be saying these things with your wife at death’s door. It’s not—right.”

“I disagree. So, I think, would Elizabeth. We’ve all admitted that my marriage was a mistake, but I brought it on myself. I am to blame, no one else. My pride was mortally injured. I wanted to show two terrible old men that Alexander Kinross was king of the world.” He smiled, looked suddenly very much at peace. “And, for all the misery my marriage has caused, I can’t help but think that I rescued Elizabeth from worse misery back in Scottish Kinross. She wouldn’t see that, but it’s a truth. Now that I’m out of her bed for good, she’ll do better. I’ll accord her all honor and respect, but my heart belongs to you.”

“Who,” she asked, seeing her chance, “is Honoria Brown?”

He looked blank, then laughed. “My first woman. She had a hundred acres of good Indiana farmland and she gave me shelter for the night. Her husband had been killed in the American Civil War. She offered me not only herself, but everything she had if I would stay, marry her, and farm her land. I took what I wanted—her body—but declined the rest.” He sighed, closed his eyes. “I haven’t changed, Ruby. I doubt I can change. What I told her was that it wasn’t my destiny to be an Indiana farmer. And rode off in the morning with my fifty-five pounds of gold.”

The green eyes glistened with tears. “Alexander, Alexander, the pain you bring upon yourself!” she cried. “Oh, and the pain you bring upon your women! What happened to her?”

“I have no idea.” He put the empty balloon down. “May I see my wife and my new daughter?”

“Of course,” said Ruby, climbing wearily to her feet. “I should warn you that neither will know you’re there. The baby came out the color of Elizabeth in a fit—blue-black. It took Margaret Wyler and I five minutes to make her breathe. She’s a month early into the bargain, so she’s very small and frail.”

“Will she die?”

“I don’t think so, but she’s no Nell.”

“And no more marital duty for Elizabeth?”

“Lady Wyler says that. The risk is too high.”

“Oh, yes, far too high. I must content myself with two daughters,” said Alexander.

“Nell is very gifted, you know that.”

“Of course. But her mind is slanted toward living things.”

Ruby walked up the stairs slowly. “At fifteen months of age, Alexander, it’s astonishing that she’s slanted toward any sort of thing. Lee was a bit the same, though, come to think of it. I daresay what it really means is that Nell is permanently ahead of her years, just as Lee is. As to what her slant might be later on, you don’t know. Children have fits of enthusiasm.”

“I intend her to marry Lee,” he said.

Ruby propped at Elizabeth’s bedroom door, face like thunder, and took Alexander’s hair in both hands so fiercely that he flinched. “Listen to me, Alexander Kinross!” she hissed. “I’ll hear no more of this! No more of this, ever! You can’t plan people’s lives as if they were mines or railways! Leave my son and your daughter to find their own mates!”

For answer, he opened the door and went in.

Elizabeth had regained consciousness, turned her head on the pillow to see them, and smiled. “I’ve done it again,” she said. “But I thought it was an end, and it isn’t. Margaret says we have a new daughter, Alexander.”

He leaned to kiss her brow tenderly, take her hand. “Yes, my dear, Ruby told me. That’s wonderful. Do you feel strong enough to think of a name for her?”

Came a faint frown; Elizabeth’s lips worked in and out. “A name,” she said, as if puzzled. “A name…I can’t think.”

“Then we can leave it.”

“No, she should have a name. Tell me some.”

“How about Catherine? Or Janet? Elizabeth, after you? Anna? Or perhaps Mary? Flora?”

“Anna,” she said with satisfaction. “Yes, I like Anna.” Her hand lifted his to her cheek. “I’m afraid we’ll have to find another wet nurse. I don’t seem to have any milk again.”

“Mrs. Summers has found someone, I believe,” Alexander said, gently disengaging his hand; hers felt like a vulture’s. “An Irishwoman named Biddy Kelly. Her child died of the croup the day before yesterday, and she mentioned to Mrs. Summers that she would nurse our child if her milk lasted. Well, our Anna has come very early, so she’ll still have milk. Shall I hire her, Elizabeth? Or would you rather I asked Sung to find a Chinese wet nurse?”

“No. Biddy Kelly sounds ideal.”

Only Ruby frowned; Maggie Summers had found a way to wriggle back into the center of things. This Biddy Kelly was undoubtedly a crony from the Catholic church who would tattle every morsel she overheard. A snooper in the house for at least six months. Many cups of tea in the kitchen, many whispered secrets. What Kinross didn’t already know, it soon would.

IF JADE HAD begged in vain to be let become a nurserymaid before Nell was born, the advent of baby Anna granted her most ardent wish. Biddy Kelly did her duty and nursed the child efficiently for seven months, at which point Anna was put on cow’s milk without any adverse reaction. A disappointment for Mrs. Summers in losing her crony, perhaps, but a relief for Jade and Ruby. It pleased Ruby to see the housekeeper deprived of her principal source of upstairs information, but Ruby’s emotions were mild compared to Jade’s. Anna now belonged entirely to her.