Indigo Christmas (11 page)

“Ma'am, it's sorry I am to wake you so early,” she whispered, “and on a Saturday, too, but Mrs. Murphy's that upset. She says Miss Norah—I mean, Mrs.—Mrs. O'Neill—she says she's real sick!”

Hilda got up at once, hastily put on a robe and slippers, and flew down the hall to Norah's room, where Sean and Norah's mother stood by the bed, the baby wailing in its grandmother's arms. Norah sat up in bed, panting, her face white as chalk.

“What is wrong with Norah?” asked Hilda.

“We don't hardly know!” It was Sean who answered. “She can't breathe right, and she's got such a pain she can't eat, or even hardly drink, so she doesn't have enough milk for the babe! And she's been cryin' and saying she feels terrible, and she seems so weak. And listen to this poor little mite—she's hungry, bless her. Oh, don't cry so, my darlin'! It breaks my heart.”

Sean stroked the baby's head as if it were a kitten. Fiona, red-faced, arms and legs pumping, paid no attention. She wanted food and she wanted it now.

Hilda looked helplessly from the screaming baby to the distraught father to the worried grandmother. Then she turned to the bed. Norah's hand was pressed to her chest.

“Norah, what
is
it!”

“Scared,” Norah whispered. “My heart—dying—can't breathe—”

“Hush, then, do not try to talk.” Hilda turned again to the family. “Has anyone called the doctor?”

“No—we just found her. We didn't know what to do!”

Hilda pulled the bell cord, not once but several times, hard. She could hear bells jangling on the third floor and in the kitchen. Then she began giving orders. “Sean, there is brandy in the pantry. Bring it here, quick, with a glass. Mrs. Murphy, let me take the baby. Get a cloth, wet it with cold water, and put it on the back of Norah's neck. Eileen, call the doctor at once. Tell him Norah is in bad trouble. Her heart, maybe. And then—no, go, Mrs. O'Rourke is here,
Gud ske lov
—thank God. Mrs. O'Rourke, Norah is ill and cannot feed the baby. We do not have a nursing bottle, but please find a way to feed her.”

Mrs. O'Rourke, in her nightdress and robe, her gray hair in braids and a scowl on her face, looked like a Teutonic deity. Hilda would have quailed, but the situation was too desperate for her to worry about angry servants. She handed the frantic baby over to the cook, whose expression softened at once.

“Ah, poor little colleen, hungry, are you?” she murmured. “We'll have to do somethin' about that, won't we now?” She took the baby away and quiet reigned once more, broken by Norah's sobs.

“She'll die,” said Norah weakly. “She'll die without me.”

“Nobody is going to die,” said Hilda fiercely. “Not you, not little Fiona. The doctor is on his way, and your mother is here. Oh, and here is Sean. Now, then, sit up a bit more—that's it— and drink some of this.”

Norah sputtered as the brandy went down, but her breathing became more regular. “Now, Sean, go back to the kitchen. Mrs. O'Rourke will be warming some milk for the baby. Bring some of it here in a cup. Norah will have it with more brandy.”

“Is that—do you think she should have brandy when she is feeding the baby?”

Hilda lost her temper. “I do not know! She is
not
feeding the baby, for she cannot. I am not a doctor. I do the best I know. You sent for me, now do as I say!”

Hilda looked at Mrs. Murphy to see how she was taking all this. She might very well resent someone else giving orders about her own daughter and granddaughter. But she was occupied sponging the back of Norah's neck, a remedy Hilda thought would cure the hysterics she suspected were a large part of the problem.

Hilda turned to Eileen, who had returned from her phone call. “Eileen, please go back downstairs and let the doctor in when he comes. I must go and dress, and then you can get dressed yourself. I wish I could let you sleep, but I think there will be little sleep for anyone in this house for a few days.”

She patted Eileen on the shoulder and then went back to her own room, where Patrick was sitting on the edge of the bed. “It is very early, Patrick. Why are you getting up?”

“Couldn't sleep for the hullabaloo. What's goin' on?”

Hilda explained briefly while she dressed. “And I said they would be well, but Patrick, I am frightened. It is maybe just worry that makes Norah feel so ill, but Aunt Molly said she lost much blood in childbirth, and what if she
does
die?”

She struggled with the hooks at her back and Patrick came over to fasten them. “Where's Eileen?” he asked, his hands clumsy at the task.

“She waits for the doctor, to let him in.”

“Then I'll light the gas,” said Patrick. “Brrr!” He pattered across the floor in his bare feet and touched a match to the gas fixture on the wall. “Got to have some light if I'm to fiddle with tiny hooks. Don't know why they make women's clothes so hard to get into. And out of,” he added, aiming a little smack at the petticoat as he finished fastening it. “And why are you dressing, anyway?”

“I cannot see the doctor in my nightdress, Patrick! And this is not the time to be foolish.”

“But d'you have to see the doctor yourself? There's Mrs. Murphy, and Sean—”

“Norah is my friend, and a guest in my house, and she is seriously ill! I must not neglect her.”

The doorbell rang and Hilda rushed out of the room to greet the doctor. Patrick looked at the cold, dark fireplace, at the clock whose hands stood at four-thirty, and then back at his bed with the warm comforter. With a fatalistic sigh he pushed his feet into slippers and his arms into a robe and picked up the coal scuttle. There was nothing useful he could do in this medical crisis, but as long as his Hilda believed she must help, then he must be ready to serve if she needed him. He started downstairs for coal.

He had made a fire and dressed and was about to go forage for some breakfast when Hilda came in and sat down on the bed. “Norah is better,” she said in response to his cocked eyebrow. “Doctor Clark says she did not have a heart attack. He is not happy about her, though. He says she is very weak and that is what made her chest hurt, and that she needs building up. He asked many questions about what she had been eating, and said she must have much meat, and milk, and eggs. And Sean tried to hide it, but he is troubled because he does not know how he can pay for such things. They have not much money, even when he is working every day.”

Patrick took her hand. “You know she can stay here with the baby as long as she needs to. We can see she gets the food she needs, if that's what the trouble is.”

Hilda nodded and went on. “And he says she must not try to feed the baby until she is stronger. She must nurse a little, or she will not be able to later, but Fiona will have to have most of her milk from bottles. He told Mrs. Murphy just how to mix the milk, and how much Fiona should have. Eileen will go out for nursing bottles as soon as Vanderhoof's opens. Norah is to take a tonic he gave us, and must be made to eat. He says she will soon be hungry and want her baby in her arms again. I hope he is right, but I am fearful.” She yawned hugely. “And Patrick, I am so tired I could sleep for a week.”

“There's no reason you can't sleep today, darlin'. With two capable women in the house to look after Norah and the baby, there's no sense talkin' about neglect. You can rest. And if that baby screams again, I'll give her a little good Irish whisky. She'll sleep after that, I'll wager.”

Hilda suffered herself to be undressed and tucked in, and fell into an exhausted sleep that ten crying babies could not have disturbed.

When she woke the weather had changed. The rain had stopped, the sun was shining brightly, and Patrick was not there. She sat up, not able for a moment to remember the reason for her feeling of unease.

There was a tap at the door and Eileen entered. “Here, ma'am. Mr. Cavanaugh thought you might be glad of some coffee. And the fire needs tending. It's bitter cold out, ma'am, for all it's so bright. And the baby's been sleepin' like a little lamb now she's gettin' her food, but Miss Norah, she's still feelin' bad. Her ma's made her eat her food and take that tonic, but she didn't like the taste of it, and she's cryin', and she still thinks she's goin' to die.”

“She is not,” said Hilda, sipping the hot, fragrant brew. “I will go and talk to her.”

“Yes, ma'am. only, Cook says as how she's known other women like that, just too tired and weak to want to live, even, and sometimes they just pine away and die, and maybe their poor babes, too. She says—”

“Eileen, you must not believe what Mrs. O'Rourke says, and you must not, either of you, say it where Norah can hear you. Norah is weak, but she will become strong if she does everything the doctor tells her. We must help her do that.”

By that evening, everyone in the house was exhausted. Hilda had spent most of the day coaxing Norah to eat food for which she had no appetite and to take tonic she detested. She kept whispering she only wanted to be allowed to die in peace, she was too tired to eat. Hilda tried not to lose her temper, for she knew the weariness was real. The doctor had warned her that her friend was so weak, even opening her eyes was an effort, but it was hard to see Norah lying there, nearly as pale as the sheets on which she lay, able to do nothing for herself and without even the strength to argue with Hilda. Sean had been banished, for his presence kept Norah awake and worrying. With no more spare beds in the house, Sean had retired to a bed in the carriage house, where the coachman would have slept if he had been unmarried.

Mrs. Murphy, who also kept Norah fretting, had refused to leave her side except to harass the cook in the kitchen. Patrick, who had put in an extremely long, busy day at the store without even a moment to talk to the police, had escaped to his den and fallen asleep behind a newspaper.

The doctor returned after supper and came out of Norah's room shaking his head. “She has lost so much blood,” he told Mrs. Murphy, “and she was not strong even before the baby was born.”

Norah's mother struggled against tears. “I've heard as there's a way to give a person someone else's blood,” she said in a frightened whisper. “I'll do it! If it kills me, I'll do it!”

“It wouldn't kill you,” said Dr. Clark gently, “but it might kill Norah. Blood given to a patient must match the patient's own. The wrong kind of blood is worse than none.”

“But I'm her mother. She's blood of my blood, bone of my bone. Certain sure, my blood—”

“It isn't that simple. There's a lot about blood we don't know, but we do know that sometimes fresh blood saves a person's life—and sometimes it kills. I can't risk it. The best we can do is give her good food and lots of rest, and don't let her worry about anything. The tonic will help. You must see that she takes it every day.”

“And since when,” said Mrs. Murphy in something nearer to her usual manner, “did Norah Murphy ever do as I told her? She hates that tonic, if that's what you call it. Smells like cod liver oil to me, and I don't wonder it's hard to get down her.”

“She must take it,” said the doctor sharply. It had been a long day and he hadn't had his dinner yet. “I tell you frankly, good nursing will make all the difference to your daughter.”

Dr. Clark found Hilda in the parlor before he left the house.

“You're a sensible sort of woman,” he said. “I can be more blunt with you than with the girl's mother. Mrs. O'Neill's in a bad way. I'll wager she wasn't getting the right kind of food through her pregnancy, and she's thoroughly run down. That, with the blood she lost, means she'll have a struggle to recover, and I can't see any signs she cares to struggle. She seems to think there's no point in living, even for her baby. Do you know why she feels that way?”

Hilda had to swallow hard before she could reply. The doctor was saying Norah might die! “Yes,” she said at last. “She worries that her husband might lose his job. Also—the worst thing—she worries that he might—Dr. Clark, he is suspected of robbery, at the best, maybe even of arson and murder. He did not do it, Doctor! But she fears that the police will not believe him, and he might—might be hanged.”

The doctor abandoned his need for rest and food. “You say he didn't do it. You sound very sure.”

“Yes, I—oh, please sit down. You would like some coffee?”

“I would.” He sat down heavily in the nearest chair, letting his bag drop to the floor beside him. “And if there's such a thing as a sandwich—”

Hilda pulled the bell cord, forgetting for the moment her embarrassment over summoning servants. “You have had no supper?” she asked anxiously.

“Not yet. It doesn't matter. Tell me about Mr. O'Neill. He has a job?”

“He works for Black's Bicycle Works, but he fears for his job. The company is not doing well, and even before—oh, Eileen, please bring us coffee. And Dr. Clark has not had supper. Can you bring him something to eat, please?”