Chloe (17 page)

“Chloe’s always been delicate,” her mother fretted, “but she’ll be all right now, won’t she?”

“She’ll need careful nursing, very careful nursing.” Doctor Benning’s voice was subdued. “She’ll be in bed for two weeks at least.”

Did they know she was awake?

“I’d send you a trained lying-in nurse but I think Jerusha here is as good as any I could get from outside. She’s done an excellent job with many of my patients who needed extra nursing after a delivery.”

“I’d rather have a trained nurse—” her mother began.

“I want Jerusha,” Chloe interrupted, trying to lift herself onto one elbow and failing. “I want . . . Jerusha.” Minnie seemed closer with her mother nearby.

“You’re awake then?” The doctor came over and gently clasped her wrist. “So you prefer someone you know?”

Chloe nodded, rubbing her head against her pillow. “Yes.”

“And I think Francy Clayborn is nursing now.” Doctor Benning looked at his watch. “You can get her to wet nurse your little girl.”

My little . . . girl? That’s right. I didn’t have my little boy.
Chloe knew it had been foolish to have imagined a little boy with Theran’s black hair and gray eyes. But she could love a little girl as well, couldn’t she? “I want to nurse my baby. My daughter.” Chloe turned on her side to face Doctor Benning.

Her mother chuckled her sophisticated lady laugh. “Chloe, ladies don’t nurse their babies. You’ll ruin your figure.”

“I don’t care about my figure.” Chloe wished her mother would leave. She had disappeared when labor began and hadn’t returned until the baby had finally come and had been bathed. “I want to nurse my baby.”

“You’ve been through a terrible, long labor,” her mother said in a patronizing voice. “You don’t need to be doing something low like nursing your child. That’s for servants.”

Chloe clenched her hands around the top of the soft wool blanket spread over her. “I want my baby—” She infused her voice with as much starch as she could. “And I want to nurse her.”

Her mother made an exasperated sound. “Chloe, really. What will Doctor Benning think?”

“Many ladies nurse their own children,” the doctor said in an easy tone. “Why don’t we let Chloe try?”

Her mother clicked her tongue and tossed her head in an impatient gesture.

Jerusha helped prop Chloe up in bed with pillows. She’d never felt so exhausted, so bone weary in her whole life. But anticipation warmed her as she watched Jerusha carry the little bundle that was her baby toward her. Then the child began crying again. And Chloe wished again that she’d even held a newborn baby before. But she hadn’t.

“She sound hungry.” Jerusha grinned down at the baby and Chloe. “You tellin’ your mama that you hungry, little one?”

Cautiously Chloe accepted the soft, cotton-wrapped bundle and looked down at the wrinkled red face. The little mouth was wide open and squalling. The doctor drew her mother away toward the door of the room.

Jerusha opened Chloe’s nightgown and folded it back. Chloe looked down at her own white flesh and recalled Theran’s dark head resting there. Now his little girl would rest her cheek there. “Hello, sweetheart. Hello, Elizabeth Leigh—my little Elizabeth,” Chloe cooed, her heart beating fast. “Your daddy would have loved you. I love you.”

The baby wailed, balling her hands into tiny fists. Jerusha showed Chloe how to hold and lead the child to nurse. The baby keened on, stretching her neck and twisting up her little face. Maybe she sensed her mother didn’t know what she was doing. Chloe tensed. “Am I doing it wrong?”

“No,” Jerusha began.

“You’re just not strong enough to do this,” her mother snapped, approaching the bed. “You need your rest.”

Chloe bit back angry words and blinked away hot tears of frustration. “I am tired, but I want to hold my baby.”

“Well, no one said you couldn’t hold your baby, did they?” Her mother gave her a false smile. “You’re making a fuss when you should be sleeping.”

Jerusha said nothing, but she adjusted the baby in Chloe’s arm and with a dark finger lifted the baby’s pale chin to nurse. She began sucking.

Chloe hadn’t anticipated the brand-new sensation of the child’s suckling and jerked. The baby fussed, balling her little fists again.

“This one has a temper,” Jerusha said with an indulgent smile. “She’ll get it all right. You wait and see.”

Chloe’s mother sniffed.

Jerusha helped little Elizabeth start nursing again. In spite of the unexpected discomfort from her child’s sucking, Chloe forced herself to remain still. She closed her eyes and tried not to notice the lingering pain and exhaustion that wanted to swallow her whole.

“You just need to be patient,” Jerusha whispered. “It’s harder at first for pale ladies like you. I don’t know why, but it is.”

Chloe hoped she was right. Theran came to mind again and a wave of fresh sorrow washed over her. She wanted to cry and never stop. But Theran expected better from the woman he’d married. She expected better.

Little Elizabeth was over a month old. It was after midnight in the dark and otherwise silent house. Chloe stood near the window and thought she might go crazy. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, buffeted by wave after wave of frustration. “What’s wrong with her?”
Why doesn’t she like me?

Jerusha held the wailing baby in her arms and walked up and down the nursery floor. “Your little Bette got the colic. That’s all, Miss Chloe. She can’t help it. Her little tummy hurt her.” Jerusha made soothing noises and rocked the baby in her arms as she paced.

Chloe had been so weak and in so much pain after childbirth that her mother had taken over Bette’s care while Jerusha nursed Chloe back to health. Now, for some reason, Chloe couldn’t make up for lost time with her baby. “I should be able to comfort my baby.”
A good mother would be able to.

“She know her mommy is here. She just feel so bad she gotta let us know.”

“Every time I nurse her she cries.” Chloe covered her face with her hands and winced, thinking of how painful nursing Elizabeth was.
I’m a bad mother. A good mother wouldn’t mind the discomfort.

“This is your first time and you gotta baby with a sore stomach. It make you nervous. That’s all.”

“But she screams every time I touch her.” Chloe felt like sinking to the floor and never rising again.
What am I doing wrong? I must be doing something really bad. I lost Theran and now my baby hates me.
She leaned her head against the chilly window. Tears poured from her eyes and she was too weak to wipe them away.

It was nearly July. Chloe walked into the nursery and found her mother rocking three-month-old Bette by the cold fireplace. “I finally got her to take a bottle,” her mother whispered.

Chloe drew near and looked down on her child. Was it her imagination or did her daughter glare up at her the same way Theran’s mother had? The look accused her as though Chloe were the one responsible for all the pain Bette had endured, still suffered at times.
No matter how much I try my baby doesn’t like me. I’m not a good mother.

Chloe’s milk had dried up over the past week. And Chloe was secretly relieved to be done with the painful, messy process. But as a consequence, her daughter would have even less to do with her. Francy, the wet nurse, still came three times a day and Bette nursed hungrily. In between, the baby liked the sweet, diluted evaporated milk Jerusha mixed up. But Bette would take this only from her grandmother.

It was almost as if Chloe had cursed her baby by giving the child both her grandmothers’ names.
Elizabeth
was Theran’s mother’s name and
Leigh
was her mother’s middle name. She’d given her daughter the name
Leigh
to placate her mother’s ego. She really would have liked to name her daughter
Lorraine
after Granny Raney, who had loved her so. But she had chosen
Elizabeth
with the faint hope Theran’s mother would soften toward Theran’s only child. It had so far been in vain. Lorna, though, continued to write. Even Mr. Black had written her a note congratulating her on Bette’s birth, but Mrs. Black had not even signed the note.

Chloe walked to the window and stared out at the black night. Her days were long and empty when she’d anticipated being busy with her baby.
But my daughter doesn’t want me or need me.
Chloe walked out of the room, unable to bear listening to her mother cooing over her grandchild. She paused on the landing. Haines was looking up the staircase. “Miss Chloe, I was just comin’ to get you. Telephone for you.”

Chloe hurried down the steps and picked up the black receiver, resting on the hall table. “Chloe!” Kitty’s voice burst in Chloe’s ear. “How are you?”

“Fine.” Tears bubbled in Chloe’s throat. She choked them down, not wanting to worry her friend.

“Roarke’s finally been discharged from the army hospital near New York and I’m driving him home in my new car.”

Chloe drew in a shaking breath. “I’m so glad. How is he?”

“I’ll let you talk to him.” Muffled voices.

Kitty came back on the line. “He says he’s too tired to talk. I’ll call you as soon as we get home.”

Chloe hung up and stood waiting for her nerves to calm. Roarke was coming home. She hadn’t lost him, too. A long-denied hope unfurled its soft petals within her heart.
Come soon, Roarke, please. I need to see you, to touch you and be comforted.

“Why did you call Chloe?” Roarke growled.

Kitty stared at him. “Because she’s one of your oldest friends and she’s been concerned about you.”

“You’re matchmaking again and I won’t have it.” Roarke hunched up one shoulder. When Kitty had looked at his scarred face, her horrified expression had decided him. He knew what he had to do.

“I’m not matchmaking.” Kitty flushed red. “I’m just trying to make you happy.”

Make me happy?
Roarke looked at his sister with disbelief. Words failed him. He closed his eyes.

“What is it, Roarke? I want to help.” His sister led him to her jaunty roadster parked on the busy street.

You can’t help me. No one can.
He got in, refusing to look at Kitty. “Where are you driving me?”

“I thought we’d head home.”

“No, take me to a hotel.” He stared at the car’s floor.

“Mother and Father wanted to come and pick you up, but you said you only wanted me. They’re waiting for you at home.” Kitty touched his frozen arm gingerly, as though it might be rigged to detonate. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you want them to come with me? We’ve missed you terribly.”

“They can come to New York to see me. Start the car. Let’s get . . . somewhere.” Pedestrians kept looking at them as they passed by the car. He propped his elbow on the car and pressed his hand to his scarred cheek.

“Roarke, you’re not making sense.”

He refused to look at her, ignored the plea in her tone. “I’m not going home . . . yet.” He sensed Kitty struggling with herself, holding back questions. He didn’t help her. Couldn’t help her.

“If that’s what you want, fine.” She started the car and off they went, merging recklessly into traffic. “The Waldorf isn’t far.”

“No, take me somewhere we’ve never stayed or had lunch.” He knew he was being obtuse, confusing to his sister. But how could he help her when he felt all mixed up and turned on end himself? They soon arrived at an unfamiliar hotel near Central Park. Roarke averted his eyes as Kitty checked them in to two adjoining rooms. But from the corner of his eye, Roarke caught the shocked stares of people walking through the elegant green-marble and polished cherry-wood lobby, and those of the desk clerk and the bellhop. His neck warmed with embarrassment.

At Kitty’s side, he entered the elevator. The operator stared at Roarke’s scarred face and his arm in a sling. Roarke resisted the urge to pull up his collar or lower his hat. He’d have to face this for the rest of his life, so he might as well get used to it. If only this was just about his stiff arm and the scars on his face . . . He shut his mind down, forcing himself to concentrate on the brass half circle that displayed the ascending numbers.

Chloe waited three days after Kitty’s phone call, letting the McCaslins have Roarke all to themselves. When she couldn’t wait any longer, she asked to be driven over to see him.

As the car pulled up to the front door of the McCaslin home, Chloe chewed her lower lip. What would it be like to see Roarke again? Should she have called ahead? She would have if she could have made herself complete the call. But she’d found herself suddenly reluctant to make contact. What had kept her lifting and then putting down the phone?

She was still in deep mourning; a knee-length black veil trimmed in black silk crepe hung in front of her. It made her world appear darker as the driver opened her door and she approached the silent house. She’d expected to see the cars of friends who’d be inside welcoming Roarke home. But the draperies were all drawn and no cars were parked in front.
Something’s wrong.
She didn’t even have a chance to touch the door bell before the McCaslin housekeeper flung open the door. “Honey, we don’t know what to do.”

“What’s wrong, Maisie?”

“It’s Mr. Roarke, Miss Chloe. He won’t come home.”

“He won’t come home?” Chloe echoed, dumbfounded.

“The mister and missus gone up to New York City. He stayin’ at a hotel there. He tell his mamma and daddy he won’t come home.”

Chloe couldn’t move, reeled with shock. “Why?”

“We don’t know.” The housekeeper was wringing her plump hands. “His parents are tryin’ to get him to come home.”

“Does he need extra care for his injuries? Maybe he needs to stay near the army doctors for extra treatment.”

“I don’t know ’bout that. But we’re worried, Miss Chloe.”

The breeze fluttered her black veil. She felt numb, empty. Then she realized—she’d been looking to Roarke to help her unearth the courage that had failed her, to help her start again. But he wasn’t coming back to her. Just like Theran.

Gray, rainy late September was closing in on Chloe. Outside the window, the weathered black-eyed Susans were sodden and bent over. Turning away, she tried to think of something to do with the evening yawning before her. Upstairs, her mother was giving Bette, now over six months old, a bottle. Chloe trailed aimlessly from room to room, staring out windows at the dreary weather, straightening antimacassars and picking up lint. Over a year ago, she’d met Theran and run away and married him. All in vain. She was home now, but somehow her mother had usurped her role.