The Midwife's Tale (25 page)

An ominous silence enveloped the room—until Micah’s voice rang out, firm and clear this time. “Dr. Park?”

The doctor exhaled, cast Martha a scowl, and turned on his heels. When he reached Micah, he poked the younger man in the chest. “I intend to speak to your father. He’ll make you listen to me,” he snapped, and made a noisy escape through the hall and down the steps. When the front door opened and quickly slammed shut, Martha flinched, but Micah held firm. “I can handle my father. Just tell me how soon I can take Eleanor to Trinity.”

Martha let out a long breath. “Let her build up her strength for a week. I’ll write down everything I want you to do,” she suggested, looking down at her patient and offering her a reassuring smile.

A week from now, Thomas would be able to welcome his daughter home, although he would have the formidable task
of keeping his sister at bay. Come winter, God willing, Thomas would be able to welcome his first grandchild, which would also help him to see a future for himself without Sally by his side.

Her heart trembled.

Couldn’t someone, somewhere, help Victoria come home to her mother, too?

19

S
he had been a coward. She had merely been practical. She had been a coward.

Martha swung from one extreme thought to the other as she returned from the apothecary, several squares from the modest town house where Eleanor and Micah waited to bid her farewell, with a new supply of simples she ordinarily purchased from Doc Beyer in her bag. If she had had any courage, she would have gone to see Dr. McMillan and talked to him about buying remedies from him, too.

“I’m a coward,” she muttered, even though she had saved considerable coin by getting her supplies in Clarion. She had also gotten a new remedy for Samuel Meeks, one the druggist claimed might work wonders for the reclusive man who was losing his vision. Besides, coming to Clarion to purchase the remedies from the apothecary had given her the opportunity to visit Eleanor without revealing the true purpose of her visit to anyone else.

She stopped at an intersection and waited for a break in the parade of carriages and wagons before crossing the street.

The mid-morning sun, perched in a flawless sky of blue, was bright and warmed the day, promising a fair ride home. She wrinkled her nose, unaccustomed to the stench. Although Clarion was only a middling city, compared to Philadelphia or New York, all the trappings of city life abounded. Refuse and human waste littered the streets. Shops and homes crowded together to accommodate the burgeoning population. According to Micah, despite new laws pigs roamed at will, creating havoc now and then when they scooted under and around moving vehicles while searching for food.

She scanned the street but saw no sign of the pigs. Relieved, she hiked up the hem of her skirt and sidestepped her way across the street between a Conestoga wagon obviously heading west and a farmer’s wagon loaded with squash. When she finally got to the cobblestone walk that shopkeepers had been sweeping clean when she passed by earlier, she dropped her skirt back into place and used long strides to loosen her leg muscles in anticipation of the long ride ahead.

The few precious coins she had left in her purse made it easy to avoid the temptations offered by the sundry shops along her route, but when she spied a leather-bound daybook in the window of Lynch’s Stationery Store, her steps slowed. The shopkeeper was busy rearranging the display and adding more merchandise, but she kept her gaze on the daybook.

Petite, the journal was no larger than the size of her hand. The vine of flowers etched on the front cover created a delicate frame around the centered numbers, 1830. She had never owned anything quite so lovely and most certainly nothing as expensive. Actually, the little sign listing the price had fallen forward, but she did not have to see it to know the daybook was far beyond her means, although with only a few months left in the year, the price surely had been lowered.

After the shopkeeper moved the daybook and some sheet music to make room for a display of picture puzzles, she followed his every movement. When he flipped the sign for the daybook upright and set it back in front of the daybook, her hand tightened on the handle of her bag, which also held her coins.

He caught her interest and looked down at the daybook. He held it up, cocked his head, and raised his brow.

Embarrassed, she shook her head.

He paused, crumpled the sign, and held up one finger.

She moistened her lips. A single dollar was an unbelievably low price, but still more than she could afford to pay for something that was a luxury she could not justify. Without any specific use for the daybook, the purchase would be a whim, and she had been practical for far too long to change now.

She listened to her purse instead of her heart, and shook her head before turning away and hurrying on her way.

Grace was saddled. Martha’s bags were strapped into place, along with a meal to eat on the way home. Anxious to arrive back in Trinity before dark, Martha waited patiently while Eleanor finished writing a letter to her father.

The rose-colored dress the younger woman wore softened her pallor, and her eyes were twinkling when she finished and handed Martha the letter. “You won’t forget to give this to Father?”

Martha tucked the letter into her pocket. “I’ll stop by his house before I set foot to home. Besides, your father’s been caring for one of my patients, remember?”

“Oh, Bird. That’s right.” Eleanor chuckled, apparently still amused by the tale Martha had told her last night. “Poor Father. He’s detested all winged creatures for as long as I can remember.”

Martha cocked a brow. “You know why, don’t you?”

A full grin. “No, but I gather you do.”

The memory made Martha smile, too. “Thomas was only ten or eleven at the time. Like most boys his age, he was rambunctious, full of energy, and anxious to prove his mettle. That particular day, he and James decided to see which one of them could climb all the way to the top of that big chestnut tree behind the meetinghouse. You remember. The one that lightning struck some years back?”

A nod.

“Well, James went first, made a good third of the way up, and stopped, which wasn’t like him at all. Nevertheless, your father proceeded to pass him. Halfway up, he happened upon a bird’s nest and disturbed the mother bird, who was tending her young. Unfortunately, they were jays, and before your father could wriggle away, a good flock of very angry jays answered the mother’s distress call and pecked his poor head something fierce.”

She chuckled. “Grandmother Poore patched him up. She told me she had to snip away a good bit of his hair to clean the wounds in his scalp. Poor Thomas. He bore the brunt of his chums’ cruel taunts long after his hair grew back in.”

Eleanor dissolved into laughter, bringing a healthy flush to her cheeks and a vitality to her appearance. “He never told me that story. Now I know why he’s not fond of birds.”

Martha nodded. “We all have stories we’re reluctant to share with our children until they’re grown. Maybe that’s a mistake,” she mused as her thoughts drifted, once more, to Victoria.

Martha had plenty of her own stories, of course, but she had not shared the most difficult or most embarrassing ones with her daughter, either, and she suspected most parents had done the same. Perhaps it was nothing more than a well-intentioned effort by parents to paint themselves as more suitable models
for their children to follow. Fear that any faults or misdeeds or misadventures might somehow weaken their authority might play some part as well.

The blade, however, swung both ways.

The cost of appearing more saintly than human gave parents a selective memory, if not an impossible model for the children to emulate. To be fair, adults probably blocked out experiences that if shared would humble them before their own children, when in essence, their very humanity, replete with failures, should have become a source of encouragement that the children, too, could overcome the most troubling of mistakes.

With new insight into her own relationship with Victoria, as well as Oliver, she saw the role she had played in her daughter’s disappearance from a different perspective, embraced her mistakes, and quickly thought of a way to make amends when Victoria came home.

“I must be off,” she murmured. “I expect to see you in Trinity next week. Micah knows exactly how to get you home, so let him worry about that. You concentrate on getting stronger, and have faith.” She embraced the young woman. “I’ll see you soon,” she promised, and departed.

She made one stop in Clarion before she left. When she did, her purse was lighter, but her heart was far happier than when she had arrived.

Martha followed Dillon’s Stream all the way home and arrived at sunset. An unusual number of men milled about, mostly along West Main Street, so she took the covered bridge at the western end of town and crossed over to the other side. She waved to the Lynn sisters, who were outside sweeping the sawdust from the
new planked sidewalk in front of the confectionery, and made a mental note to stop in to see them tomorrow to see how their lozenges were coming along.

True to her word, she rode directly to Thomas’s home to deliver Eleanor’s letter. She was both relieved and dismayed to discover that Thomas was not home. The housekeeper, Eva Clark, was either out visiting herself or napping, so Martha simply slipped the letter under the door along with a hastily scribbled note asking Thomas to bring Bird home to her.

Once she reached the tavern, she had to make a real effort to get past the wagons and horses overcrowding the yard to get Grace into the stable and settled down for the night. Spurred by the tempting aroma of mutton stew that laced the air, she did not bother to unpack when she got to her room. She only took the time to hang up her cape and wash up before joining Lydia and Annabelle in the kitchen.

“Smells delicious,” she offered in a loud voice in order to be heard over the din of heated conversation in the other room.

Lydia, who was lading servings onto two trenchers while the younger woman cut several slices of bread, looked up and wiped her brow with the hem of her apron. “You’re back early. Did you get everything you needed in Clarion?”