Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (47 page)

I had helped Doc out during the war with bloodletting and removing
bullets, sometimes even removing limbs.  This made me somewhat immune to
the site of blood at the time, but it had been a while, so I prepared myself
for what was to come.  I held the cup as he let some blood run out, and
Elizabeth woke slightly and began moaning.  Doc took out a bottle of
tincture of opium, and I helped him sit Elizabeth up so she could drink a
little.  That seemed to calm her down, and then Doc asked me to wrap the
arm up while he proceeded to remove the bullet.  I tore a piece of
Elizabeth’s dress off into a strip and wound it around her arm where Doc did
the bloodletting.  Catherine came in shortly after with some boiled water
and more strips of cloth. 

Doc removed the bullet, and I used a strip of cloth dipped in the
hot water to put on top of that wound while he felt for the baby.  He
frowned.  He got up and opened the parlor door, asking for Ethan to come
into the parlor.  He told him that he had removed the bullet, but that the
baby was in danger because of the location of the bullet wound, and so he said
he would have to take the baby out immediately.  He explained that even
though it was early to take the baby out, it was the baby’s only chance at
surviving.  Ethan turned white.  Doc allowed him to see Elizabeth for
a moment while he prepared for surgery.  When Doc was ready to take the
baby out, Catherine led Ethan out of the room just as Doc started making a long
slit across the skin of Elizabeth’s abdomen. 

After pushing aside tissues and muscles, Doc was able to reach
inside and pull out the baby.  It was a girl.  She was tiny and wet,
and some of her mother’s blood got smeared on her.  He cut the umbilical
cord and handed the baby to me.  I cleaned her off with the water and
cloths and then wrapped her up in a clean blanket.  The baby did not
cry. 

“That means her lungs are not developed enough.  We may lose
her,” Doc said. 

He then took the baby and laid her on a chair to examine her and
attempt to get her lungs working.  He turned her over and patted her on
the back, and finally she cried out, gasping for air.  We both breathed a
sigh of relief. 

I called for Ethan to come and see his baby.  He took the
baby from me, and I knew he was in love immediately.  She was a cute
little baby, I had to admit.  She had yet to open her eyes.  While he
held her, Doc quickly sewed Elizabeth’s incision back up, as well as the hole
where the bullet had gone in. 

“What’s wrong with her?  She’s turning blue,” Ethan said.

The doctor, who had just finished sewing Elizabeth’s wounds, came
over and took the baby from Ethan.

“She’s been losing her breath,” I told Ethan.  “She stops
breathing because her lungs are not fully developed.”  I didn’t want to
tell him that we may lose her.  Ethan turned pale again, watching the
doctor.

Doc got her breathing again.  He listened to her heartbeat
through a stethoscope and frowned.  “Her heart rate has slowed,” he
said.  He kept working on her, and I moved back over to Elizabeth. 
She had been unconscious for both procedures after giving her the opium, and
still had not awoken.  I cleaned her some and then put her dress back on
her.  I wondered if she would make it, if she would open her eyes and see
her beautiful little baby girl.  I was a little torn.  Part of me
would be glad to get rid of her, but the other part of me realized that it would
be heartless to wish such a thing, and I felt sorry for her, knowing that she
might not be able to care for her baby.  Every mother and baby deserved to
be together. 

I looked over at Ethan.  He had his color back, but tears
streamed down his face as he looked from his baby to Elizabeth.  He may
lose them both.  Even though that would make it easier for us to be
together again, I found myself hoping that they both survived, if that would
make Ethan happy.  I hated seeing him in pain.  He walked over to
Elizabeth, and I moved away so he could have a little privacy with her. 
He brushed her hair off her face, and picked up her hand and kissed it.

“You should see your little girl.  She’s beautiful,” he said
to her.  I turned my face away, not wanting to see how much Ethan cared
for her.  Of course, he did care about her.  She had, after all,
given him another child.  “Her biggest fault has simply been that she
loved me,” he said, addressing me. 

I turned around to see him looking at me sadly.  I nodded. 
“I can’t blame her for that,” I said.  “I feel the same.”  He
actually smiled at me.  I walked back over to the baby and the
doctor. 

“It’s going to take a lot of time and patience, but I think this
little girl is going to make it,” the doctor said.  “Let’s hope for the
best.” 

Ethan joined us and watched the doctor rub her lungs and then rub
her back.  She was breathing again, though she would stop breathing
briefly at times.  During those episodes, she would turn pale and look
limp.  Then we could hear her catch her breath and she would have noisy
breathing again.  Doc washed his hands in the water basin to get rid of
the blood and also cleaned up the baby where he’d been rubbing her to get her
to breathe.

Ethan walked out into the entrance hall and paced.  I
followed him and tried to make conversation with him. 

“It’s lucky we found the doctor, isn’t it?  They both stand a
better chance of surviving with a doctor’s care.”

He nodded but didn’t speak. 

“That little baby is precious.  What will you name her?”

“I…I don’t know.  We hadn’t really talked about it.  I
will let Elizabeth decide when…if she wakes up.”  We both knew that might
not happen.

Catherine, who had gone to get the doctor something to eat and
drink, came back into the house with Ginny.  They were both carrying
plates of meats, cheese, fruit, and pecans, along with coffee, which they took
into the parlor.  I followed them in as Catherine took a cup of coffee for
the doctor and held the baby while he drank it. Between sips, he asked if we had
any nursing bottles. 

“I don’t think so,” I told him.

“How about nursing bottles for animals?  Something used for
horses when the mother is unable to feed her young?”

“Yes, I’d say we should,” I said.  He asked me to go get the
bottles and asked Catherine to get some glass containers to hold milk in. 
He was going to pump as much of Elizabeth’s breast milk as he could get out of
her for the baby.

I went out to the barn and found the bottles.  As I was
leaving the barn, William and Jonas came up on horses.  They’d been out
searching for the person who shot Elizabeth.

“Any luck?”

“None,” Jonas said.  “We went as far as the grist mill and
asked Mr. Rowland if he’d seen anyone on his property.  He had not, nor
had Lizzie.  We asked if it would be all right to look around the
property, and he allowed us to, even joined us in the search.  We did find
out that someone had been to the toolshed over near the corn field.  A
fire had been recently set outside the shed, and we found a tin can, a blanket,
and a man’s shirt inside.”

“How is Elizabeth?” William asked me.  I told them she was
still unconscious and that I was getting bottles so that Doc could get breast
milk for the baby.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone, Madeline,” William said, looking
concerned.  “Did you find the bottles?”

“Yes,” I said, holding two glass bottles up.

We all walked back inside the house.  Jonas and William
attended Ethan, who sat on a sofa in the hall, his head in his hands.  I
took the bottles into the parlor where Doc had already pumped some of the
breast milk out into a glass Mason jar.  As he pumped more out, he told me
to fill up one of the bottles and give it to the baby, who was being held by
Catherine. 

“She’s keeping her breath now,” Catherine said to me.  “Ethan
was holding her while I went to get the Mason jars, but he left the room again
as Doc started pumping the milk.”

I filled up the bottle with the warm milk and handed it to
Catherine.  “Would you like to feed her?” Catherine asked me. 

“I’ll go see if Ethan would like to,” I said instead.  The
three men were still in the hall, and I asked Ethan if he’d like to feed the
baby.  That wasn’t something that men did very often, especially if the
mother’s milk came through, but this was a special case, and I thought perhaps
it would help Ethan in this difficult time, since Elizabeth might pass
soon.  It might also help the baby, since she couldn’t be comforted by her
mother at the moment.  She would most likely recognize her father’s voice.

Ethan took the baby from Catherine.  The baby opened her eyes
and looked at her daddy.  She had dark blue eyes.  I wondered if she
would end up having hazel eyes like her daddy or if they would stay blue like
her mother’s.  Ethan broke out into a big smile.  That was
good.  They would definitely help each other.  He took the bottle
from Catherine and sat down on a chair while he fed her.  She took it
instantly, figuring out how to suck quickly.  The poor dear must’ve been
starving.

“Is the baby going to be all right?” Ethan asked Doc.  “She’s
awfully tiny.”

“Yes, I believe so.  She will need lots of love and
attention, and it would also be good to let her sit in the sunlight a few hours
every day.”

Doc finished getting as much breast milk out of Elizabeth’s breasts
and handed the second Mason jar to me.  “That’s all I can get out. 
She didn’t have that much yet, since her baby wasn’t due for another couple of
months.  We’re lucky she had any at all, this early.  You should find
a wet nurse, if possible.”  He wiped his brow and finished off another cup
of coffee.

I took a good look at the baby for the first time in Ethan’s
arms.  I felt tears in my eyes…she really was precious.  It reminded
me of Lillie when she was born.  I’d missed so much of her first year of life. 
I stood next to Ethan and watched him feed her.  When I looked into this
baby’s eyes, I couldn’t think about all the pain she had caused me, losing
Ethan and all.  I could only think that she was Ethan’s and that she
needed care, needed a mama.  She was innocent.  I wondered what would
happen if Elizabeth didn’t make it.  Would I be the one to take care of
this little one?

We all took turns holding vigil over Elizabeth and holding the
baby through evening and into the night.  When the longcase clock in the
hall chimed at two o’clock in the morning, the doctor announced that
Elizabeth’s heart beat had stopped and pronounced her dead. 

“I’m truly sorry, Ethan,” Doc said.  “There’s nothing else I
can do for her.”

Ethan furrowed his brow and ran his hand through his hair. 
He pursed his lips as he walked over to her and kissed her on the cheek,
picking up her hand.  “I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” he said quietly. 
“Sorry that you won’t get to take care of your baby.  I shouldn’t have let
you leave the house alone.”  He was obviously blaming himself for her
death.

“Ethan, don’t…” I said, touching his arm.  “Don’t blame
yourself.  You didn’t do this.”

“No, but I was supposed to be taking care of her.  She was
mad at me, now I know why, and it was my fault.  I should have made sure
she wasn’t listening to me talking to Mother.  I had no idea she
knew.  She wouldn’t say why she was upset.  She simply asked me not
to see you again and then said she needed to go for a ride on her horse. 
I didn’t know she had even left the plantation until you and Catherine
arrived.  She liked to take rides around the fields.  I thought she
just took her horse out.  I shouldn’t have let her, in her condition, and
being upset.”  He turned to leave the room, but I still had my hand on his
arm.

“Nonetheless, it is still not your fault.  It’s more my fault
than yours.  I’m the one who lied about this baby,” I said, motioning to
my lower abdomen.  Realization hit me.  It was my fault that
Elizabeth was dead.  My lies about my own baby caused her to be upset
enough to come see me once she learned the truth, and as she was leaving, she
was shot and later died.  “She wouldn’t have been over here if it weren’t
for me.”  Ethan said nothing but pulled away from me and left the room
tersely.  I knew not to let his coldness affect me, as he’d been through
much.  I let him grieve on his own. 

I looked at Elizabeth, realizing she would not see her little
baby, would not get to hold it or take care of it.  I felt pity for
her.  I was glad we sort of made peace before she passed.  “I’m
sorry, Elizabeth.  I shouldn’t have lied to you before.  Please
forgive me.”  I patted her pale, cold hand.   Her baby was going
to need a mother; perhaps I could do that for her, and for Ethan.  I felt
obligated to her since she’d come over here because of me.  

The doc finished cleaning up and said, “I’m going home now, but
I’ll return in a few hours to check on the baby.  She should stay here for
the night.  Do you have a cow, by chance?”

“No,” I told him.  I had hoped we would have obtained one by
now, but we had not, nor had the Wellingtons.  “One of us could go to the
O’Loughlin’s and acquire some,” I suggested.

Doc said that was fine, or if anyone had any goats, goat’s milk
was fine, as well.  So the baby would have to drink animal’s milk, or else
Ethan would have to find a new mother who could act as a wet nurse.  It
didn’t seem right somehow, and I began thinking about my own breast milk for my
baby.  My milk wouldn’t come in for a while, but perhaps when it did come
in, I might be able to feed both babies.