Judge Thee Not

by Edith Maxwell

  I went to her and gently laid my hands on her nightgowned shoulders. “How long has thee been bleeding, Georgia?”

  “Since dawn.”

  Five hours. “Is it heavy? Does thee have pains?”

  “Yes. It’s not like labor, Rose, but it hurts more than a monthly.” She sniffed and sat up straight. “I’m losing the baby.” She did not make it a question.

  “I think it’s probable. Has thee passed a clot or any thicker matter?”

  She nodded, with the saddest look I’d ever seen on her face. “Right before I called you.” Tears crept down her cheeks as she reached for a red wad of flannel on the shelf next to her.

  The cloth looked like a rag torn from a woman’s red petticoat, the undergarment we all donned during our monthlies to minimize accidental staining of lighter-colored fabrics. When the petticoats wore out, we tore them into rags to use during the same period, that cyclic aching reminder of our fertility.

  Georgia folded back the fabric to reveal a mass of deep-red bloody tissue, within which I glimpsed the shape of a tiny seahorse under an inch long. A human embryo.

  I steadied myself on the sink behind me and pressed my eyes shut. I had experienced an almost identical tiny life being wrenched from my body far too early. In my case I had only recently grown out of childhood. My pregnancy had been the result of being violently assaulted. It had not been a blessed event for me, and having my body end it of its own accord had been a great gift.

  But I was here to help Georgia, who had wanted this baby. My job was not to dwell on the pain of my own past. I opened my eyes to see her staring at me.

  “Are you all right, Rose?” Her brow knit.

  I smiled sadly. It might help her if she knew I had experienced what she was enduring. “I had a pregnancy end similarly long ago. I apologize. The memory took over for a moment there.”

  She nodded. “Then you truly understand how this feels. I have known you long enough not to care that surely you were unmarried when it happened.”

  “I thank thee. I believe I do understand.”

  “I never lost a baby before. Why did it happen now?” Her voice was plaintive. “I’ve been eating well and haven’t lifted anything heavy.”

  “Only God knows, Georgia. In truth, we women are born with a finite number of eggs in our bodies. They grow old along with us, and their number diminishes, of course, with every monthly and every pregnancy. By the time women reach thy age, the eggs available to be fertilized by the male are much fewer. I’ve read medical papers hypothesizing that any toxins we might come in contact with throughout our lives can accumulate in the ovaries, damaging the remaining stock, as it were.”

  “Oh?”

  I gave a little laugh. “I’m sorry for subjecting thee to a scientific treatise. I only meant to say that the older a woman is, the more chance she has for producing offspring with serious problems.”

  Georgia nodded. “I see. Better I lose the baby this way than carry to term a defective child? One whose body or mind might not form correctly in the womb?”

  “Your body making a corrective move is one way to look at it, and it can be comforting.”

  “In fact it is, in a twisted way. Ohh,” Georgia groaned and bent over again. I squatted in front of her and stroked her forehead.

  “Use thy birthing skills.” I spoke softly. “Thee knows how. Breathe down to the pain. Let go of constriction. Blow out a deep breath and do it again.” I took in a long inhale and gently blew it out through pursed lips to model it for her. “In this situation, thee can bear down whenever thee needs to.”

  I was a bit worried. After her daughter had been born last summer, Georgia had hemorrhaged, but I’d been able to control the bleeding. I prayed something related wouldn’t occur here. I had little experience helping women through miscarriages, except for a disastrous one in the winter which ended up not being a miscarriage at all. My clients rarely came to see me until they were halfway along in their pregnancies, and most losses like this one occurred early on. I longed to talk with Orpha for guidance. Her granddaughter Alma did have a telephone in the house, one which had been critically useful in a dangerous episode with a killer nearly a year ago, but I doubted Orpha would be comfortable using the device. Instead I held Georgia in the Light of God, that the bleeding would not threaten her health in any way.

  She and I, we’d get through this. She wouldn’t be the mother of six, after all, but not being pregnant again was likely for the best. She and Robert could enjoy the five healthy children they already had.

  Georgia sat up again. “Being a woman isn’t for the weak, is it, Rose?” She swiped her brow.

  “Indeed it isn’t. But we knew that, didn’t we?”

  “Why, if Mr. Clarke gets the least bit sick he acts as if he’s on his deathbed.”

  “Orpha told me something funny once,” I said, glad my client felt well enough to speak of everyday things. “She said labor is so painful, women can almost understand how a man feels when he runs a low fever.”

  She gave a quick laugh. “That’s a good one.” She stopped smiling and seemed to turn inward, blowing out a breath. She put one hand on the shelf and grabbed my hand with her other. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth.

  “Good,” I murmured. “Thee is doing so well.”

  After the current pain subsided, she cocked her head. “You know, I’ve been thinking on poor Mayme being killed.”

  My eyes flew open. “Thee has?”

  “Yes. My cook said the Settles’ maid—well, she’s Cookie’s cousin’s daughter—told her the gardener fellow they have over there has always been an odd duck. One time he brought some mushrooms in for the cook, but something seemed off about them so she threw them in the rubbish. Maybe the gardener is Mayme’s murderer.”

  Maybe, indeed.

  “Your policeman might want to look into it, no?”

  “I’ll pass along thy tale to him.” And I might see if I could have a word with the Settles’ cook later today. I might just.

  Twenty-four

  By ten thirty Georgia was feeling well enough for me to leave. I’d cautioned her she might continue bleeding lightly for several more weeks, but to summon me immediately if the flow became heavy again. She’d insisted on pressing three dollars into my hand before I left, despite my trying to refuse. She’d said Mr. Clarke would have it no other way.

  Now I stood in my parlor waiting for Gertrude to put my call through to David at Anna Jaques Hospital. What was taking so long? I supposed she must have to go through the hospital’s operator. Lina rattled pans and dishes in the kitchen, and the coo of a dove floated in through the open window. I normally found both kinds of noises soothing—Lina’s because it meant I didn’t have to clean the kitchen, and the dove’s because it was such a soft sound. Neither helped at this moment. The world was still cloaked in fog. My mind was, too.

  I perked up when a voice came over the line, but sagged when it was not David’s deep, rich tones but the hurried high notes of operator Gertrude.

  “Mr. Dodge is not available, Miss Carroll. Please telephone at a later time.”

  With a click, the line went dead. I paced back and forth, frustrated at not being able to talk to him. I rued not making the call earlier this morning and realized I was going to have to get over my unwillingness to deal with his mother. She was a lady in excellent health and my future mother-in-law. She no doubt would be part of our lives for two or three more decades at a minimum.

  I also thought about the effect having a telephone in the house had on my patience. Before we’d had it installed, David and I would write notes to each other, sometimes every day, as a way of communicating. Now? If I couldn’t reach him exactly when I wished to, it drove me a little wild.

  Of course, being able to receive calls at home had made an enormous difference in my profession. Clients of means no longer had to send a driver merely to call me to a labor. And when I did get a call, I was able to summon Annie by using the
telephone to leave a message with the landlord of her building, who had agreed to let her know where to meet me.

  I flounced into the chair at my desk. This murder case was rattling my brain with too many unanswered questions. I wasn’t due at Sissy Barclay’s until one this afternoon, so I drew out paper and pencil. Sometimes writing down the known facts and questions about the unknown helped clarify things in my mind.

  I made two underlined headings and pushed my glasses back up my nose. Under Known on the left I jotted down a list:

  Adoniram upset about daughter’s death

  A. brought suspicious mushrooms to cook

  Irvin and Mayme argued

  Irvin tried to cast suspicion on Bertie

  Irvin’s first wife’s death?

  Merton humiliated by wife

  Mayme took hot drink before bed

  Mayme white stuff under fingernails

  Polish stranger in town claims Merton is brother

  I wasn’t even going to try to spell the man’s name. Were those eight bits all I knew? I tapped the pencil on the paper. Maybe, maybe not, but I could add to it any time. I shifted over to the Unknown column.

  Poison

  White substance

  Mayme and Irvin argument

  If Polish man is Merton’s relative

  If Merton made off with brother’s money

  Reason for Irvin’s false accusation

  I sat back and stared at the sheet. Did I have means to discover the facts about any of these unknowns? The first two on the second list were the purview of the police, the man performing the autopsy, and the chemist. By now I was confident Kevin would share the information with me when he had it. Sissy might be able to shed light on her husband’s beef with Mayme. Maybe Jeanette could offer or gain more information about the mysterious Pole.

  “Aha.” I was missing some of the very basics of detecting: opportunity and alibi. I returned to the Unknown list.

  Tuesday night whereabouts of A, Merton, Irvin, relative

  Merton and Adoniram most definitely had opportunity, living at the same property as the victim. Irvin and the Polish stranger? Somebody must know where they each had been after our knitting circle had broken up. Poor Bertie had been out and had admitted to Sophie she’d passed by the Settles’ home late that evening. But of course she didn’t go inside and dose Mayme’s drink with poison. Why would she? Similar to what John had said yesterday afternoon, if Bertie killed every person who didn’t approve of her living with Sophie, she’d have been hung for murder long ago.

  Twenty-five

  I tried three more times to reach David, never with success. I hoped his call had not been about anything urgent, and that he’d merely wanted to see me and perhaps go for a drive or dine out together. I’d eaten a bowl of leftover potage after I finished my list. It was now after twelve thirty and the kitchen shone. It smelled clean, too, and I hadn’t had to do any of the work to make it so. I thanked Lina for doing an excellent job, which only made her blush. I doled out her weekly wage before sending her along home.

  I needed to leave soon myself to meet Annie at the Barclay home several blocks up the hill on Prospect Street. My apprentice hadn’t accompanied me on an antenatal home visit before, so this was a good chance for her to see the kinds of things I looked for. I’d never found anything wrong with the bedchamber of a comfortably situated mother-to-be like Sissy, but still it was good to know the layout of the house, who the servants were, and to explain to the client the process of the birth if it was her first. With less well-off pregnant clients, it was important I made sure they had a clean enough and sufficiently private setting in which to assure the most successful outcome possible.

  I’d washed my face, put up my hair, and picked up my satchel when the telephone rang. Maybe this was David, finally.

  “This is Rose Carroll.”

  “Good afternoon, Rosie,” David said.

  Smiling, I set down the satchel. “Hello, my dear. I’m sorry I wasn’t at home last evening, and this morning I could never get through to return thy call. Is all well in thy world?”

  “In a way, with the exception of a poor patient of mine who suffered a grievous fall.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “So was she. Say, do you have any news in this week’s case?”

  “I do, a little, but I’d much prefer saying it in person. Will thee have any time to see me later?”

  He laughed. “This Friend speaks my mind,” he said, mimicking one of the many peculiar turns of phrase Quakers use. “How about dinner with Dr. Dodge this evening? I’ve learned the Grand Hotel has a new chef preparing meals. They say he’s quite excellent, having trained in Paris and New York. May I fetch you at six tonight?”

  “I would be delighted. Must I ‘dress for dinner,’ as thy mother puts it?” Not that I owned any garments suitable for dinner in society’s elevated circles. I didn’t wish to have them in my possession, either. More than a year ago, before David had asked for my hand, I’d borrowed a lovely rose-colored gown to attend a dinner dance, an appearance Clarinda had nearly commanded.

  While I’d obtained special dispensation from John Whittier for the evening’s attire, I had not been comfortable at the soiree. I didn’t mind being judged unworthy by Clarinda and her friends. The only eyes I wanted to be judged worthy in were David’s. But perching politely on a slippery chair and smiling at the young ladies who were my apparent competitors for David’s hand had given me a serious case of indigestion.

  “You know I don’t care about such customs, darling Rose,” David now said. “Your beautiful face and companionable conversation is all that is required for our outing. Conversation and a healthy appetite.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Thee never needs worry about my appetite. I shall be ready at six o’clock.”

  Twenty-six

  I waited in front of the Barclay home until ten after one, but Annie never appeared. When I’d arrived, a roan pulling a black carriage had pulled out of the driveway and was plodding up the hill. Irvin, perhaps.

  The fog had finally burned off. With clear weather one could see the nearby coast from up here, but today the air was hazy with late-spring humidity. It was warm, to boot. I removed the shawl I’d donned before leaving the house and rolled it into the bike’s basket. The brim of my bonnet blessedly shielded my face from the sun’s strong rays.

  The grounds of the property, situated on a southern-facing slope, were full of perennial herbs and flowers I couldn’t even begin to identify, although they appeared a bit ragged, neglected. It looked like a master gardener had planted and tended them and then left with no one to replace him. The house itself was a more modest abode than I’d expected for a banker, a simple two-story home with neither a mansard roof nor the new complicated gables and rooflines that were coming into style for the moneyed classes.

  I finally leaned my bicycle against the carriage house, which was also of a modest size. I prayed my apprentice had not come to harm, but I couldn’t wait any longer. If I had a chance later, I’d ride by Annie’s family’s flat and see what was up.

  Rapping on the back door of the home brought a full-figured woman in a white apron to the door. The reason for her flushed cheeks was apparent after she let me in. The kitchen was warm and redolent with smells of heaven: cinnamon and cloves, lightly browned flaky crusts, and the tangy sweetness of baked apples. I also spied a bottle of uncorked sweet wine and suspected alcohol might play a role in the rosy hue of her face.

  I introduced myself. “I am Sissy’s midwife, and I believe she is expecting me.”

  “She told me yeh’d be along, Miss Carroll. I’m Aoife O’Malley, the cook here.”

  Eef? “Please call me Rose, ma’am. I’m pleased to meet thee. Might I inquire, how does thee spell thy name?”

  She threw back her head and chortled. “Nary a soul knows who isn’t Irish. It’s A-O-I-F-E, dearie, but don’t you make a notice of it. Pretend it’s E-E-F and be done with it. Now, I�
�m after baking up the last of the fall apples, I am. Care for a slice of pie before yeh go up?”

  “I thank thee, but no. I would love a taste when the visit is over, though. The smell alone is enough to make a person melt.”

  “And well might it be. I learned to bake from my gran in the old country, I did. Nothing much a few spices and a generous helping of butter won’t cure, wouldn’t you say, Miss Carroll?”

  “Indeed I would.” I laughed. “The Barclays seem to have a talented grower on the staff. The gardens outside are lovely.”

  “The manual labor is done by a local lad, miss, but Mr. Barclay is the mastermind, Miss Carroll.” She caught sight of my open mouth. “And no, I won’t be calling yeh by yer Christian name. ’Tisn’t proper, miss.”

  “Very well. Irvin is a gardener?” I asked. “A banker dirtying his hands surprises me.”

  “As it does the rest of us. But when the dear Lord gives us a gift, we’re ungrateful if we refuse it, isn’t it so?”

  I smiled. “Thee is correct.”

  “Like yer midwifing, then.” Aoife glanced at the ceiling. “We’re that happy about a baby in the house, we are. And now we learn we’re to have two at once.”

  “Yes, I detected twins when I examined Sissy earlier this week.”

  “The master, he’s been after wanting to become a da ever since he married poor Mrs. Barclay. The previous one, I mean.”

  I gave a single nod. “I understand she was not able to provide him with a child.”

  The cook shot her gaze right then left, and beckoned me closer. “He was mean to her, he was. Wretched and insulting. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if she withheld her womanly favors on purpose. Kept those legs locked up tight. Who’d want to get poked by a man of his ilk?” She winked and made an O with her left index finger and thumb, followed by a poking gesture with her right pointer. “Yeh know my meaning.”