Frail

by Susanna Ives

  “Oh, you shouldn’t, ma’am,” protested Betry. “It’s too nice. Miss Megan or Miss Helena can use it for their babies. I made something for mine, I did.”

  “I want you to use it,” said Emily. “They’ll use the same clothes in time.”

  Helena’s throat tightened. She blinked away her emotion.

  “Sara, my dear,” Emily called to the servant as she walked in from the back garden, carrying a tin tub before her. “Please iron this gown.”

  Sara set down the tub, crossed to Emily, and gingerly took the tiny frock. “It’s so beautiful, ma’am.” She studied the needlework. “All your work is beautiful.”

  “I hide away the terrible mistakes, my dear.” Emily laughed. “Now I’m in the mood to tell stories about Megan as a mere babe.” Emily launched into tales of Megan’s first true smile and how, when she learned to crawl, she followed the patient mama goose around the garden as if she were its gosling too.

  Emily’s voice was low and cadent like music as she sewed muslin bandages. None of her memories mentioned Eustace or her husband, all the tales were of sweet memories to reassure suffering Betry. Mrs. Gordon came to lean by the chamber door to listen. When Emily grew tired of talking, she asked Megan to sing.

  Helena remained Betry’s companion, walking with her, helping her to kneel or sit. In a way Helena couldn’t understand, all that mattered to her now was this baby. If this infant, a poor servant’s child, could enter the world unscathed and without injury to its mother, then perhaps Helena stood a chance of surviving. She had seen enough death. She needed a birth. She needed hope.

  Betry’s contractions came in steady intervals. Hours and hours wore on until the rich tones of dusk darkened the sky. Helena stifled her concerns for Betry’s sake. But shouldn’t the baby have arrived by now? She tried to believe Emily’s reassurance that this prolonged labor was not unusual.

  “The first one takes the longest,” Emily said.

  “My grandmother always said so,” Betry muttered.

  Around ten o’clock, Betry was kneeling before a kitchen chair, her head resting on the wood, her body spent, when a vicious pain seized her. She cried out in agony. The violent pain continued for a long duration. “Something is wrong,” she choked, tears trailing down her face. “I’m dying! I’m dying!”

  Mrs. Gordon rubbed her back. “Hush now, you are well.”

  “Is there nothing we can give her?” Helena demanded, unable to keep her tongue.

  “’Tis nature’s way, miss,” Mrs. Gordon replied. “You’ll do more harm if you interfere with the natural course of things.”

  Helena bit back her desire to state her opinion of nature and its course.

  “Come, Betry, lay down and rest if you can,” Mrs. Gordon said.

  Helena assisted Mrs. Gordon in laying Betry in her narrow bed. Mrs. Gordon positioned the folded blankets under her hips. Emily pulled the chair by the bed and wiped Betry’s heated forehead with a wet cloth.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Betry shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m causing a bother.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” said Emily.

  Another wave of pain crested over her, and her shrill cry dissolved into sobs. “I’m dying,” she wept again, and began to murmur, “Nain, nain, nain.”

  “She’s calling to her grandmother,” Emily explained to Helena. She smoothed wet strands of hair from Betry’s face. “The poor darling.”

  For the next hour, the contractions came so fiercely that Betry couldn’t talk, but managed piercing cries or groans that sounded as if she were being ripped apart. After the pain passed, she lapsed into a vacant, silent stupor.

  “Is there nothing you can do?” Helena pleaded again with Mrs. Gordon.

  Mrs. Gordon blew an audible rush of air through her nose, her lips thinning, visibly annoyed with Helena.

  “My love, why don’t you rest for a moment?” Emily appeased. “You’ve been so helpful.”

  “But—”

  “Please rest, Miss Gillingham,” Mrs. Gordon said. A veiled order. “We shall fetch you when Betry progresses in her labor.”

  Progresses? Helena wanted to say. How much longer must this woman suffer?

  ∞∞∞

  Helena eased from the chamber and left through the kitchen door. The evening air cooled her face and where her underarms and back were drenched from perspiration.

  A silver gibbous moon illuminated the thin clouds drifting across it. Wrapping her arms about her, she walked toward the old barn until she could see Theo’s home rising above the trees. The lights burned in the windows.

  What was he doing now? What was he thinking?

  She wanted to run to him and have him whisper that all would be well with Betry and the child. To tell her the newborn would be like those tiny, frail shoots of asters they had planted and would grow strong and hardy. She closed her eyes. The infant needed to be safely delivered into this world. That’s all that mattered. She needed to leave Wales with something born, not dying. No more dying.

  She began to walk in a circle, pretending it was the tulip labyrinth—flowers for fearful thoughts.

  She had almost made it to the imagined center when Megan’s alarmed cry broke the quiet. “Helena! Where are you?” The girl appeared out of the darkness. “Mrs. Gordon needs you! Betry is about to give birth.”

  ∞∞∞

  The hot kitchen, smelling of perspiration and coal, was a shock to Helena’s cooled cheeks and nose. She edged into Betry’s crowded chamber. Betry was upon the mattress, her chin pressed to her chest, her eyes squeezed shut, her mouth stretched in a silent scream. At the foot of the bed, Sara braced Betry’s left foot against her stomach, pushing the leg back. Mrs. Gordon gripped the right one. Betry’s shift and a sheet were bunched at her waist, her reddened, swollen privates exposed. Helena froze, repulsed by the rather grotesque sight.

  “Grab her foot, please,” Mrs. Gordon said urgently.

  Helena instinctively stepped back, overwhelmed by the spectacle.

  “Grab her foot!” Mrs. Gordon barked.

  Helena forced herself forward, taking Betry’s foot from Mrs. Gordon’s hold.

  Betry wailed and thrust her leg, hitting Helena in the lower ribs. Helena swallowed the pain.

  Emily clutched Betry’s hand, whispering calming sounds while Betry shook her head, sobbing, “I’m dying. I’m dying.”

  “Hush now,” Emily calmed her. “You are almost done.”

  Megan slipped into the room, bringing a lit candle and scissors. The muslin bandages Emily had prepared and a long cord made of threads braided together hung over her arm.

  Mrs. Gordon stationed Megan behind her. The candle lit Betry’s bulging, dilated privates. Helena wanted to look away, her belly turning with nausea, but then she noticed it—a flat flesh-like plate with swirls of wet hair, protruding between the folds in Betry’s sex.

  “The infant!” Helena cried. “I can see its head, Betry! I can see it!”

  Betry’s body fell back on the pillow, the laboring pains ebbing. The baby’s head disappeared back in the womb.

  “No,” Helena whispered.

  But as the pains began coming in quick succession, the infant’s head dropped lower in the passage.

  Emily wiped the perspiration from Betry’s brow. “It’s almost here, my dear,” she said, trying to bolster the suffering woman. “Just a little longer.”

  “I can’t,” Betry cried. “I can’t go on.”

  “You are so very close,” Emily soothed. “A few more pains.”

  Helena had never witnessed a birth. What little she knew came from books on midwifery she found in a library. All the neat illustrations were babies in the womb and ladies reposed on a bed with angelic expressions on their face. The truth was a mess of bodily fluids, even feces, and pain. The mother was at the mercy of her body, which labored along to its own pace. The other women could do no more than circle the woman, whispering encouragement, and hiding their fears from her.

/>   Please, Helena whispered to whatever god was watching over them that night. This mother and baby needed to survive, else Helena might truly break apart. So many mothers died in childbirth. Hundreds of babies were born still. Helena always tried to fight her fears, putting them in compartments, setting up walls between them. Yet nature pressed on, oblivious to her desires to categorize it and control its course.

  The leg Helena held began to tremble. She could feel the powerful contraction possess Betry’s body. The poor woman rose up and screamed. The agonizing sound hurt Helena’s ears, but she kept her tight hold on Betry’s foot. The tiny head emerged from the womb, its face toward the mattress. Its scalp was a bright red, as if it had been scalded in hot water, and coated with a white film.

  Was this right? She glanced to Mrs. Gordon, who was smiling and speaking to Betry in Welsh in kindly encouraging tones, unperturbed by the infant’s appearance.

  Betry’s body quaked again. Tears streamed down her face. She pressed hard, releasing another sharp cry.

  Helena watched, fascinated, as the baby turned in Mrs. Gordon’s palm, its shoulders emerging and then its entire red body, covered in a cheese-like film, falling into Mrs. Gordon’s waiting arms. Mrs. Gordon quickly swept away the umbilical cord loosely wound around the child’s neck and shoulder.

  “Oh, Betry, it’s a girl!” Helena cried. “It’s a beautiful girl.”

  Yet the tiny being remained still and quiet in Mrs. Gordon’s arms. A long moment passed. Emily stood and looked at the infant, her brow creased with concern.

  Helena panicked. Something was terribly wrong.

  No, God. So much depended on this baby. This hope. She pressed her hand to her trembling lips.

  Mrs. Gordon gently opened the babe’s mouth, scooped away a finger full of mucus, and the child began to wail—robust, healthy cries.

  Helena released a sob.

  The newborn opened her lids to reveal milky, blue eyes. She gazed blindly about her new home for the first time and cried, so angry to be outside the warm safety of her mother’s womb.

  “Oh, you little darling,” Helena whispered.

  Helena was two decades older than this newborn, but she understood the child’s alarm—expelled into a new world, flailing about, unable to help herself except to cry. How does one tell an infant she was born into a circle of love, surrounded by women who would always protect her?

  Mrs. Gordon raised the child, so her mother could view her little one.

  Betry blinked, more tears coming. “Oh, look at her. Look.” She strained to touch her infant, but the cord still held the child.

  Mrs. Gordon surprised Helena by handing her the infant and only laughed at Helena’s gasp. “There, support her head, hold her tight.” She fitted Helena’s arms snugly around the child.

  Helena clutched the newborn, scarce breathing, so afraid one small movement would cast the slick, tiny thing from her arms.

  The child was scrawny, like a plucked chicken, and Helena’s childhood china dolls weighed more. She couldn’t see how such a frail thing would survive, yet neither Mrs. Gordon nor Emily appeared concerned.

  Mrs. Gordon quickly tied the braided thread around the umbilical cord and severed the child’s physical connection to its mother. She then spoke to Megan in Welsh. Megan brought forward the bandage Emily had prepared. The muslin had a hole cut in it that Mrs. Gordon gingerly eased over the stump of the umbilical cord and wound the rest of the bandage around the infant’s belly. She quickly wiped the infant’s skin clean and placed a blanket over her. All the while, the child screamed, so upset to be born, tossed from the warmth of her mother’s body. Helena’s “hushes” and “shhs” offered no solace.

  “There now, allow Emily to hold her while Betry finishes her labor,” Mrs. Gordon said above the infant’s cries.

  Those few steps around the foot of the bed were the scariest Helena had ever managed. What if she tripped? What if she dropped the child? She breathed a sigh of relief when Emily expertly drew the infant into the cradle of her arms. However, the babe didn’t quiet for Emily either, but continued to wail as Emily held the infant beside Betry.

  Mrs. Gordon pressed her hand on Betry’s belly and instructed her in Welsh. A bloody mass attached to the umbilical cord slid onto the old blanket. Megan, who had been standing silently beside Mrs. Gordon for the last hours, awaiting her instruction, now blanched. She swayed and crashed against the wall behind her, clutching her stomach. Helena rushed to support her. Megan took several gulps, swallowing down whatever threatened to escape her throat, and straightened herself. She waved off Helena. “I’m well. I’m well.”

  Mrs. Gordon and Emily exchanged a knowing chuckle.

  “My poor dear,” said Emily. “Sadly, womanhood isn’t all pretty dresses and bows.” Despite this gloomy admission, she laughed. “How we suffer to bring our darlings into this world.”

  Mrs. Gordon made quick work of cleaning the bed, handing a wadded up bloody blanket to Sara. “Put this outside in a bucket,” Mrs. Gordon instructed. “Bury it come morning light.”

  As Mrs. Gordon wound a bandage about Betry’s privates and replaced the sheet, Emily nestled the newborn in her mother’s arms and tucked the blanket about her. Betry, pale and spent from laboring, quietly ran her fingers over the baby’s features, whispering in Welsh. The baby, instinctually knowing her mother, quietened and seemed to gaze up at Betry with bright and unfocused eyes.

  All the pain and worry weighing in the air for the last hours now dispersed as easily as dandelion seeds. Helena couldn’t remove her eyes from the mother and infant. She could feel the bond between them, palpitating in the air like an invisible heart. Despite all she had witnessed that night, all the pain and indignity of birth, she wanted such a moment for her own. Primal and pure love. Her hand drifted down her belly. Did Theo’s baby grow in her now? She shouldn’t have such a hope. She shouldn’t imagine showing Theo his beautiful child.

  “Come, Megan.” Emily drew her daughter to her with one arm and put the other around Helena. The baby rested in Betry’s arms.

  “She’s so very small,” Megan said, vocalizing Helena’s concern.

  “You were much smaller,” Emily replied. “The midwife was worried. But you were a spirited thing, always tossing off your blankets in the cradle and demanding to be held.”

  Helena wondered about her own birth. No one told her any stories. She had no surviving infant gowns, no souvenirs of the event, nothing to pass on. Perhaps she had tried to grip this world so tightly because she was barely rooted in it.

  This illegitimate child, born of a servant, would know more love and constancy than Helena had in her beautifully adorned nurseries.

  “I would like to name her Emily, ma’am.” Betry glanced at Emily. “With your blessing.”

  “Of course,” replied Emily. “We need more Emilys in this world.”

  The words were meant to be in jest, but they were profoundly true. Emily held together this small family, mostly composed of misplaced people, through compassion. Despite losing a child, as beautiful a child as the one cradled in Betry’s arms, she still stubbornly loved. Helena wasn’t made of such resilient material. Her loss, though not as great, had only embittered her.

  Betry lifted the baby to her breast. The tiny thing instinctively knew her mother’s nipple and tried to suck.

  “She’s a strong one,” Mrs. Gordon remarked. “Already knows her mind. She shall take to this land well.”

  ∞∞∞

  The baby slept near the warm kitchen oven in Megan and Eustace’s old cradle brought down from the attic. Little Emily wore the white, embroidered gown and was bundled tight in a blanket. Her exhausted mother slumbered in the adjoining room, assured that Little Emily would be watched until she awoke.

  Emily had kissed Helena’s cheek and whispered, “Forgive him,” before letting Sara help her to bed. Megan said she would remain in the kitchen, only to curl up and fall asleep on the bench. Mrs. Gordon sat in the corner, her knittin
g needles beating a steady rhythm as she worked.

  Helena sat on the brick floor by the cradle and watched the infant. Little Emily was a restless sleeper, kicking, yawning, and sticking out her pink tongue. Once she even looked as if she were smiling, drifting in a pleasant dream. But there were several times when she stopped breathing for several long seconds and panic tightened Helena’s chest. But as soon as she looked to Mrs. Gordon for help, the babe would make a cooing sound, yawn, and continue sleeping.

  Finally, even the formidable Mrs. Gordon leaned her head against the wall and drifted off to sleep. Her knitting needles slipped from her fingers and rested in her lap.

  Only Helena remained awake to watch over the baby.

  She edged closer to the cradle to draw in Little Emily’s scent. An aura of innocence enshrouded the sleeping infant. All the ugly emotions that had raged inside Helena only hours before quieted before this defenseless newborn—an illegitimate girl of a lowly servant. Who would protect this tiny being with the odds stacked so steeply against her? Helena had felt the burn of society’s judgment and didn’t want this little one to know its vicious censure, only love and welcome.

  Theo told Helena he had lied to protect her. As Helena gazed at Little Emily, now sleeping with her tiny red fingers curled beside the shell of her ear, Helena understood that fierce need to shield.

  Helena cringed, thinking of the cruel words she and Theo had exchanged hours ago.

  What if someone told Little Emily she should have died as Helena had told Theo? What if she were sent to war and told to kill enemy soldiers who were no more than sixteen or seventeen? What if she were born to a cold father who selfishly committed suicide, leaving her to receive the punishment of his crimes?

  All that anger, when heaped on a tiny babe, exposed the despair below the rage.

  And Helena, blinded by hurt, wrath, and her own self-loathing, had lashed out at Theo. She had thrown every sin ever committed against her, including her own, at his feet. Years and years of anger. Was Theo, a man who already knew so much pain, supposed to pay for his transgression and everyone else's? What had she done?