Chapter 39
There is no experience of a physician more trying than cases of flooding. … In a moment [they] change a scene of rejoicing and happiness into one fraught with danger and filled with horror.
— Augustus Gardner, “A Treatise on Uterine Hemorrhage in all its forms” (1855)
“When I first told David I was with child,” Tessa had confided to Joseph, “he was terrified. It was as if I’d told him I was dying.” Yet in the wake of Sophie’s passing, the boy grew closer to his foster-mother. Joseph’s father had confined Tessa to her bed in these final months of pregnancy—he was worried about pains in her abdomen. When Joseph visited, he usually found his nephew seated at Tessa’s bedside, reading to her from Cooper or Irving, even Austen. If she slept during the day, David would bring his schoolwork into the room and watch over her so that Hannah could attend to other duties.
When Joseph praised his nephew’s attentiveness, the boy answered simply: “She needs me.” Even at eleven, David must understand that Edward was poor company. (Joseph had heard Tessa’s husband reading Dickens to her once. Edward might as well have been reciting the plantation’s account books.) Hélène would have liked to sit with her friend every day; but she needed rest herself. And Tessa’s mother was an ocean away.
Joseph visited as often as he could. Since Tessa could no longer come to the cathedral, Father Baker gave Joseph permission to celebrate Mass in her home. David assisted him. His Latin was as good as Joseph’s. He thought it a pity that his nephew did not wish to serve at the altar in a more formal capacity.
If Edward was out, Joseph would play Tessa’s piano afterwards, so the music would drift up the spiral stairs to her bedchamber. Mostly Schumann, Chopin, and Liszt; but as they entered Advent, Joseph played French carols as well. These were the baby’s favorite, Tessa said.
David would help by turning the pages and occasionally joining in the singing. Usually his nephew was so timid, Joseph doubted Tessa could hear him at all. But when they sang “Un flambeau, Jeannette, Isabelle,” the boy cried out “Ah! Que la Mère est belle!” with such enthusiasm, Tessa’s laughter left no doubt that she’d heard.
The mother certainly was beautiful. Tessa was still in mourning for Sophie; she was bedridden; and the greatest trial of her life loomed closer every day. Yet Joseph always found Tessa smiling. More than three years had passed since the dark day she’d cut off her hair. Her plait fell nearly to her waist now, looking golden against the black of her dressing gown.
Following one of his little concerts, Tessa whispered to Joseph: “Don’t tell your father, but your medicine is better even than his.”
Joseph chuckled.
“’Tis right, that Priests are called ‘Physicians of the Soul.’ But to me, you are far more, Father.” Tessa dropped her eyes to her tray. She picked up a spoon and stirred her tea rather vigorously. “In ancient Ireland, a trusted Priest was called a ‘soul-friend.’ ’Tis a lovely expression, don’t you think?”
Joseph nodded. Soul-friend, he repeated in his head. SOUL-friend. This relationship does not involve bodies at all. Yet his palm longed to feel the child stirring inside her; his ears ached for one more word from her lips; even his nose yearned to bury itself in her neck and inhale her perspiration and her new perfume. It was gardenia, exotic and beloved at once. He’d thought the pull strong before, but the sight of Tessa increasing did something else to him entirely—her gravity was becoming inescapable.
Even that thought proved his wickedness. Tessa was not Potiphar’s wife; she did not seek to entrap him. Her tenderness toward him was that of a sister for a brother—nothing more. Tessa was as innocent as the babe she carried. This unholy desire was his alone.
Tessa’s pains began not on Christmas Eve but on the morning of Epiphany. Joseph wished he could install himself on a prie-Dieu in the Stratfords’ parlor immediately, so that he could entreat God every moment for her safety and that of her child. But as a Priest, his time was not his own.
Now more than ever before, Joseph’s work overwhelmed him. Technically, he remained a curate, but Father Baker had authorized him to perform most of the duties of a pastor, while Father Baker performed most of the duties of a Bishop—without the dignity, authority, or grace of that title. Nearly a year after Bishop England’s death, their diocese remained widowed. Archbishop Eccleston had barred Father Baker’s appointment to the episcopate, and no one else had been found yet. Perhaps it was Father Baker’s relative youth impeding his advancement (he was thirty-six), his delicate health (the curse of malaria), or the rumor that he and Bishop England—
Calumny. Joseph refused to believe it.
Moreover, Epiphany was a holy day of obligation. They celebrated not only the Magi recognizing the Christ Child but also Christ’s Baptism and His first miracle. During the High Mass, Joseph announced all the moveable feasts for the coming year. Afterward, he hurried through the parish, blessing as many homes as he could.
Since Tessa was confined to her bedchamber, David and Edward provided the responses in their house. The boy did so solemnly, Tessa’s husband reluctantly. Joseph concluded the prayers in the entry hall: “O Lord, bless this home, that in it there may be health, chastity, self-conquest, humility, goodness, mildness, obedience to Thy commandments, and thanksgiving to God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
Then Joseph blessed each room. As he approached Tessa’s bedchamber, Joseph heard her moaning and his father noting the spacing of her contractions. The door was ajar, but Joseph peered cautiously inside. Propped against a mound of pillows, Tessa was decently covered by her dressing gown and the sheets. Hélène sat beside her, holding her friend’s hand.
“It’s perfectly safe,” Joseph’s father assured them as he pulled the door wider. “She’ll be in the first stage of labor for hours yet.”
Tessa greeted Joseph, Edward, and David with a valiant smile. Even in pain, she was radiant.
Joseph sprinkled Epiphany water and swung his thurible, filling the bedchamber with the fragrance of myrrh. “Lord, bless this room where we both rest and labor”—he glanced at Tessa and returned her smile—“and let us dwell here together in peace.”
Before he proceeded to the next room, Tessa called in a wavering voice: “You’ll come back, Father? After Vespers?”
Joseph nodded. “I promise.”
Finally, he took a piece of blessed chalk and wrote above the front door
18 C + M + B 43
so that the three Magi, the Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, would watch over this home in the coming year of 1843—today, most of all.
Joseph had blessed the Stratfords’ home last year as well; but he’d noticed that the chalk above the door disappeared shortly thereafter. Edward had ordered one of the slaves to wipe it away, Tessa told Joseph—her husband had not wanted his Protestant friends to laugh at him. Joseph could not help but wonder if Sophie had paid the penalty for this impiety.
Throughout that long day, Joseph’s thoughts remained with Tessa. Between blessing other homes and visiting other invalids, he prayed for her in every spare moment. Night had settled before he was able to keep his promise to return.
Even with the windows shut tight against the cold, Joseph heard Tessa screaming from Church Street. He knew this was how it must be—that he himself had come into the world through such agony. As God had promised Eve in punishment for her sin: “I will multiply thy sorrows: in pain shalt thou bring forth children.” Still Tessa’s cries unsettled his soul. Saint Augustine had written of the Blessed Virgin: “She conceived without carnal pleasure and therefore gave birth without pain.” If only that principle applied to all women.
Joseph set down his portmanteau in the entry hall—he saw with relief that his blessing remained above the door—and a slave took his overcoat. He left the pyx hanging around his neck in its pouch, because it contained the Body of Christ. Since he’d come from other sick calls, Joseph had brought everything necessary for the Last Sacraments; but he prayed he w
ould need none of it here.
Liam and David waited in the parlor, trying to play chess. Edward sat pondering a glass of whiskey. Mignon was curled up by the fire, but his ear twitched at another cry from the floor above.
Joseph looked back to David. The memory of his mother’s death must be pressing down on him with every scream. Joseph laid a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “David, let me take you to your grandmother’s.”
The boy shook his head.
“I already offered,” Liam explained.
“I should be here,” David murmured, “if Aunt Tessa…”
Joseph knelt on the prie-Dieu and led them in prayers. At least, he led his brother-in-law and nephew. Edward took up The Spirit of the Times, a newspaper about horse racing and fox hunting.
Joseph invoked the Blessed Virgin; Saint Teresa; and Saint Margaret, patroness of women in labor. He begged the intercession of Saint Anne, who had thought herself barren only to become the mother of Our Lady herself. Saint Elizabeth too seemed appropriate. Tessa was hardly elderly—she was but twenty-six. Nonetheless, this day had a lifetime of loss and hope behind it. This child was still a miracle.
At a sudden assault on the windows, Joseph started. The jalousies and shutters were closed, but Edward paced out to the piazza and back. “It’s sleet,” he reported.
Joseph remembered his parting from Father Baker earlier that evening. “Come and fetch me, if Mrs. Stratford requires the Last Sacraments,” he’d told Joseph. And then he’d sneezed. Joseph suspected Father Baker was coming down with another cold.
Tessa would not need her confessor, Joseph assured himself. She would bear a healthy baby, and she would live to see it grow and thrive—
A scream louder and longer than any of the others arrested all his thoughts. A terrifying silence followed. Sleet was still flinging itself at the windows; surely it was only that they could hear nothing above the clamor of the storm. Surely in Tessa’s bedchamber, the baby was crying out indignantly and everyone was rejoicing.
The long hand on the mantle clock crept around the face. Ten minutes. Twenty. Forty. Still no perceivable sounds trickled down to them. A slave added wood to the fire, then changed out the lamp in the hall. Edward poured himself more whiskey and offered some to Liam, who accepted. David hid his face in his hands, and he began rocking.
At a noise in the entrance hall, Joseph leapt to his feet—even as a maid darted past the parlor into the fury of the storm. Joseph stood gaping through the open door. The young negress had been carrying a washstand pitcher. When she hurried back up the piazza steps, the pitcher was full of ice pellets she must have gathered from the ground. The maid shoved the door closed and did not pause till Joseph blocked her path. “Please—will you tell us what’s happening?”
The negress glanced up, hesitated, then replied: “It’s a little girl.”
The parlor’s occupants must have been listening; behind him, Joseph heard Edward groan. It distracted Joseph just long enough that the maid was able to slip past him. His mind overflowed with questions. Why did they need the ice? Why had the negress not mentioned Tessa? Did her silence mean Tessa was in danger? That she was already—
When it came to it, the maid had not even assured them that Tessa’s daughter was healthy. Joseph’s father knew to call on him the instant he feared for the child’s life, didn’t he? Or had this child been born dead like all the others? Was the ice to preserve its body?
Above him, another scream rent the silence. Tessa was still alive. For how long? Birth did not end the peril to mother or child. Cathy and Ian had been proof of that.
Joseph did not make it back to the parlor. He fell to his knees right there in the hall. In staying closer to Tessa, nearly beneath her, he felt as if his prayers might be more effective. Spare her, Lord, he pleaded. Spare her daughter…
Was that the protesting voice of the newborn, or only his imagination playing tricks on him?
He repeated the Blessing of an Expectant Mother: “Preserve Thy handmaid as she pleads for the life of her child… Let Thy gentle hand, like that of a skilled physician, aid her delivery…”
Joseph did not know how long he crouched there. It felt as though the storms inside and without had been raging for hours before heavy footsteps finally descended the stairs. He looked up to see his father.
In the flickering light of the lamp he carried, his father looked ghastly. He had washed his arms—they were still damp—but his rolled sleeves remained blood-stained. Framed by hair that had never looked more grey, his face was as weary as a corpse. Edward, Liam, and David heard his footsteps and came into the hall. Joseph’s father leaned against the stair rail for support. His eyes skimmed over each of them and alighted on the floor-cloth. “I am optimistic about the child. She is small, but strong.”
Liam hesitated, then asked for the rest of them: “And Tessa?”
Joseph’s father raised his eyes again, but they settled nowhere. “She’s still in the third stage of labor,” he said as if it were an apology. “Her condition is precarious. I cannot tear the placenta away without risking another hemorrhage and syncope; but—” He glanced at his grandson and stopped. “I have done everything within my power. She has regained consciousness, at least.” He noticed the pyx around Joseph’s neck. “Do you have what you need to administer the Last Rites?”
Joseph remained kneeling, as if rising were capitulation—an acknowledgement that the end had truly come. He struggled to swallow his dread. “I brought the Blessed Sacrament and the holy oil; but we need Father Baker…” Joseph looked toward the window behind the staircase. Sleet was still rattling the shutters. The seminary was seven streets away, and it must be nearly midnight.
“There isn’t time, son.”
David made a muffled sound of distress. His face crumpled, and Joseph knew his nephew was trying not to cry. Liam put his arm around the boy’s shoulders as silent tears descended his own cheeks. Edward disappeared into the parlor, but his sob carried out to them.
With effort, Joseph rose. He promised his brother-in-law and nephew: “After Tessa makes her Confession, I’ll summon you and Mr. Stratford for the rest of the Rites.” Numbly Joseph gathered his portmanteau and followed his father up the stairs. He paused partway to whisper: “Is she still in pain?”
His father nodded. “More than you or I will ever know. I’ve given her as much laudanum as I dare, but she insisted I keep her awake.”
Hannah was helping Hélène stagger into the spare bedroom. His sister’s eyes were already bloodshot, and her nose was leaking. She gripped Joseph’s hand. “If there are prayers you were saving for me, Joseph—please, say them for her.”
Tessa’s gardenia perfume reached him before he entered her bedchamber. He guessed Hélène had sprayed it to disguise the room’s less pleasant smells. The tangs of blood and something even more elemental saturated the warm air. Other odors met him too: vinegar, the pine logs in the fireplace, and rose water. The maid he’d seen earlier was gathering sheets from the floor—sheets more red than white.
Bolstered by pillows, Tessa lay on her left side, her back near the edge of the four-poster bed with its gathered green curtains. Her plait was so neat, Joseph suspected Hélène had rebraided it. Tessa’s long legs seemed to be drawn up beneath the fresh sheet, which barely reached her waist. Her left arm was stretched out across the mattress, her head tilted downwards. She wore only a chemise, and as Joseph rounded the bed, he realized its buttons were undone—Tessa’s newborn daughter lay not in her cradle but curled against her mother’s bare breast.
Joseph looked away, but not quickly enough. They might have warned him. He set down his portmanteau and busied himself with clearing the small table he used for an altar.
His father followed him into the bedchamber. “Can I help you with anything, Joseph?”
He nodded at the table. “We’ll need to bring this into Tessa’s sight line.” Estimating this required Joseph to glance back at her.
Tessa’s right arm c
radled her daughter, her fingers caressing the small bald head. “She fussed and fussed, until they returned her to me,” Tessa explained. Her voice was hoarse, breathless with wonder, and weighted with grief. “She wasn’t satisfied while a scrap of linen separated us; but the moment she touched my skin, she calmed.”
Joseph’s father smiled sadly. “She knows her mother.” He helped Joseph move the table. “Do you need anything else?”
“No; thank you.” Joseph opened the little wall cabinet that contained Tessa’s altar furniture, the pieces he used when he said Mass here.
Tessa tried to say something else, but it became a cough instead. Her daughter whimpered at the disturbance. “I am sorry, a chuisle mo chroí,” Tessa soothed. “I will try very hard not to cough or scream anymore.”
Joseph’s father reached for the water pitcher at the bedside, but Joseph said: “Wait.” Quickly he retrieved the bottle of holy water from his portmanteau and poured some into the gilded spoon-cup from Tessa’s cabinet.
His father squinted at the holy water with suspicion. “How fresh is that?”
“We blessed it last night at the Vigil.” Which his father would know, if he ever came to anything but morning Mass. Joseph leaned over the bed to give Tessa the holy water, holding the gilded cup in one hand and supporting her head with the other.
She drank every drop. “Thank you, Father,” she whispered, before Joseph lowered her head back to the pillow. Her skin was nearly as pale as the linen.
Still frowning, Joseph’s father crossed around the bed, crouched, and peered beneath the sheet with Joseph right there. As if this were not disconcerting enough, he spoke to them while in this position. “You must call me the moment you see or sense any change.”
Joseph turned back to the cabinet and began preparing the altar. He spread a white cloth on the table, set the pyx atop it, and genuflected to the Body of Christ.
Necessary Sins Page 33
