by Anita Mills
“It cannot be very big, Kate. You’ve got to let it.”
“No!” she cried. “It is too early—it cannot survive!”
He sat down on the other side and tried to force her onto her back. “Kate, listen to me! I don’t know what to do either, but God knows, I’ll try to help you.”
She clutched at his arms. “If I lose my babe, I want to die, Bell—I want to die!”
“Stop it!” Realizing she was terribly frightened, he tried to speak more calmly. Smoothing her damp hair against her temple, he told her, “I don’t want to take a corpse home to Harry—he’d never forgive me. Just try to breathe—just try to get air.”
“Bell, this babe is all I have!”
“Shhhh. Just try to stay calm, Kate—just try to stay calm.”
She wanted to turn away again, but he wouldn’t let her. Instead, he rolled the cloth and pushed it between her legs. They were wet and sticky, and her gown was soaked. It was so dark he couldn’t even see what he did.
Someone pounded on the door, and he felt a surge of hope. But when the door opened, it was the same monk who’d brought the useless medicine earlier. The fellow carried a lantern, and as he moved closer, the yellow light showed the woman on the bed. He spoke calmly, soothingly, then raised his hand over Katherine, blessing her.
He turned to Bell and held up one finger, then said the word, “Vrach.”
“He said the doctor’s coming, Kate,” Bell told her.
She looked up at him, then shook her head. “He said it will take a day for him to get here.”
“A day and she’ll—” He caught himself before he voiced his worst fear. “Never mind,” he muttered.
As the man withdrew, Bell dragged a chair closer to the bed. “You’ve got no one but me, Kate, but I’ll do anything you ask.” Tears rolled down her face. “For God’s sake, don’t quit,” he whispered, taking her hand. “You are going to survive this.”
“No.”
There was so much blood in the bed that he was afraid she hemorrhaged. “Let’s get you out of the gown.”
Humiliated, she turned her head away from him. “I cannot,” she croaked. “Please.”
“I told you a long time ago—you haven’t got anything I haven’t seen somewhere else.” Before she could fight him, he raised her up and pulled the gown above her hips. Leaning her forward, he managed to get it over her head. “You are a mess, Kate.”
“I know,” she managed miserably.
“All right, we know it’s got to come out, don’t we?”
“No.” She clutched at her abdomen and tried to raise her knees. It was obvious that she was in intense pain.
“Nooooo!”
“And we know there are heathens all over the world who do this without any help at all,” he went on, as much for his benefit as for hers. He put his hand on her distended belly and felt the intensity of the contraction. “All we’ve got to do is wait, Kate—all we’ve got to do is wait.”
But it was a long wait. For hours, it was the same thing over and over. The pain would come and she would gasp, then hold her breath and draw up her knees until it passed. Both tablecloths had long since been soaked. She was tired, so very tired, and he could see it. Unable to do anything for her, he got up and paced, then returned with a damp cloth to wipe her face.
“If you are waiting for the doctor, you are doing a deuced good job of it,” he complained.
“I know,” she gasped.
Her hands were red from gripping the bedstead, and her mouth bled from half a dozen punctures. Never in his life had he felt half so sorry for anyone or anything. Finally, he could stand it no longer.
“You cannot go on like this, Kate—you cannot. I am told there are places where the women just go out into the field and squat, you know. Maybe if you tried to sit up—maybe—”
But her eyes were glassy, distant, and her hands closed convulsively on the bedpost. It was as though her whole body rose up, stiffened, then fell back, as if the wind had left her. Between her legs lay a small, bloody thing.
“It’s all right, Kate—it’s over! You did it!”
“No,” she moaned. “Not yet.”
He reached down to pick up the tiny creature just before the afterbirth arrived. Wiping the babe with a corner of the sheet, he could see it was a deep bluish purple beneath the blood, and he knew it did not breathe, that it could not live. For a moment, he could only stare at it, seeing the tiny face, the miniature hands and feet, It was a boy.
Sensing her despair, he forgot his horror, and he began to rub the little body vigorously, trying to stimulate life. Finally, he bent over it and tried blowing into the tiny mouth. When it neither breathed nor moved, he felt nearly overwhelmed by the hopelessness of everything he’d done. Not knowing what else to do, he laid the still, blue infant across Katherine.
She held it close and crooned to it, her voice breaking, and he felt tears sting his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, his throat aching. “I’m terribly sorry, Kate.”
She began to cry then, sobbing as though her heart had broken. “Now I have nothing, Bell—nothing! I am truly accursed, Bell—accursed!”
“Kate … Kate …” Very gently, he lifted the babe away and wrapped it in one of the blankets from the bed. Using his penknife, he cut the cord, then dumped the afterbirth into the washbasin.
At dawn, the monk came back to stare at the tiny babe. Kneeling, he said prayers over it, then he summoned his superior.
When they returned, they dragged a clean feather mattress and fresh bedding. The older monk made the Orthodox sign of the Cross over the dead infant before approaching Bell. He had to know, he said, whether they would name it before it was buried.
Bell repeated the question to Katherine, but she would not speak. Telling them he would answer later, he managed to persuade them to leave. Her nightgown was ruined, leaving only the two dresses and an undershift. She did not resist when he put her into the latter and helped her to a chair before the fire.
Salvaging half a sheet from the ruined bed, he tore it into strips, then rolled them and set them aside. Then he dragged the soiled mattress to a corner and replaced it with the clean one. Somehow he managed to get the sheets on, then the blankets. Rummaging through the other bedclothes, he took a top cover and folded it, then laid it between the sheets.
“Come on—let’s get you back to bed.”
She walked as though she were in a trance, and at his bidding, she crawled under the covers. He moved the folded blanket beneath her, then found one of the rolled rags and thrust it between her legs.
“You are still bleeding as though you have been slaughtered,” he muttered more to himself than to her. “Can you drink something?”
She didn’t answer.
He pulled the covers up over her and went to build up the fire. Then he sat before it, the bottle of vodka in his hand. He ought to have been thoroughly, utterly disgusted by what he’d seen, but he wasn’t. Just now, he was more inclined to weep for Kate Winstead. She hadn’t had much of a life, not with that harridan mother, not with Alexei Volsky—and now this. Life wasn’t fair—it wasn’t fair at all.
Instead of drinking, he stood up and kicked the chair out of his way. Moving to the bed, he looked down at her. Her hair was still wet, but her eyes were closed, and her skin was as waxy as a candle. She looked almost bloodless, making him again afraid. He had to put his hand over her nose to know that she still breathed.
“Kate, you’ve got to live,” he whispered. “I promised you I’d see you to England.”
She was utterly exhausted, and she’d lost far too much blood. He lay down again beside her and covered his shoulders. Turning against her back, he held her close, his hand touching her oddly flaccid stomach, and he felt a sense of loss. It did not seem right that the babe who’d moved beneath his hand wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t anywhere.
Sometime during the morning, someone crept in and removed the mattress and the dead infant, leaving instead a smal
l icon on the table in the corner. The candles were lit.
When Bell awoke finally, it was afternoon, and someone was shouting through the door. He rose groggily to open it. A man in a heavy greatcoat introduced himself as the vrach, saying he’d ridden by sled half the night and day to reach Madame Chardonnay.
“Yes, of course.” Bell ran his fingers through his hair, trying to clear his thoughts. “The birthing is over.”
“And the babe is dead.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry. Your first?”
“Yes.” Bell stood aside and gestured toward the bed. “She hasn’t been well, I’m afraid. Her feet and hands and face have been swollen, and now this.”
The doctor nodded gravely.
“She has taken this very hard,” Bell added. “And she’s lost a terrible amount of blood—or at least it seems that way.”
“May I see her?”
“Oh. Yes—of course.”
“Monsieur Chardonnay?”
It was another monk. Leaving the doctor to attend Katherine, Bell went to speak with him.
“Monsieur, would you have the child buried here?”
He hadn’t thought about it at all, but he could think of nothing else to do with it. He nodded.
“And the name? Do you wish a name to be given?”
“I haven’t asked K—I haven’t asked Elise yet.”
“The choice is yours, monsieur.”
The less said to Kate, perhaps the better. “All right. John, for her father.”
“Jean?”
John or Jean—it was the same thing. He knew she would not want it to be Ivan. “Yes.”
“And prayers?”
“Yes.”
“We are all saddened by your loss, Monsieur Chardonnay. Please convey our condolences to your wife.”
“I will.”
The monk hesitated, then told him, “Basil drove much of the night to find the physician for you.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
“It was not I—it was Basil.”
Bell walked to where his coat lay over a chair, and he reached for the slender leather folder that held his money. Drawing out some of it, he held it out. “For Basil—’tis twenty rubles.”
“He is sworn to poverty here, monsieur. But if you would wish to give it for prayers for your son, I will take it.”
He didn’t want to pay for prayers for anything of Alexei Volsky’s. But the babe had been Kate’s also.
“Yes—of course.”
Behind him, the doctor cleared his throat. “Monsieur, a word with you, please.”
“Is she all right?”
“She has a small fever, so I will have to examine the afterbirth to be certain she has passed all of it.”
“But is she all right?”
“As to that, I am uncertain. She is very weak and very sad, I think. But the birth could not be helped, I am afraid.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Usually, we know something is wrong when everything begins to swell. Many times we not only lose the child but also the mother. It is as though the child poisons the mother.”
“Then she should get better now that it is over?”
“Monsieur, I am a doctor, not a soothsayer,” the physician protested. “Much depends on her. She must want to get well. Now, under ordinary circumstances, I should suggest bleeding, but—”
“No!”
“Monsieur, you do not let me finish my words. As she has lost much blood, I do not think it would be wise to take any more.”
“Your pardon.”
“You have it. Now, I think she must drink. Not the wine, for it causes phlegm—nor the vodka, for it heightens the temperature.”
“I see. Milk, then.”
“Water. Pure water. Not from the river, but from the cleanest snow.”
“All right.”
“And plenty of meat. Let them kill a pig for her. Or a sheep, if she prefers it.” He eyed Bell for a moment. “I do not suppose she would drink calf’s blood?”
“She has a queasy stomach.”
“A pity. Blood will replace blood, after all.”
“It wouldn’t stay down.” Bell was certain.
“And she must not travel while the bleeding is so heavy. Later, perhaps when it is normal, she may ride in a sled or carriage.”
“All right.”
“But the greatest thing to fear is her mind. It will take her some time to accept what she has lost. Women are different than we are—they have not the fatal notion, eh?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“I have come a very long way under very trying conditions, monsieur. Very trying conditions. At night.”
“I collect we are negotiating your fee,” Bell murmured.
“Not at all. It is five rubles to a Russian, ten rubles to a Frenchman.”
“I see.”
“I lost my uncle and two brothers to the French.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But you do not speak as a Frenchman, monsieur.”
“Actually, I have lived for some time in England. My family fled there in the Terror,” Bell lied.
“An émigré, then?”
“Yes.”
“Then for you it is five rubles, my friend. You go home and fix what that devil Napoleon has done, eh?” He poked Bell in the ribs. “But first your wife must put on meat over her bones.”
“I will see that she does.”
“I do not doubt it.”
Bell waited until he was nearly out the door. “Wait!”
“Yes?”
“Er—how long does this heavy bleeding last?”
The doctor chuckled. “So young—so eager. The worst will be over in a week or a little more. But you must not touch her until she is well—two months perhaps.”
He only wanted to know when she could travel, but at least the rest of it indicated that unless something else went wrong, she’d recover. The worst she faced was her grief, and he did not know how to deal with that.
When he turned back, he noticed the bucket of melting snow by the fire. Someone must have left it while he slept. Taking a cup from the table, he dipped the cold water from it.
“Kate,” he said, sitting on the bed, “you are going to drink this and get well.”
“I don’t want anything” was the muffled reply.
“Oh, yes, you do—if not for yourself, for me. I’m too damned homesick for England.” He leaned closer to her ear. “The sawbones told me to give you calf’s blood, so you’d dashed well be grateful ’tis only water.”
Her back was to him and her shoulders shook, making him think she cried again. “Don’t—please don’t.”
But it was a harsh, bitter laugh. “Don’t you see, Bell—now they will not want me! Now that I have lost my babe, nobody will want me! I am of no use to anybody!”
“Stop it, Kate! Stop it!” He grasped her shoulder hard. “Don’t be a peagoose! You are going back to England, I tell you!”
“But no one wanted me there, either! Without my child, I am nothing!”
“Don’t do this to me!” he shouted angrily. “We’ve been through hell, Kate—hell! Give us the day to let it pass, for God’s sake!” But as he shook her thin shoulders, the anger left him. “Come on, Kate,” he coaxed, “just drink the water.”
“All right. I’m not very grateful, am I?”
“No, you are not.”
She gulped it down noisily, and he carried the empty cup back to the table. This time, when he sat down with the vodka, he intended to drink all of it. He hadn’t been this weary in his entire memory. He uncorked the bottle and took a swig, then sat back, his legs stretched toward the fire. She didn’t know what nothing was, he reflected tiredly. At least she was possessed of character.
On the bed, Katherine turned her face into her pillow. She’d never had many illusions nor many dreams—until Alexei Volsky came into her life. And then she’d dared to think she could be like other femal
es, that she could have a husband to love her, children to be loved by her. Now she would never have either. And she had wanted her son so terribly, terribly much that she could not bear knowing he would never sit on her lap, never grow up.
In the chair, Bell heard her soft sobbing, and he wanted to cry with her. Resolutely, he drank his vodka, thinking what he needed wasn’t the responsibility of Katherine Volsky, but rather a soft voice and a warm body to lose himself in. And yet as the drink hit his stomach, he could feel the hot, wet tears sting his eyes.
On 9 February, 1815, Jean Chardonnay, as the monks had erroneously christened him, was laid to rest in the small walled cemetery beside the monastery. Katherine was still abed, making Bell feel it incumbent to attend the ancient ceremony, then to watch as the monks cleared two feet of snow before hacking at the frozen ground with picks. It was difficult to make a hole big enough. At grave side, he had been given a clod of frozen dirt to throw in after they’d lowered the small, hastily contrived casket.
Afterward, the monk called Basil came up to him, saying, “You must not bury your grief inside you, monsieur. You must not let your wife weep alone.”
He had no grief. Only sorrow for Kate. Still, he nodded.
“It is well that you found us,” the monk went on. “Here you will have the peace to recover.”
“How long before the road is passable?” Then, realizing it sounded as though he rejected their hospitality, he hastily tried to make amends. “That is, you must know we shall always be grateful to all of you.”
“And to St. Basil.” The man smiled. “And I am the most fortunate, for I carry his name.”
“To the monks of St. Basil. We shall never forget the service you have done us.”
“Our prayers have been with you in your loss, monsieur.”
“Our thanks.”
“As for the roads, it is difficult to tell. Sometimes we are snowed in for a month and more, and sometimes not. We have hopes the road will be open before the 26th of February, because the metropolitan of Moscow comes then.”
“It is a rather arduous journey for him.”
“Yes, but it is a pilgrimage. Everyone will try to clear the way for him, and the landholders will send their serfs to help. But if it snows more, he will not come.”
