The Midwife's Dilemma

by Delia Parr

  Victoria giggled, breaking Martha’s reverie. “The thought of eating any meal without something sweet is simply not in your nature, but if you ask me, I think it’s gotten worse since we started living in a confectionery,” she teased.

  She took a whiff of the bread pudding before she placed it on the table, which had already been set with three places, and turned back to her mother. “You don’t have to whisper. Aunt Hilda and Uncle Richard have been up for a while.”

  Once Martha hung up her cape and bonnet, she looked around the small kitchen. With a long rectangular wooden table in the center and a pair of rocking chairs in front of the fire, there was little room for anything more than a cookstove, a corner cupboard, and a sink with a pump for the water. “Where are they now?” she asked as she edged closer to the fire in the hearth.

  “They like to have a cup of tea together in their bedroom before they venture out for breakfast. Aunt Hilda just left the kitchen a few minutes ago, so they’ll be a while,” Victoria replied. After retrieving another plate and a mismatched cup and saucer, she carried everything back to the table to set an extra place for her mother.

  Martha brightened. “Then we actually have a few moments to ourselves. Let me take a look at you,” Martha suggested.

  “You haven’t been gone long enough to forget what I look like, have you?” Victoria teased.

  “I’m your mother. I could never forget what you look like,” Martha insisted. When Victoria left the table again to secure some additional utensils, she studied her daughter more objectively.

  At eighteen, Victoria was no longer a child and had blossomed into a very comely young woman with all the right curves in all the right places. With her dark, curly hair pulled back and held in place by a ribbon at the nape of her neck, her hazel eyes dominated her heart-shaped face, and her porcelain complexion was flawless. She was also very loving, incredibly bright, and talented.

  No wonder Dr. McMillan was so smitten.

  Martha drew a deep breath and took a moment to recall the measure of peace and grace she had received after a long night of prayer. She also held on to the promise she had made to herself to talk to Victoria openly and honestly about the girl’s intention to marry Dr. McMillan. “Would you have a cup of tea with me while we wait?”

  “I just refilled the kettle, so I’m afraid the water’s not hot enough yet. We can sit together in front of the fire, though. You look a bit chilled after walking all the way here. You must really miss Grace.”

  “Very much,” Martha admitted. She sat in one of the rocking chairs and stretched out her legs for a moment before setting the chair into a slow rock to ease the twinges in the small of her back. “I can walk farther now without getting winded, but even though my back doesn’t always cooperate, I don’t mind walking about town. I just can’t walk far enough or fast enough to answer all of my calls on my own, I’m afraid.”

  Victoria sat in the other chair and started to rock. “Will you be able to get another horse soon?”

  “That’s not very likely,” she admitted and chuckled. “By the time I save up enough to purchase another mare, I’ll be too old to ride, so for now, I’m trying to be content relying on other people to take me wherever I have to go.” She didn’t delve into explaining she would have no need for a horse at all once she gave up her calling and married Thomas.

  In fact, she was glad that she and Thomas had both agreed to still keep their plans to get married a secret. Telling her daughter now, when she had no idea of when they might marry, would be tantamount to telling Dr. McMillan. She simply refused to give him any information that would benefit his own practice over her own, which assuaged her guilt for being less than candid with Victoria.

  “That’s enough talk about me. How have you been faring these past few weeks? Have you had time to do more of your writing?” she asked, again giving her daughter the opportunity to broach the subject that lay heavy on Martha’s heart.

  Victoria sighed and frowned. “Very little that’s any good, I’m afraid. I did write to Mrs. Morgan, though, but I haven’t heard back from her yet. I just wanted to find out if anything had been decided about the series of little articles on remedies and sketches that we worked on together in January. The last time she wrote, she said they might not be published until next spring, and I wanted to know if that had been decided or if the original date for this fall would remain.” Her gaze settled on the fire.

  “Mrs. Morgan’s babe was due in late spring. I’m sure she’s delivered by now, which means she’s probably very busy, so I wouldn’t worry too much if you don’t hear back from her for a while,” Martha offered, but the deep disappointment in Victoria’s voice tugged at her heartstrings.

  June Morgan and her husband published a very popular women’s magazine in New York. Last summer they had taken Victoria into their home after she decided not to continue with the theater troupe that had provided her with a way to escape from Trinity, and for that, Martha would be forever grateful.

  June and her husband had also recognized and encouraged Victoria’s writing talents. As the magazine’s editor, June had offered Victoria a place as her assistant, as well as in their home, but she’d insisted that Victoria first return home to Trinity to see her mother and ask for permission. She had even escorted Victoria home to guarantee her safety.

  Martha’s reunion with her runaway daughter had been bittersweet. In the end, she had reluctantly given Victoria permission to accept the Morgans’ offer. She had also agreed to share her knowledge of healing remedies with women far beyond Trinity by identifying and sketching plants with healing qualities while Victoria took what Martha knew about them and wrote the verse to accompany the sketches. Having those little articles published, however, was much more important to her daughter than it was to her.

  “I’m sorry. I know you’re anxious to see our work appear in print, but it will be eventually. And no matter when that happens, nothing can change the fact that we had the opportunity to do something very interesting together.” Martha treasured the memories she had stored deep in her heart of a time when she and Victoria had actually grown closer.

  “We did, didn’t we?” Victoria said.

  “If you haven’t been doing much writing, how have you been spending your days?” Martha asked, anxious to change the conversation from the past to the present and to give her daughter one last opportunity to introduce the subject of her relationship with Dr. McMillan before she was forced to do so.

  Victoria shrugged. “In all truth, I’ve done quite a bit of writing. It just isn’t very good, so I keep writing and rewriting and getting nowhere. Poor Mrs. Andrews. She tiptoes around the study at Dr. McMillan’s, where he’s set up a place for me to write, as if she’s afraid she’ll distract me while she’s cleaning, when it’s my own distractions that keep my poems and stories from developing properly.”

  With the conversation getting close to the topic Martha wanted to discuss, her pulse began to race. “What kind of distractions?”

  Victoria let out a long sigh, but she still kept her gaze focused straight ahead at the fire. “They’re not distractions, really. They’re more like longings, but I’m not sure you’ll understand them,” she whispered.

  Martha swallowed hard. “But perhaps I will,” she managed.

  Victoria stopped the rocker and turned in her seat to face Martha. “I don’t want you to think I’m ungrateful, because I know how hard it’s been for you to provide for us since Father died, but . . . but I want more now. I want a home of my own. I want a family of my own. Most girls my age are either married or betrothed . . . or they want to be.”

  “Those longings are perfectly normal for a woman of any age,” Martha said as the yearnings of her daughter’s heart wrapped around her own. “Are you quite certain that Dr. McMillan is the man you want to spend the rest of your life with?”

  Victoria’s eyes widened, her mouth gaped, and her cheeks turned crimson.

  “Don’t bother to deny it,”
Martha said, then quickly admitted to eavesdropping on the young couple at the stable behind Dr. McMillan’s home. “I’m not particularly proud of myself for not making my presence known, but I daresay we would all have been quite embarrassed if I had. And, I might add, the two of you have made it very evident that there’s good reason why young couples should be properly chaperoned at all times.”

  Victoria’s blush deepened. “I know you’re not overly fond of him and that our interest in each other places you in a difficult position. . . . We didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Fortunately for both of you, I’ve had some time to think things over. I can’t say I wouldn’t be happier if you wanted to marry someone else, because I would. But it’s not my life, though as your mother, it’s my responsibility to make certain that you think this over very, very carefully to be certain that this is the path God wants you to take.”

  “I know. And I am, but—”

  “I must confess that I did have several ideas about what I should do about you and this young man,” Martha interrupted, and she was pleased to see that she definitely had Victoria’s full attention now. “My first thought was that I could simply refuse to give Dr. McMillan permission to marry you and count on the fact that given his place in the community, he’d be far less inclined to ignore my wishes than you would.”

  Judging by the flush on Victoria’s cheeks, she knew she did not have to go further and remind Victoria of her running away.

  “Then I thought that I should ship you off to New York to live with the Morgans, or even to Boston to live with your brother and Grandfather Cade, but I decided that those were fruitless ideas since you’d probably run straight back to Trinity to be with Dr. McMillan.”

  “Wh-what did you finally decide?” Victoria asked, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “In the end, I came up with another idea about what I should do,” Martha said, ever so grateful for the time she had had to pray and for God’s guidance when she did.

  Victoria worried the fingers on both hands. “What do you plan to do?”

  “I want to speak to you and your young man together. Tonight. Just the three of us, and when I do, I want the two of you to tell me why you each think that this marriage is what you both want.”

  Victoria’s eyes widened, allowing a single tear to escape. “And if we do, you’ll . . . you’ll give us your blessing? Truly?”

  “I suppose that depends entirely on your answers,” Martha admitted. “In the meantime, now that Fern and Ivy are back, I want you living back at the confectionery, where there’s plenty of supervision when I’m called away. I also want you to promise me that you won’t be spending any time alone with that young man.”

  “Can I still work in his office a bit and continue to use his study upstairs to write my poems and stories?”

  “Only if Mrs. Andrews is there. If she goes to market or leaves for any reason, you leave, too,” Martha insisted, and she was confident that her friend would continue to keep an extra close eye on Victoria once Martha spoke to her.

  Victoria blinked away the rest of her tears before she nodded. “I promise.”

  Martha clapped her hands on her thighs. “Good. Now that that’s settled, I need a good strong cup of tea.”

  “The water should be ready by now,” Victoria offered, then rose and planted a kiss on Martha’s cheek. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet,” Martha cautioned with a smile. “I still have one more thing I want to ask you to do.”

  Victoria grinned. “Anything.”

  “Fix the tea. Then we’ll talk about it,” Martha suggested, but she was confident that Victoria would not hesitate to grant Martha’s last request and wait awhile before marrying. Although she might have to struggle a bit to welcome her daughter’s impending betrothal to Dr. McMillan, her daughter’s joy was contagious and ignited a happiness in her mother’s heart that she could not deny.

  But she also knew one thing for certain. She was not going to make the same mistake that her father-in-law had made so many years ago. A prominent and wealthy lawyer in Boston, Graham Cade had disowned his son and only child when he refused to follow in his father’s footsteps and instead moved west to follow the life of a plain and simple yeoman farmer. Later, after John had married Martha, his father had never recognized her or their children and continued to refuse any contact with his son or his family.

  Until John died.

  At the time, Oliver was thirteen and Victoria was only seven. Even then, however, Graham Cade showed virtually no interest in them, except for Oliver. Within a matter of months, he convinced Oliver to join him in Boston, where his grandson was now fulfilling the dreams that he had always had for his son.

  It would be hard and it would be challenging, but with God’s help, Martha knew that she would let nothing on this earth ever fill her daughter’s heart with the pain and grief her husband had carried with him to his grave. Not ever.

  Some way, somehow, Martha would have to learn to accept Dr. McMillan not only as her daughter’s husband but also as the man who would love and protect her daughter when she was no longer here to do that—assuming Martha could truly come to terms with the notion that it was time to let her daughter go and fully embrace the joy that was pouring out of her daughter’s heart and into her own.

  10

  Reluctant to leave the warmth of the fire, Martha remained in her rocking chair while Victoria poured steaming hot water into a teapot. “I know your writing is important, Victoria, but I want you to continue to spend some time each day helping Aunt Hilda, as well as a few hours helping out at the confectionery.”

  “I’ll help out at home, of course,” Victoria replied. “And yes, I’ll help Aunt Hilda, too. As a matter of fact, she asked me just the other day if I wouldn’t mind helping out a bit more, just for a few weeks.”

  Alarmed by the thought of how devoted Aunt Hilda and her husband were to those beehives of theirs, Martha planted her feet hard on the floor and stopped the chair from rocking. “They didn’t ask you to help with those bees, did they?”

  “I don’t want anything to do with them. I barely tolerate caring for Bird when you’re away, and he doesn’t sting like they do. But don’t worry. She hasn’t even mentioned those bees.”

  Heavy footsteps drew Martha’s attention to the doorway, where Richard Seymour was just entering the kitchen. Just shy of eighty, he looked much healthier and far stronger than when he’d returned home a year ago. He was still nearly bald, but his once-scraggly white beard was nicely trimmed. The dark blue eyes behind his spectacles were clear and sparkling now, and although his frame was still a bit bowed, he seemed to be a little stronger.

  The fact that he was here at all after being gone for thirty years was indeed amazing. Everyone, including Martha, assumed the man had either died or had made a new life for himself elsewhere. Aunt Hilda, on the other hand, had never wavered in her devotion to him, even after burying all four of their children.

  When he finally did return and beg for her forgiveness after wasting so many years searching for the fortune he felt he needed to provide for her, she had welcomed him home as if he had only been gone for a fortnight.

  To Martha, Aunt Hilda offered a lesson in forgiveness that she would never forget.

  Richard paused for a moment when he saw Martha and smiled. “We thought we heard your voice, Martha. Hilda will be right here. Did I hear somebody mention our bees?”

  Martha cringed and got up from her rocking chair to greet him properly while Victoria carried the teapot over to the table. “That was me. I was worried that Victoria was helping you with them.”

  He returned her hug before motioning her to the table. “No worry there. The bees and the hives are gone,” he told her as he held out her chair for her.

  Surprised, Martha took her seat and noted the look of surprise on Victoria’s face, too. She waited until he sat down before addressing him again. “Did the bees die?”

  “Nothing like that.
Hilda took good care of my bees all those years I was gone, but we decided to sell them to Michael Keyes. Apparently, he’d been after her for some time now to get them.”

  Martha’s heart sank, and she frowned. No more bees meant there would not be any more honey or honey wine from Aunt Hilda, and she knew she wouldn’t be the only one disappointed.

  Aunt Hilda entered the kitchen. With her thick white braid shaped into a crown atop her head and her dark purple gown, she looked every inch like an aging queen about to join her subjects. She took one look at Martha’s frown and gently scolded her husband. “Whatever did you do or say to Martha to upset her?”

  Instead of defending himself immediately, he rose, gave her a peck on her cheek and escorted her to her seat at the table. “Just a bit of truth, love. Isn’t that right, Martha?”

  “He just told me that you’ve sold all the bees.”

  Aunt Hilda waved her hand about. “I suspect it’s my honey and my honey wine you’ll miss more than the bees, Martha, but don’t worry. We made a rather impressive trade with Mr. Keyes to make sure you’ll have both, and I doubt Wesley Sweet down at the general store could have done any better, either,” she noted as Victoria added more wood to the cookstove.

  Thomas’s nephew was known to drive quite a hard bargain with customers, so Martha asked as she began serving the tea, “What kind of trade?”

  “In return for the bees and the hives and all of our equipment, we got a fair bit of coin,” Uncle Richard said proudly.

  Aunt Hilda grinned. “And I gave Mr. Keyes my recipe for honey wine. I had to do a bit of convincing, but he finally agreed to deliver whatever honey the Lynn sisters need for their larder at the confectionery, and he promised to provide you with all the honey wine you need to help make it easier for all those young women bringing new babes into the world,” she said proudly.

  Hilda then pulled back the cover on the crock of bread pudding and grinned. “Bless you, Martha,” she said before spooning a generous helping onto her husband’s plate as well as her own. “Can you hand me your plate?” she asked.