by Rebecca Tope
‘You were correct the first time. But there are fees, expenses, shares and so forth to be deducted. And for two months I had a partner, who took his half share.’ He sighed. ‘The man was a fool and a liar, as it transpired. I lost quite a sum thanks to his nonsense.’
‘But you are rich,’ Fanny said. ‘Rich enough to buy half of Chemeketa, if not the whole town.’
‘You see me reclining on goose feathers in a grand mansion, with a bevy of negro slaves to do my bidding. Peacocks in the yard and caviar for every meal, I suppose.’
‘Caviar?’
‘A very expensive delicacy made from the eggs of the sturgeon. I tasted it in San Francisco, and was not tempted to try it a second time.’
‘And there are very few peacocks in Oregon, I fancy.’ She was still absorbing the scale of his wealth, and the comparative ease with which he had obtained it. Other men had passed through her door with greatly increased assets, but none so great as this one.
‘They make a vile noise, I’m told.’
They undressed slowly, still talking. Fanny had a host of questions as to his feelings, intentions and conclusions, but it was not her role to ask them. She was being paid to satisfy his male needs, and in this case there was real work involved. The man’s lack of eagerness fitted with his new status, she decided. He had higher matters than bodily lust to fill his mind. His time as an irresponsible youth in search of adventure was over. Visiting a whore was no longer to be part of his life. He would find a woman of good character and establish a dynasty that would become woven into the most important aspects of American history. His sons would be senators and his daughters would take charge of charitable enterprises.
Their coupling was amicably if awkwardly accomplished. He pulled away from her with a chuckle, showing no sign of embarrassment. ‘Not your fault,’ he assured her. ‘I guess I chose the wrong day to come here.’
She had never considered that she might be to blame. But before she could say anything, there was a muffled cry from across the corridor from her room. Hugo gave a quick bark, as if to alert her. The man cocked his head. ‘Is your friend in difficulty?’ he asked.
Fanny’s mind went blank. ‘I should go to her,’ she said, aware of a powerful desire to do no such thing.
‘Is it her pains, think’ee?’
‘She says it’s not due for another month or more.’
‘Dates can be slippy,’ he observed. ‘Sounds like something’s shifting, to me.’
She remembered Reason B. Hall and his fecund sister. ‘Have you knowledge of the matter? I know nothing.’ She was shaking at the realisation of her own helpless ignorance.
‘Fanny!’ came Carola’s voice, high and desperate. ‘Where are you?’
‘I’d be no use to you,’ said the man. ‘’Cept I can go and fetch somebody for you. Where does the midwife live?’
Fanny shook her head. ‘It might not be the birthing. Could be she’s hurt herself somehow. I must go and see.’ She pulled on a wrapper, thinking it had to be close to midnight. Panic was flowing through her, fogging any rational thoughts that might be forming.
‘I’ll wait, then,’ he said. ‘Can’t leave you till I know what’s what.’
‘Thank you.’ She still had no recollection of his name, and it felt too late to ask him now. His wealth and future respectability would doubtless bring him to her notice in due course. It would be politic then to forget what her involvement with him had once been. She clung to this piece of foresight as a welcome distraction from whatever was happening to Carola.
‘Go,’ he urged.
Carola was on her bed, half sitting against the pillows, her legs spread wide. Fanny had never seen anything so nakedly terrible in her life. Her friend met her eyes with a wild look, full of fear and bewilderment. ‘So quick!’ she gasped.
Fanny tried to recall the day just gone, and how Carola had been. When the man had arrived, Fanny had been alone downstairs, assuming her friend had retired for an early night. They had not been together for four or five hours, at a guess. ‘When did it begin?’ she asked.
‘At sundown, near enough. Nothing bad – just some tightening, and an ache in my back. I tried to get to sleep, but it got worse. Now it’s like a great giant hand is squeezing me – aagh!’ she finished.
Fanny tensed in sympathy as her friend’s face clinched tight, teeth bared and unearthly sounds coming from her. Between the bare white legs there was a hideous bulging, the tissue a shade of purple-grey she never expected to see on a living body. Then it all stopped, and Carola became recognisable again.
‘Is this how it happens?’ asked Fanny foolishly. Then, remembered the man, she added, ‘We should fetch the midwife. He’s waiting to go for us.’
‘Does he know how to find her?’
‘Do you?’
They looked at each other in alarm, and said ‘No,’ in unison.
‘It’s not due for a month,’ said Carola. ‘Will it die, from coming too soon, d’you think?’
Fanny said nothing, but slipped out to tell the man the news. He turned pale, but kept a cool head. ‘I shall be sure to seek out a doctor or a capable woman for you. Never fear,’ he assured her. ‘’Tis a natural event, and sounds to me it’s going as it should.’ He left at a trot, taking much of Fanny’s residual hope with him.
Back in Carola’s room, she found herself with nothing to do but watch. The invisible giant hand was in full control, and within ten minutes, a blood-streaked infant, looking impossibly large, was squirming on the bedclothes between Carola’s knees. ‘A girl,’ said Fanny.
‘She should be wrapped. Find a towel, or blanket. Something warm. Does she breathe?’ Carola was bending forward, reaching out for her new daughter.
Fanny grabbed the first piece of fabric that came to hand, from the top of the dresser. Clumsily, she wound the child in it, finding a strange impediment in the form of a squashy grey rope attached to the infant’s belly, and disappearing inside Carola. ‘What’s this?’ she asked queasily.
Carola ignored her, grasping at the baby. Between the two of them, they almost dropped it. Everything felt slippery and disgusting to Fanny. There was a hot metallic smell that increased her nausea. That this was the direct result of the intercourse she and Carola had with men struck her as a dreadful joke on Nature’s part. Nothing that took place in bed with her customers was close to this level of pain, humiliation and mess.
But it was over and the child was evidently robust. It made small mewing sounds, working its lips and blinking. Dark hair was plastered over its scalp, and the scrawny legs were bent froglike, further impeding the wrapping. Carola gave a sudden moan, and a further vile happening took place between her legs. A great glistening object slid forth, the dark red hue of raw liver. It seemed torn and bloody.
‘What’s this?’ said Fanny again, convinced that one of Carola’s vital organs had come adrift in the violence of the birth.
‘It’s all right,’ said her friend. ‘That’s meant to happen.’
But then something surely unmeant took place. A flow of red blood began, slowly at first, and then more voluminously. The bed was quickly soaked and ruined. Carola seemed unaware, holding the infant to her breast, pushing aside her garments to permit it contact with her naked skin.
‘So much blood!’ cried Fanny. ‘That cannot be right.’
Carola looked down with a frown. ‘What…?’ she began. Fear dawned vividly on her face. ‘You must stop it, Fan. Something has torn inside.’
‘How?’ The instruction was beyond all comprehension. It would be like stemming the flow of a river. ‘How should I stop it?’
Carola was turning pale, as Fanny watched the slack body empty itself. Afterwards, she could not say how many minutes passed, whether two or twenty. She put an ineffective hand against her friend’s pudenda, but blood merely flowed between her fingers. When she looked at Carola’s face, the eyes were unfocused. Her arms fell away from the baby, which seemed to sense a crisis and gripped like a young m
onkey, seeking a hold on its passive mother.
When a knock finally came, and a young man hurried up the stairs at Fanny’s call, it was far too late. His recoil at the sights in the room was unprofessional. His groan spoke of frustration and despair. Fanny wrung her hands, unable to believe there was no remedy. Carola was dead, leaving a newborn daughter and a friend sinking rapidly into a profound state of shock.
The young doctor was at almost as much of a loss. ‘The child must be kept warm,’ he muttered. ‘The body must be cleaned and removed. Post-partum haemorrhage.’ He said it again, as if mentally finding the page in a medical book.
‘But why?’ stammered Fanny. ‘Why should it happen?’
He shrugged. ‘Causes frequently unknown. It is more common in women of fair colouring. The tissue is weaker, more susceptible to damage. I could not have saved her, had I been here from the outset. There is no knowing where the rupture is situated.’
‘You were so long in coming,’ she reproached him.
He snorted. ‘Your man came out to Keizer Bottom, where I live. We almost broke two good horses flying back here in under an hour. He is waiting outside for news.’
Your man, thought Fanny. A nameless patron who had gone so far out of his way for her and Carola. ‘I should thank him then,’ she said with dignity.
The doctor nodded. ‘Bring warm water, if you have it. Towels, rags, buckets. There is much to be done here.’
The man was sitting on the porch, his hat in his hands. He looked up at Fanny’s approach. ‘I hear no squalling infant,’ he said, with a cautious smile.
‘The infant is alive. Her mother is dead,’ said Fanny flatly. ‘And I thank you for your pains, sir. You went far beyond any claim I could make on you. I wish you well in all your future doings.’
He slipped two fingers into a breast pocket and withdrew a fold of banknotes. ‘I neglected to pay you,’ he said. ‘And now you have such trouble, permit me to offer something in addition. For the child.’
Fanny blinked as he pushed the paper into her hand. It was too dark to identify their denominations, and she scarcely cared in any case. Still wearing a wrapper and little else, she could find nowhere to lodge them. ‘I must go,’ she said. ‘You are a good man, deserving of your new wealth,’ she told him. ‘I am glad to have known you.’
‘And I you,’ he said gallantly. ‘And we shall meet again. I intend to remain in Chemeketa. Depend upon it, I shall always be sure to acknowledge our acquaintance without shame.’
Fanny barely heard him. The image of her friend, lying so still and white on the stinking blood-soaked bed, was consuming all her thoughts. He nodded and turned to go. The town streets were silent, the lights all doused. Overhead was a moon, almost full. Fanny stared at it for half a minute, thinking that it should be taking more notice of this immense calamity, here on earth. Carola was dead. It was impossible, and yet it was so. Black was white, up was down – nothing could ever be depended on again.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The doctor had made a poor fist of cleaning Carola’s room. He had pulled one soaking sheet from beneath Carola, leaving her lying at an awkward angle on the bed. The baby, roughly wrapped in the cloth Fanny had snatched unthinkingly for the purpose, was in the crib, softly bleating. ‘My grandmother’s best runner!’ Fanny realised. ‘She stitched all those designs herself.’ The linen was stained with blood and mucus, the delicate embroidery crushed beyond repair. Angrily, she pulled it away from the small body, as if the child itself were at fault.
‘She must be kept warm,’ insisted the doctor. ‘Is there no shawl or something of the sort?’
Fanny opened a drawer and found a small woollen blanket that Carola had crocheted and then edged with satin, especially for the infant’s comfort. ‘Here,’ she said.
‘Wrap her, then.’
But Fanny was beyond further action. She sank onto the floor beside the rapidly cooling body of her only friend in the world, and wept helplessly. ‘What is to be done?’ she moaned.
The young man appeared to be at almost as much of a loss. ‘The child must have milk. The ideal would be a wet nurse, but I know of none who would take such a commission. It is not common practice any longer. She seems robust – I dare say she would manage with ordinary milk from goat or cow.’
Fanny pressed her head into the ruined bed and ignored him. The fate of the infant was the least of her concerns. Some good woman would adopt it, she supposed. Or it might die like its mother, and she would have no space for further grief. Her thoughts were arrested, blocked by the presence of a dead body and a useless doctor.
‘It is almost two o’clock,’ he said, more firmly. ‘Nothing more can be done until morning comes. I am deeply sorry for your trouble, Miss. Is there no-one I can find to come and be with you?’
The stark fact that there was indeed no-one brought Fanny’s tear-stained face up. ‘I am all alone,’ she whispered. ‘Entirely alone in the world.’
‘Then this little girl might be a welcome companion in time,’ he suggested.
The idea was absurd, and she almost told him so. How could a whining brat be any kind of company? She shook her head and said nothing.
With a flash of impatience, the man lifted the baby and wrapped the blanket around her. Then, instead of replacing her in the crib, he carried her out of the room and down the stairs. Unthinking, Fanny followed him.
The stove was cold and the front door was standing half open. Hugo was curled in the scullery, ears pricked for an explanation of so much disturbance. The doctor started at the sight of him, when he went to seek milk and clean water. ‘Good God!’ he said. ‘Is that a dog or a dragon?’
The dog stood and stretched his neck to sniff at the odd bundle the man was carrying. His tail wagged gently. ‘Pity ’tis not a bitch,’ said the doctor. ‘She might have some milk, if so. I have heard tales of dogs saving the lives of newborns that way.’
Fanny’s bewilderment deepened. Much of what had been said in the past half hour meant little to her. The needs of a small infant were entirely mysterious to her, and she appeared to be devoid of any natural instincts to replace her ignorance. It further appeared that the doctor was unaware of how thoroughly useless she was going to be. He was clearly hoping that by finding activity for her, he would shake her out of her grief and shock. By placing the child in her care, he believed himself to be hastening her recovery. Instead, he was merely increasing her state of paralysis.
‘Light the stove and warm some water,’ he ordered. ‘Quickly. Is this milk fresh?’
There was a pitcher of milk standing on the cool slate slab at one end of the scullery. He sniffed at it and apparently found it acceptable.
Fumblingly, Fanny got the stove alight and a pan of water set to warm. It took barely fifteen minutes, during which the doctor paced around the living room, followed closely by Hugo. The baby remained silent in his arms. Finally, he ordered Fanny to watch closely as he diluted a gill of milk and dipped the corner of a muslin cloth into it, letting it soak well. Then he gently offered it to the infant, who was at first unpersuaded. With infinite patience, he had it sucking the cloth. Withdrawing it, he repeated the process, with greater success. ‘It is a trick I learned from my father,’ he said. ‘My mother did not survive the birth of my youngest brother.’ He shook his head to dismiss the melancholy memories. ‘But in the morning, you must go out and purchase a baby’s feeding bottle, with a rubber teat. In fact, you should have two or three. Be sure they are thoroughly cleaned after use.’
He was running ahead, as if by sheer force of will he could make Fanny sufficiently competent to keep the child alive. She shuddered at his words. ‘There must be a woman who can take it. I have no skill in caring for a child. Find a woman, sir, I beg you.’
He sighed wearily. ‘I can try, of course. But…you must be aware of your status in the town. The child of a girl such as you might not find a decent foster mother. Do you understand me?’
‘A whore’s bastard would r
eflect badly on a decent family,’ said Fanny baldly. ‘I understand perfectly.’
He barely flinched. ‘And she would fare badly with a poorer person.’
‘I can pay,’ said Fanny, thinking for the first time that night of the wealth that Carola had left behind her. ‘She is heir to a fortune.’
He blinked. ‘Indeed?’
‘If I understand aright, then yes indeed.’
The doctor yawned shamelessly. ‘I must be off to my bed before I fall down. I was out much of the night before with a patient. I offer you my profound sympathy for this trouble,’ he said again.
‘You will return? With a woman?’ Fanny begged him. ‘I cannot manage otherwise.’
‘You will if there is no alternative. The child is robust, well formed, and appears to have a placid disposition. You will find she forgives you your mistakes. All she needs is warmth and food. Even a dog could provide her with those.’
‘Not this dog,’ said Fanny. ‘As you yourself observed.’ But she already had a mental picture of Hugo curled protectively around the baby, offering warmth and protection, at least.
The doctor thrust the infant into her arms, gathered his unopened bag, and took his leave, reciting something official about the disposal of the remains that lay upstairs.
Remains, though Fanny, with a rush of tears. Was that all her friend had come to now?
She could not simply leave the child on the floor and take to her bed. She would have to keep it with her. Carelessly she set it down on her own bed, in the large room she had shared with Carola, and removed her clothes. Hugo had followed them up the stairs, against the usual house rules. Glad of his company, Fanny permitted him into the room, where he flopped down with a deep sigh.
Exhaustion ensured she slept for a few hours, without a single dream to disturb her. She was woken by a strange squawking noise and a wet nose in her face. Outside it was barely light, but at least morning had very nearly arrived. The new day would bring solutions, even perhaps a discovery that none of the terrible things she recalled from the previous night were real. It could have been her imagination, all along. Carola would be in her room, contentedly stitching and waiting for the first coffee of the day.
