An incomprehensible sound escaped her.
Matron Cromwell sat on the edge of the bed and took her in her arms, holding her as she sobbed. ‘I am deeply sorry, Rose,’ she said rocking her.
Doctor Holland cleared his throat and opened his notebook to write. Matron Cromwell put her hand out to stop him.
‘I don’t think Rose’s procedure needs to go into your book.’
His eyebrows shot up. ‘Matron?’
‘Rose is from first-class housekeeping. You understand the predicament, Doctor.’
He looked from Rose to the matron and back again.
‘We ask for your discretion please.’
He threw them both a disapproving look, slammed his notebook shut and left the maternity ward.
Matron dragged a chair to Rose’s bedside and sat. She held tightly to her hand as Rose crumbled again. ‘There, my child,’ she sang gently. ‘It will all be okay.’
Rose sobbed until she had cried herself dry, until the intensity of her grief gave way to something numb and disbelieving.
‘These things happen,’ Matron Cromwell said. ‘There was nothing that could be done. Your baby was not meant for this world.’
She looked into Matron’s eyes. ‘Who says my baby wasn’t meant for this world?’
‘It’s God’s way.’
Rose made a small scoffing sound. ‘Was it a boy or a girl?’
‘It was a boy. Tiny little thing he was.’
‘Can I hold him?’
‘No.’
‘Can I name him?’
‘I don’t advise it.’
‘Please let me name him.’
The matron patted her hair but didn’t respond.
‘Where’s Thomas?’
‘He has left to fetch you fresh clothes and undergarments. I will send word to Miss Dalton that you are ill in hospital with cholera. That should buy you a few days’ peace.’
‘Does Thomas know?’
The matron nodded. ‘He has been keeping vigil on the steps outside.’
Rose closed her eyes succumbing to a fresh wave of tears. The shock of it overwhelmed her, like she’d been thrown from a great height, hitting the ground at full speed.
When the sun had slid to the other side of the world, Matron Cromwell helped her out of bed. With a wet cloth, she washed Rose down, ridding her legs, stomach and back of the blood that had dried hours before. They removed her shift and Matron Cromwell sent it to the incinerator to be burned, giving her a hospital gown to wear.
She climbed back into bed but couldn’t sleep. The noises from the main ward and the tents outside filtered in—patients moaning in agony, begging for help. For once, she felt nothing for them, just a profuse sense of loss for her child, the one she’d felt moving inside her only the day before.
How could a child be with her one minute then slip so easily from her womb the next? What had she done wrong? Had she worked too hard, stayed on her feet too long, worn her corset too tight? Had her sins amounted to such that God felt the need to punish her so brutally?
When the station had retreated into slumber, Thomas came for her. Matron Cromwell took the dress he proffered and helped Rose slip into it. She waited on the hospital steps while Thomas and the matron conversed behind her. She could hear Thomas’s pleading voice, but knew nothing of what they were saying. She only wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.
Thomas took her hand and they walked back to his cottage where she was to spend the next few days. They spoke little, clinging to the shadows, Rose walking gingerly from the procedure, a reminder that the past eighteen hours had not been a nightmare.
Her baby was no longer inside her. Her loved and precious child, robbed of the chance to experience anything in this world, was gone. And Rose, robbed of her chance to meet him, to hold him, to breathe him in, to hear his gurgles and soothe his cries. A bond severed in the blink of an eye.
The cottage loomed solemnly when they reached the end of the path. Moonlight spilt across the cliff and out onto the harbour, illuminating the water in an otherworldly glow.
Thomas let them in the door and once inside, she heard him release the heaviest sigh, one that told her just how much his world had come crashing down too. She went to him and they held each other, standing there for the longest time.
Tears sliding.
Shoulders quivering.
Hearts breaking.
When Rose opened her eyes, it was to the sound of the breeze billowing through the curtains and the fairy-wrens whistling a sad tune outside. The sun hung high in the sky, the room bright as though daybreak had arrived long ago.
Her hand went automatically to her stomach again, bereft of the hard bump she’d been nurturing over the past seven months. Nothing remained but an empty womb and she wondered if she would ever recover. Physically, perhaps, but not her soul. The piece of her that died in the maternity ward could never be made whole again.
She rolled over and discovered the spot next to her was empty. On the small table beside the bed was a glass stained white. Thomas had fixed her warm milk the night before, laced with valerian root, sending her to sleep. But rest had not come without nightmares—the pain, the blood, the syringe plunging deep into her arm, then waking to be told her baby had died.
She closed her eyes against the memory, willing the hollowness away, the vast black feelings of insurmountable despair.
The door opened and Thomas walked in, closing it behind him.
‘You’re awake.’ He washed dirty hands in the bowl, dried them then came to sit beside her on the bed.
‘What time is it?’
‘After midday. I didn’t want to wake you.’
She studied the neckline of his shirt, soaked in a circle of sweat. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Come, my Rose. I’ll help you dress, then there’s something I want you to see.’
The sunshine was blinding when she stepped outside, the day so beautiful it felt like an insult to her bleakness. Thomas took her arm and led her to a patch of sandy earth behind the cottage. There was a shovel on the ground and a small, narrow hole had been dug.
Her breath caught and her body went slack against him. Lying beside it was the tiniest wooden coffin she’d ever seen, open, with a small wrapped bundle inside.
‘He deserves a proper burial,’ Thomas said.
Rose’s eyes filled, her shoulders shook. She took a step forward, then another until she was kneeling beside the coffin on the ground.
‘I begged the matron to let us have him. She allowed me to collect him this morning. He’s wrapped tightly. She doesn’t recommend we open the coverings.’
‘Can I hold him?’
Thomas stepped aside to allow her.
Rose took her baby boy in her arms. She didn’t heed the matron’s warnings, peeling back the coverings slightly to kiss the crown of his head, to feel his soft, cold skin against her cheek, to pray for a breath, a flutter of those translucent eyelashes. Her tears dripped onto him, soaking the layers of cloth he was wrapped in.
‘You are so beautiful,’ she whispered, holding him close to her breast, marvelling at the tiny creature in her arms. ‘How I would have loved to have seen you grow.’
She sat out there for a long time, cradling him as the sun moved across the sky and midday became afternoon.
Thomas didn’t leave her side, but after some hours, squeezed her shoulder gently. ‘It’s time to let him go.’
She nodded, pressing her lips to his skin and holding them there. ‘Goodbye my angel.’
He took the baby boy and held him close, kissing the top of his head. ‘Would you like to name him?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘What shall we call him?’
‘Alexander Thomas Van Cleeve.’
Thomas let out an anguished sob. ‘Then that shall be his name.’
He gently placed Alexander back into the coffin and secured the lid, nailing it in place with a hammer. Rose traced her fingers along the wood,
whispering a prayer to a god she would never understand and probably never forgive, before Thomas lowered Alexander into the ground.
‘My heart is fractured,’ she said, staring at the tiny box in the earth.
He reached for her hand. ‘I know, my love.’
‘It hurts like physical pain.’
‘Like you might die of a broken heart?’
‘Yes. I am broken.’
A snowflake suspended on the breeze, neither floating nor grounded, was how Rose felt following the loss of Alexander. Thomas carved the name Alexander Thomas Van Cleeve onto a headstone, along with birth and death dates, which were joltingly the same, before erecting the stone in the ground by the mound of earth.
Rose remained in his cottage for four days, her fabricated case of cholera making the gossip rounds in first-class accommodation, buying her time to grieve, as Matron Cromwell had intended. It was just as well, for she could barely muster the energy to do anything more than sit by the window staring out at the ocean or lie in the sun by Alexander’s grave.
She passed the hours reading to him, while her stomach contracted and her breasts produced milk for an infant who would never suckle. Saplings had begun to spring from the mound as the bushland around the cliff came to claim him, but Rose didn’t mind. There was something comfortingly organic about having Alexander out there, that if he couldn’t be in her arms, the next best thing was here amongst the wilderness, behind the cottage. Better than in the hospital awaiting disposal, with no one to love and visit him.
Four days after Rose gave birth, she returned to the female staff quarters to resume work. It was with mixed emotions that she climbed the steps to the lodgings she shared with Bessie; glad for the distraction work might bring but still reeling from a loss so great she wasn’t sure how she would ever smile again, how she would ever think happy thoughts or talk about inconsequential things.
Bessie was waiting inside for her, having snuck away after the lunch service. She’d made and laid a native Australian wreath of bottlebrush, wattle, banksia leaves and kangaroo paw on Rose’s bed. Rose saw the wreath and silent tears slid down her cheeks as Bessie collected her in her arms and held her.
‘Your stomach is almost flat again,’ she said when they were seated on her bed and Rose had calmed.
‘Yes.’
‘How did it all happen?’
‘I’d been feeling back pain the entire day, then at night it moved to my stomach; the most excruciating agony I’ve ever felt, like someone was squeezing me in a clamp. Then the blood came.’
Bessie reached for Rose’s hand and held it firmly in her own.
‘Thomas carried me all the way to the hospital. I don’t remember much.’ She shook her head. ‘The pain was so awful I think I passed out several times.’
‘Did the baby come fast?’
‘I believe so. They gave me a heavy sedative. I wasn’t awake for the birth.’
‘I’m sorry you had to go through that,’ Bessie said, throwing her arm around Rose and pulling her close. She stroked her hair maternally. ‘Thomas stopped by the kitchen to tell me what happened. I thought he would break apart right there in front of me.’
‘He’s been so strong, stronger than I’ve been.’
‘You had a little boy. Alexander Thomas.’
‘Yes. He was beautiful. We buried him behind the cottage. I don’t think I can ever leave here knowing he’s there.’ She felt Bessie nod and she lifted her head to look at her. ‘Are you well?’
‘I’m feeling heavy and the baby gives me no peace. It’s an active little thing.’ Bessie coloured slightly, resting a hand on her stomach. ‘I’m sorry. The last thing you want to do is hear about my baby.’
‘Of course I want to,’ Rose said, but her eyes welled all the same. ‘You have two months to go. Are you excited?’
‘After what you just went through, I’m petrified.’
‘Is it still the duke’s intention to take you and the baby to England?’
‘Yes. Nothing has changed, except the weight I’ve gained.’ She laughed lightly and Rose revelled in the sound of something positive. ‘Nobody has guessed I’m pregnant. Mrs March keeps telling me I’m fat and to stay out of the larder, but I don’t believe she thinks it’s anything more than a hearty appetite.’
‘You should wear the maternity corset.’
Bessie waved her hand. ‘There isn’t long to go now and I’m hardly showing. Then the baby will be born and I’ll be on my way to England.’
They fell silent, then Bessie changed the subject.
‘So, according to everyone in first class, you’re recovering from cholera. Miss Dalton said you can start back tomorrow. You can stay here for the remainder of the day and rest. I’ll bring you dinner later.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I should warn you, though, Mrs March was particularly offended at the idea that her cooking might have made you sick. So be prepared. Tomorrow morning, you may not be her favourite person.’
The suggestion of winter arrived with a blast of cold May air. Frosty winds blew in from the south, rattling the tall gums and shaking the window panes. Spanish Influenza still raged in all corners of the globe; a great medical cataclysm.
Life in first class returned to a somewhat routine state for Rose. After the death of Alexander, she resumed her service to the duke and duchess, though she wasn’t sure anything would ever feel completely normal again.
Matron Cromwell counselled her on the need for contraception and to officialise her union with Thomas through marriage. Of course, the latter was difficult, for Rose was tied to the station now and marriage was not an option for them.
The duchess’s stomach continued to swell in approach of her May delivery and on her petite frame, she looked ethereally lovely, like a perfect little porcelain doll. Rose witnessed too, her abundant joy at the prospect that in a few short weeks, if she gave birth to a baby girl, she would be able to pass down her beloved emerald.
How the duke coped with the two impending arrivals, Rose wasn’t sure, particularly as his wife knew nothing of his lover’s pregnancy. He seemed unusually relaxed given the circumstance. He continued to pronounce his intentions to Bessie while lying with her each night, and in Rose’s company, he would gush infinite amounts of affection over his wife and their unborn heir. It was all rather confusing to Rose, not that it mattered. She had other things on her mind.
She learnt to live with the grief of losing her son, but the pain hadn’t abated an inch, and she still felt the overwhelming urge to rush back to his grave each evening after the staff dinner. She would often find Thomas out there too, wiping a tear or touching the headstone. She knew, in those moments of watching him, that she wasn’t alone in her darkness.
At the end of staff dinner one cool May evening, Rose and Bessie stepped out of the kitchen and wandered up the path towards their lodgings. Bessie had been quiet at the table, barely touching her food.
‘I feel strange,’ she said when Rose asked her if something was wrong.
‘In what way?’
‘My stomach has grown tight, like it’s clenching.’
‘How long have you been feeling like this?’
‘Most of the day.’
‘You’re still two weeks from your due time. Do you think it could be the false labour pains again?’ Rose had encouraged Bessie to visit Matron Cromwell and Doctor Holland in April when she’d felt tightening in her stomach and had become concerned she was losing her baby. Matron Cromwell had assured her that she was experiencing false contractions, which were perfectly normal. She had also assured Bessie, with a look of reproach, that her pregnancy would remain secret until she gave birth.
‘It could be, though this time it feels stronger.’
‘You might have overdone it today. Let’s get you to bed.’
Bessie stopped and clutched her stomach, her eyes wide in panic. ‘Oh, Rose, it’s really starting to hurt.’
‘Okay take deep breaths, nice and slow.�
�� Her voice was the epitome of calm but Rose felt the first hints of panic too. If this baby was coming, she had no idea what to do; vivid images of her own labour rushing back to her. All she knew was that she had to get Bessie off the side of the road and back to their room before anyone saw her.
Bessie panted a little then righted herself and Rose assisted her slowly up the hill.
They reached the steps to their cottage and she grabbed Bessie’s hand. ‘Wait here. I’ll collect a shift and undergarments for you then I’ll take you to Matron Cromwell.’
Bessie held back. In the dark, Rose could see the terror on her face. ‘It’s all right. I think the baby might be coming, but you have nothing to worry about,’ she said as buoyantly as she could.
‘I don’t want to have my baby in the hospital. I want to have it here.’
‘You should go to the hospital.’
‘Can you send for the duke? Tell him I need him. I don’t want to do this alone.’
Rose squeezed her hand. ‘You’re not alone. I’m here with you. And I’m not sure it’s a good idea to send for him right now. The duchess will still be awake.’
‘He’ll come. I know he will.’ Bessie was starting to fret.
Rose wasn’t sure what to do. She doubted the duke would welcome the intrusion at this hour. She knew for a fact the duchess would not. And, given her own experience, she didn’t want to delay medical help for Bessie if indeed these were the first signs of labour.
Torn between decisions, she helped Bessie into the cottage, into her shift and under the covers.
‘Are you comfortable?’ she asked, perching on the edge of the bed.
‘No, but I’m thankful you’re here.’ Her eyes were large and round in the dark. ‘Will you deliver my baby for me? You worked in the hospital. You know about these things.’
‘Not about delivering babies.’ And truthfully, she didn’t know if she would ever be able to witness a birth or hold another infant again and not feel overcome by grief.
‘I’m scared.’
‘You’re doing wonderfully.’
‘Will you stay beside me?’
The Quarantine Station Page 31
