By Christmas, the house was almost as full as it could hold. Melissa had moved into the marital apartment assigned to her and Monty, since her old room was required for guests, as droves of Marfords and Marches and Whittletons and Brants descended on them. Dinner moved first to the pink dining room, and then to the great hall, its massive hearth struggling to heat the room. Lady Hardy at last laid aside her mourning clothes after a full year, and declared her wish to dance again as soon as may be. She had not long to wait. There was a ball in the library, its three fireplaces ablaze, where she stood up for every dance and smiled a great deal, and, to the great interest of their friends, danced three times with Mr Merton.
The ball gave Melissa the opportunity to demonstrate her utter lack of familiarity with the cotillion, the quadrille and the waltz. Although she had sat in on lessons with Lord Bentley’s children, she had been excluded from the visits of the dancing master, and consequently had only the servants’ ball as her guide. Monty, unfailingly polite, helped her through several dances and then, when she professed a wish to relieve the company of her ineptitude for a while, drew her away to a dark corner beside the French poetry and kissed her gently.
She discovered that she liked being kissed very much, the resulting warmth spreading all the way to her toes. When he stopped kissing her, rather sooner than she would have liked, she sighed with pleasure and rested her head on his shoulder. He was just the right height, she discovered, just a little bit taller than her but not so tall that she developed a crick in her neck when she looked up at him. Her hand seemed to have crept its way around his neck, and was resting just above his collar, so that she could stroke the back of his head, his silky hair tangling with her fingers. So intimate, and so delightful!
He smiled at her in that way he had lately, that made her insides melt. “I cannot wait to make you my wife,” he whispered.
For answer, she pulled him nearer to her, so that his lips brushed hers again, and with a little burst of low laughter, he took the hint and pulled her to him again for another kiss, much longer, that left her trembling.
On Christmas Day, he went off to Kirby Grosswick to conduct the service there, but Melissa stayed at Drummoor. Lady Carrbridge was tired and listless, and begged her to stay at home and bear her company. Melissa played cards with her, then read for a while, then walked about with her as Lady Carrbridge rubbed her aching back, but nothing answered.
“Lord, I shall be so glad when this baby is out,” she said wearily. “I have never felt so out of sorts before. Dr Milligan says there is nothing wrong, but sometimes I wonder.”
“I am sure there is nothing to worry about,” Melissa said. “A lady I knew… she had three daughters, and was dreadfully tired each time, but the fourth child was a boy and she was filled with energy. So perhaps you will have a daughter this time, my lady.”
Lady Carrbridge brightened. “That might be it — a daughter is bound to make one feel different, especially after two boys. I daresay that is all it is. You are a great comfort to me, Melissa. I am so glad you are here, and going to marry Monty, although I wish you had not to go away, you know, for although Kirby Grosswick is not far, still you will not be here. There is no one here, no one who is a real friend to me, and it is so lowering sometimes. The house may be filled with people, and that is lovely, of course, but none of them are my particular friends. Well, my cousin Mary, of course. I am very fond of Mary, although she was always a friend to Amy and Belle, rather than to me, and now that she is out of mourning… well, never mind that. As for Harriet, she flits about to her own house, or to stay with friends, or to London. Always gadding about. And Francis… well, a man has business affairs to deal with, and one cannot have a comfortable coze with a man while remaking a bonnet, however much one loves him. And I do not know at all why I am crying for I have nothing to make me sad, nothing at all.”
Melissa could find no words, but she put her arms around Lady Carrbridge and rocked her gently until she was more composed.
Three days after Christmas, the snow began, falling steadily and blanketing the garden so thoroughly that everyone was confined indoors. Melissa was helping Lady Carrbridge sort out baby clothes in the nursery. Or rather, she and a nursery maid were on the floor sorting out boxes of baby clothes, while Lady Carrbridge sat in first one chair, then another, then reclined on a chaise longue, and finally walked about.
The clothes were exquisitely worked, the result of innumerable Marford ladies industriously plying their needles or exercising their lacemaking skills. Lady Carrbridge told her that every item was made by one or other of the ladies of the family.
“Aunt Jane March makes most of the lace,” Lady Carrbridge said. “Aunt Theodosia and Aunt Beatrice account for most of the little gowns, although I made—” She stopped abruptly, then gasped in distress.
“My lady?” Melissa cried, scrambling to her feet.
“I think… the baby… but it is too soon.”
“They come when they want to,” Melissa said. Where had she heard that said? It must have been from Lady Patience. “Who shall I send for?”
“I know,” said the nursery maid, rushing out of the room.
Melissa looked towards the door too, but Lady Carrbridge held out her hand to her. “Do not leave me! Please, Melissa, stay with me.”
“Of course. Should you like to go to your room?”
“Yes… yes… I suppose so. But it is too soon.”
They made their way slowly out of the nursery and along the landing, Lady Carrbridge holding her stomach, although she did not seem to be in great pain. Melissa had had nothing to do with birthing babies, naturally, so she was relieved when several of the senior servants appeared. But Lady Carrbridge gripped her hand tightly and would not relinquish it, so Melissa was necessarily carried along on the tide sweeping the marchioness towards her bedroom.
Once inside, Lady Carrbridge seemed a little brighter. She perched uneasily on a chaise longue, and allowed the servants to fuss around her, building up the fire, warming the bed and laying out a thick flannel nightgown for her. Two women brought in a wooden crib, and began preparing it, although Melissa guessed it would be some hours before it would be needed.
“Dr Milligan,” Lady Carrbridge said. “Dr Milligan must be fetched.”
“Yes, my lady,” someone said, curtsying, and scuttled off.
A male voice, raised in anxiety, could be heard in the sitting room beyond, then a female voice, soothing. The male voice, louder. The door opened and Lady Hardy’s face appeared round it.
“Connie, Lord Carrbridge is here, but he will not go away until he has seen you. Shall I allow him in?”
Lady Carrbridge clucked in distress. “No, no! Do get rid of him, Mary. He can do nothing useful here.”
But he would not be deterred, and eventually he came in and sat beside his wife on the chaise longue, taking one hand and stroking her forehead with his free hand. “I thought it would be next month,” he said helplessly.
“So did I,” she said. “It will be fine, Francis. I have done this twice before, after all. Now you must go, my love. This is women’s work.”
“May God protect you, my sweetest love,” he said, in the gentlest voice imaginable. Then he kissed her, and, with a sob, rushed out of the room.
Lady Hardy closed the door behind him. “Now, Connie, we must send for the village midwife — what is her name?”
“Mrs Hall, but I need Dr Milligan. He knows me, and I feel comfortable with him.”
“But he lives at Sagborough, and the snow is so thick, no one will get through tonight,” Lady Hardy said. “Let us have Mrs Hall here for tonight, and if this baby is still not here by morning, someone must try to get to Sagborough.”
“Very well, very well, if I must.”
The afternoon passed slowly. Lady Carrbridge was settled in bed, but her pains were mild and Melissa was given the task of reading to her. She chose Cecilia, partly because it was dramatic enough to be a distraction, and partly, i
t had to be said, because it was on top of the pile beside her bed and therefore readily to hand. She could not quite believe that she had not yet been sent away. She was unmarried and knew nothing at all about babies, and yet whenever she suggested leaving, Lady Carrbridge clung to her hand and would not hear of it.
Late in the afternoon, Mrs Hall arrived, a matronly woman who exuded calm good sense and confidence. She had, she said, delivered eight babies of her own and dozens of others around the village and on nearby farms, and her mother and grandmother had been midwives before her, so there was nothing she had not seen or heard of before.
“All you need to do, milady, is relax and let everything happen as it will. Take your time, allow the pains to come, and we’ll have your baby here by morning, I promise you.”
And so Lady Carrbridge relaxed and smiled, and allowed the pains to come, and Mrs Hall told her she was a very good girl and was doing wonderfully. In between the pains, Melissa read from Cecilia, and all was calmness and happy anticipation of the birth.
Evening gave way to night, and the pains became more intense and more frequent, and still Mrs Hall smiled and said everything was going along charmingly. “Not long now, milady.”
Night faded to grey, snow-laden day, and still there was no baby. A groom was dispatched through the snow to fetch Dr Milligan, but he returned two hours later. There were snowdrifts right across the road close to Mishmere Cross, he reported, and no horse could get through. Mrs Hall’s skills would have to suffice to help Lady Carrbridge’s baby into the world.
This was the point at which Melissa, even ignorant as she was of babies and birthing, knew that something was wrong. The sudden anxiety on Mrs Hall’s face revealed it, and Lady Carrbridge’s pallor confirmed it. The poor lady no longer smiled or talked between pains, but lay back on her pillows, eyes closed. Lady Hardy, wiping her forehead gently with lavender-scented water, talked comfortably of progress and how close she must now be, but her anxious eyes betrayed her.
“Is there nothing we can do?” Melissa said to Lady Hardy.
She shook her head. “Not that I know of. Connie is in God’s hands now.”
~~~~~
The long day wore on. Monty stayed in the ship room with Carrbridge, who paced up and down relentlessly. Every twenty minutes, he dispatched the butler to enquire for news, but there was nothing to report. The uncles and cousins and Mr Merton came and went, but Monty stayed with his brother.
Late in the afternoon, Carrbridge turned to Monty. “For God’s sake, go up and see what you can find out, for I am going mad here with waiting. There must be some news by now.”
Monty climbed the stairs slowly, in some trepidation, and asked for Melissa. Her pale face and the shadows beneath her eyes shocked him.
“Is there any news? Carrbridge is distraught, as you can imagine, and all we hear is that progress is slow.”
“I cannot tell you more than that,” Melissa said distressfully. “It is terrible to see her suffer so, and be powerless to help. But there is nothing anyone can do, nothing!”
“Except to pray,” Monty said fiercely. “I shall go to the chapel and pray for a miracle.”
He went first to Carrbridge to give him the news that there was no news, and then, leaving his brother with Mr Merton and a couple of the uncles, he took a candelabra and walked through the winter-dark house to the chapel. There he lit every candle he could find and then prayed with a fervour unusual even for him. Then he sat, staring at the silver cross, its shape seeming to jump about in the candlelight, and thought about marriage and love and what it would be like to love someone as deeply as Carrbridge loved Connie, and then to lose her. He wondered how a man’s Christian stoicism would survive such a loss, and how anyone could possibly offer comfort. To talk of the reunion in the afterlife could not possibly console a man with several decades of lonely life to endure first.
When the candles began to gutter, he went back to the ship room. Carrbridge was alone, one arm leaning on the mantel, head down. It was full dark, and the rest of the family must be sitting down to a subdued dinner. Monty had snatched a bite here and there, as trays of food had appeared, although he had but little appetite.
In the distance, a bell jangled. Then, a minute or two later, it jangled again. Not long afterwards, the housekeeper’s head appeared round the door.
“Beg pardon, my lord, but there is a doctor arrived.”
Carrbridge’s face lit up. “Dr Milligan has come!”
“No, my lord. It isn’t Dr Milligan. This is a Dr Hay and his sister, a nephew and niece of Mr Hay the parson. Dr Hay heard word in the village that Mrs Hall was sent for and hadn’t returned, and he’s asking if he might be of any assistance.”
“Yes, yes! Anything he can do! Pray show him upstairs, Mrs Compton. There, now all will be well, Monty. A physician will get this baby born.”
Monty wondered just what a doctor could do that an experienced midwife could not, but he said nothing, naturally, and Carrbridge must have come to the same conclusion, for he soon resumed his pacing, back and forth, back and forth.
About half an hour later, the door opened. “Dr Hay, my lord,” the butler intoned.
Hay was a neat, dapper little man, well-dressed, but young, no more than thirty. Monty’s face fell. What could so young a man know that Mrs Hall did not? Yet his expression was grave.
“Well?” Carrbridge said eagerly. “You have news for me?”
“I can tell you why her ladyship has not yet been delivered of her child,” he said, and his tone was so sombre that Monty’s insides churned with sudden fear. “The infant is lying incorrectly, crossways, rather than head down.”
“So… that is why it is taking so long?” Carrbridge said tentatively. “How much longer? When do you think it will be born?”
There was a long silence. “I am so very sorry,” Hay said quietly. “In such cases, there is no possibility of it.”
Carrbridge went white. “And my wife?” he whispered.
Hay took a long breath. “My lord, you must prepare yourself for the worst.”
Carrbridge’s anguished howl echoed throughout the room.
12: Patience
“No!” Carrbridge screamed. “No! I will not believe it. Is there no chance at all?”
“There is a very small chance that the baby will turn spontaneously, leading to a happy outcome,” Hay said. “It is not likely, but—”
Carrbridge groaned, a low, animal moan of pure pain.
Monty said helplessly, “And is there nothing to be done which might facilitate such an event?”
Dr Hay hesitated. “There is a technique that I have heard used in such cases, but I have never attempted it myself. It is very risky, of course, but then every option is risky at this stage. If successful, it might save both lives, but… I should not wish to raise your hopes too high, my lord.”
“Will you try it?” Carrbridge said eagerly. “Please, I beg of you, try anything you can think of to save my wife’s life. My poor Connie! She must live, she must! Dr Hay, do this one thing for me, and I will make you a rich man.”
Hay shook his head. “I want no riches, but I will certainly do what I can, with your permission, my lord.”
“Yes, yes, do whatever you have to. If you can save my wife, you will have my undying gratitude, Dr Hay.”
“And you understand, I take it, that all our hopes may yet be in vain?”
Carrbridge raised his head and looked him straight in the eye, his expression bleak. “Do whatever may have some chance of success. I place my wife’s life in your care, Dr Hay, but no blame will attach to you should your efforts fail at the last. We are all in God’s hands.”
Hay left and then the two brothers were alone again. Carrbridge, exhausted, sat on the edge of a chair, his head in his hands. Monty said nothing, having no words that could comfort his brother in his distress. All his Bible verses, his sermons, his fine words were useless in such circumstances.
A footman came in to attend t
o the fire, and remove an untouched tray of food. Uncle Lucius came in, patted Carrbridge on the shoulder and sat quietly beside him. Two of the cousins put their heads around the door to ask for news, then went away again. The clock on the mantel struck ten.
Somewhere far away, a baby cried. Carrbridge jumped to his feet, his face a mixture of hope and terror. For several long, unbearable minutes, nothing happened.
Running feet, and the door burst open. Melissa’s face was alight with joy. “It is all right! They are both all right!”
Carrbridge burst into tears.
~~~~~
For three days, the whole house held its collective breath. Dr Hay and his sister stayed on to care for Lady Carrbridge, and Carrbridge refused to stray further from his wife’s side than the sitting room outside her bedchamber. On the fourth day, Dr Hay finally smiled and declared that her ladyship was safe from the dreaded childbed fever. Champagne was opened, there were smiles and laughter, Carrbridge emerged at last to be congratulated, and from the village, drifting faintly over the snow-covered rooftops, came the sound of church bells pealing in celebration.
A little before noon, Monty looked round the ship room, where the men had gathered, and noticed that Carrbridge had disappeared. He slipped out and asked Fitch, stationed at the foot of the main stairs, if he had seen him.
“Yes, my lord. His lordship entered the great hall about half an hour ago.”
The great hall? Fitch held open the door for him, and Monty went in. With its high roof, the great hall was always chilled in winter. In the evenings, the massive hearth filled with flames kept it tolerably warm, but this morning, the air still heavy with candle smoke and goose fat and perfume, he shivered as his feet tap-tapped across the stone flags. The room was empty, the long table shining dully in the wintry light that penetrated through long, latticed windows. Monty left by the far door. Another footman jumped to attention beside the chapel stairs, then rushed to hold open the chapel door for him.
Lord Montague Page 11
