“Iris, take Mr. Malloy to the kitchen and give him some coffee to warm up,” Mrs. Keller said. “I’ll take you upstairs to Hannah, Mrs. Malloy.”
“How is she doing?” Sarah asked as they climbed the stairs.
“It’s hard to tell. She . . . Well, I think she’s been suffering since yesterday, but she never said a word. This morning, one of the girls noticed she was huddled up in a corner and told me. She didn’t even want to admit it then, but I could see for myself.”
“It’s much too early,” Sarah said sadly. “The child won’t survive.”
“I’ve already told the other girls so they won’t be shocked. I think they’ve been looking forward to having a baby in the house.”
“They didn’t really think you’d let Hannah stay that long, did they?”
Mrs. Keller smiled. “They were hoping. Girls love playing with a baby, so long as it’s not theirs. This way,” she added, leading Sarah to the end of the hall. “I put her in my room so she’d have privacy.”
The girls slept four or five to a room in order to squeeze as many of them into the house as possible. Hannah had done well to conceal her distress from the others as long as she had.
Mrs. Keller’s small room was neat but plain. She had a narrow iron bed, a dresser, and a washstand. Her clothing hung on pegs along one wall. The single window overlooked the rear alley, where snow had blanketed everything ugly about this part of the city in pristine white.
“Hello, Hannah,” Sarah said to the girl lying curled into herself on the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Not so good, Mrs. Malloy.”
“I’m sorry about that, but I’ll try to make you more comfortable, at least. I’d like to examine you, if you don’t mind, to see what’s happening.”
Hannah just stared up at her with terrified eyes and lay perfectly still as Sarah set her medical bag on the dresser and pulled out her stethoscope. As Sarah approached, Hannah caught her breath. At first Sarah thought she was just frightened, but then she realized the girl was having a contraction. Sarah quickly laid her hand over the girl’s stomach to feel what was going on. After a minute, the contraction faded, and Hannah sighed with relief.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Since last night, late. I was already in bed when it started.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Mrs. Keller said. “You shouldn’t have laid there all night without telling anyone.”
Hannah didn’t reply and she seemed to curl even more tightly into herself.
Having Mrs. Keller chide her for not telling anyone she was losing her child wasn’t helping, Sarah decided. “Mrs. Keller, would you get Hannah a nightdress and some clean sheets?”
“Yes, of course.” Mrs. Keller hurried out to do Sarah’s bidding, leaving Sarah in privacy to ask the questions she needed to ask.
“Are you having any bleeding?”
Hannah shook her head.
“I’d like to use this to listen to what’s going on with your baby.” Sarah held up the stethoscope. “I’ll just press this part against your stomach like I did before. It won’t hurt. May I?”
Hannah nodded, her eyes wide now.
Sarah inserted the earpieces into her ears and pressed the bell against Hannah’s stomach. She hadn’t really expected to find anything. She thought the baby had probably already died, but to her surprise she heard a strong heartbeat.
“What is it?” Hannah asked, obviously seeing Sarah’s surprise.
“Nothing. I just . . . It looks like your baby is going to be born soon, but it’s much too early. He’ll be too small to survive, I’m afraid. I just want you to understand and be prepared.”
“How long does it have to be before the baby is big enough?”
“They say nine months, and it takes almost ten months sometimes. Occasionally, a baby survives when it comes after only eight months, but even then, they often don’t survive. So you see—”
“This one is nine months.”
“What?”
“It got started last May. I know because it was only the one time. The man who lived downstairs in our tenement, he grabbed me one night when I was coming home and dragged me under the stairs. I never told anybody, not even when I knew there was a baby. Especially not then. I didn’t know if he’d take it from me if he knew, so I kept it a secret until it was almost time, and then I came here.”
Sarah wasn’t quite sure what to say, and before she could make up her mind, Hannah had another contraction, which told Sarah that, if Hannah was right about the timing, she was giving birth to a full-term infant and they were much closer to the birth than she’d suspected.
Luckily, Mrs. Keller returned at that moment with the things Sarah had requested. Between the two of them, they got Hannah changed into the clean nightdress and put the fresh sheets on the bed before Hannah had another contraction.
Sarah sent Mrs. Keller for towels and examined Hannah more thoroughly. Sure enough, the baby was crowning.
“I can see your baby’s head, Hannah. It won’t be long now.” Sarah showed her how to grip the bars on the headboard and how to push when the next contraction came.
“Will my baby live?” Hannah panted in between contractions.
“I think so.” Sarah knew better than to make promises, because anything could happen, but this baby showed every sign he was going to arrive safely.
Mrs. Keller arrived with the towels just in time. The baby’s head emerged, startling an “Oh my!” from her as she set the stack of towels down.
“One more push,” Sarah told Hannah, and the baby slid free.
“Good heavens,” Mrs. Keller said this time, since the baby was obviously full-size and more than ready to make his entrance into the world. Or rather, her entrance.
“It’s a girl,” Sarah said, holding her up.
“Is she all right?”
Sarah cleared the baby’s mouth and annoyed her enough to make her cry, which Sarah always thought was the most beautiful sound in the world. “She seems to be fine,” Sarah shouted over the baby’s wails. “She’s got all her fingers and toes.”
“Why is she crying, then?” Hannah demanded.
“That’s how they get their lungs opened up,” Sarah said. “She’ll settle down in a minute and you can nurse her. She won’t cry then.”
Later, when Hannah had fed her daughter and the babe had drifted off to sleep, Hannah said, “I’m awful sorry I lied to you, Mrs. Malloy.”
“You should be apologizing to Mrs. Keller,” Sarah told her.
“I’m right sorry about lying to you, too, Mrs. Keller. I hated like anything to do it, but I didn’t know what else to do. I was too scared to sleep in the streets, and it was getting cold . . .”
“There’s no need to explain,” Mrs. Keller said. “I can understand perfectly. In your place, I’m not sure I wouldn’t’ve done the same thing.”
“I don’t think I would have,” Sarah said, earning a dismayed wince from Hannah. “Because I wouldn’t have been clever enough to even think of it,” she added to soften her rebuke. “You took advantage of Mrs. Keller’s good nature, but you did it to save your baby, so I don’t think we can be too angry at you.”
“I can’t believe you kept your condition a secret all those months,” Mrs. Keller said.
“I’m lucky I’m so tall. I used to hate being so big, but not anymore because it helped me hide her.” Hannah looked down at the baby sleeping in her arms. “What happens now? To us, I mean. I know we can’t stay here.”
“You’ll stay here until you’ve recovered,” Mrs. Keller said firmly.
“And then we’ll find you a place to live,” Sarah said. “A safe place. Will your family take you back, do you think?”
“Oh no, not with a babe, and I don’t even know where they are now, anyway.”
�
��Then we’ll find you someplace else to go. You’ll need to get a job, and we’ll find a settlement house with a nursery where you can leave the baby while you work.”
“They won’t take her from me?”
“Not unless you want to give her up,” Sarah said.
“You can, you know,” Mrs. Keller said. “Raising a child alone is going to be very difficult.”
“I know, but she’s all I have in the world. I couldn’t possibly give her up, not after all I’ve done to keep her.”
“You don’t need to think about all that just yet, though,” Sarah said. “Right now you should get some sleep.”
Sarah and Mrs. Keller tucked Hannah and the baby in and left them to rest.
“You and Mr. Malloy won’t be going anywhere just yet either, I’m afraid,” Mrs. Keller said as they descended the stairs. “The storm has turned into a regular blizzard.”
“Oh no.”
“I’m sure Mr. Malloy will be mortified that you’ll have to spend the night, but the girls will be delighted. They love having a man to fuss over.”
Sarah found Malloy in the parlor, standing at the front window and watching it snow. “You should’ve left when you had the chance,” she said with a grin.
He didn’t return her smile. “How’s the girl?”
She realized no one had told him. “She’s fine and so is the baby, who is a healthy little girl. She lied about how far along she was.”
His troubled expression cleared instantly. “Why did she do that?”
“She was afraid. A girl in that situation has a lot to be afraid of. She thought if she went to a maternity home, they’d take her child.”
“They might have.”
“So she hid her condition as long as she could and lied about it when she couldn’t hide it any longer.”
“And if you’d known how close she was to delivery, what would you have done?”
“I would’ve tried to find a place where she’d get good care but get to keep her baby, although it wouldn’t have been easy.”
“So the girl is all right? And the baby?”
Sarah hadn’t realized what he was worrying about. Malloy had lost his first wife when Brian was born. “They’re both perfectly fine.”
“And how are you, Mrs. Malloy?” he asked, his eyes narrowing as he studied her face.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you should see yourself right now.”
Sarah touched her hair self-consciously. “Is something wrong?”
“No, something’s right. I haven’t seen that look on your face in a long time.”
“What are you talking about, Malloy?”
“I’m talking about that look you get when you deliver a baby. It’s like . . . Well, you look real satisfied, like you’ve just done God a favor or something.”
“I’m sure that’s a blasphemous thing to say,” she scolded him.
“I’m sure it is, but it’s also the truth. Delivering babies makes you happy.”
Sarah sighed. “Yes, it does. I’ve missed it. But I can’t go back to being a midwife.”
“Why not?”
She shook her head. “Maybe you’ve forgotten how babies come at all hours of the day and night and how I’d be called all over the city and be away from home for days sometimes.”
“What about those maternity homes?”
“What about them?”
“Is it different there?”
Was it? She’d never thought about it. “I suppose it’s easier because the women are right there when they go into labor.”
“They must have midwives who live there, too, so they don’t have to travel around the city.”
“I suppose so.”
“And if there was one of these homes where they had midwives and the women could stay and have their babies and keep their babies and get the help they needed—”
“Malloy, what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the kind of place this girl Hannah needed and you couldn’t find for her, and I’m talking about a place where you could go to deliver babies sometimes but there’d be other midwives for when you couldn’t.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” she asked in amazement.
“I might be. I haven’t had much to do since we got here except think about this and watch the snow. The snow isn’t very interesting.”
“We’ll have to spend the night,” she said.
“I know. The snow’s already too deep. We’ll have to wait here until they clear the streets tomorrow.”
“Good. That will give us plenty of time to talk about this idea of yours,” she said, taking his hand.
Author’s Note
The Normal School of Manhattan is a fictional creation and is an amalgamation of Hunter College (formerly the Normal College of the City of New York) and Barnard College. The first colleges for women opened after the American Civil War. The loss of so many men in the war left a surplus of women with no hope of finding a husband and the need to support themselves. The colleges gave women the skills to have productive careers as teachers and social workers.
In the nineteenth century, unmarried professional women often shared living quarters and developed deep friendships with their peers. Author Henry James wrote about such a relationship in his novel The Bostonians, and as a result, these relationships became known as Boston marriages. Because of the social mores of the era, the exact nature of each of these relationships is known only to the people involved, but we can speculate that at least some of the women were lesbian couples. The legal case in England that President Hatch relates to Frank is a true story that illustrates the thinking of the time period very well.
The snowstorm described at the end of the book is the Blizzard of 1899, which did bring snow to Tallahassee, Florida, for the first time in recorded memory. It froze the port of New Orleans and created a record low temperature for Miami: 29°F. New York City received sixteen inches of snow, but the worst snow fell between North Carolina and Virginia.
And before you ask, French Letters really was a brand name for condoms in the nineteenth century and became another name for them, much like Kleenex is often used for tissue.
I hope you enjoyed this book. Please visit my website at victoriathompson.com and leave me a message or follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/Victoria.Thompson.Author and Twitter @gaslightvt. I’ll be sure to let you know when new Gaslight Mysteries are published so you don’t miss a single one.
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