Whither Thou Goest (The Graham Saga Book 7)

by Anna Belfrage

  Ian shifted on the bench, and nodded over to the gravestones that Alex had swept clean and decorated with one white rose each: one for Jacob and one for Magnus. “Did you miss them?”

  “Miss them?” Alex looked over at the stones. “I always miss them.” She stood, ostensibly to rearrange the flower on Jacob’s headstone. Her eyes locked on the serrated silhouette of the north-western forests, now at dusk a dark, jagged line against a lighter sky. Him she missed the most: her Samuel, her little Indian son. Alive and well, she hoped, but lost to her.

  “You’re hurting,” she stated as they made their way down.

  Ian didn’t try to argue, he just nodded. “Betty hasn’t been able to help me as much as she usually does, what with her being the size of a dray horse.” Alex cracked her knuckles ominously, and used her head to indicate his cabin. He grinned down at her. “You don’t frighten me, Mama.”

  “That’s because it’s far too long since I massaged you,” she growled, and he laughed, leading the way.

  He really was in a bad way, but as the oil and the steady rubbing heated his skin, he relaxed, falling into a heavy slumber while Alex prodded and worked her way through layers of stiff muscles.

  “I’ve tried.” Betty attempted to kneel beside Alex.

  “I’m sure you have, and please get up, before you get permanently stuck down here.”

  Betty laughed and swayed back to her feet.

  “He’s right.” Alex took in Betty’s gigantic size. “You’re positively huge.”

  Betty grimaced and moved over to where she was brewing raspberry tea. “I hope she comes soon.”

  “She?” Alex chuckled. “No, Betty Graham, that’s a he!”

  A long day ended with a chilly bath in the river – far too cold for more than a hasty dip – and after spending hours over supper, surrounded by their family, Alex and Matthew retired to their bedchamber.

  “…alternatively, Betty is carrying two, but Mrs Parson insists it’s only one.” Alex sighed and shook out her hair. “It seems very big.”

  “Aye,” Matthew replied, taking her brush. He met her eyes in the looking glass, and worked his way through tangles and curls, brushing until her hair lay crackling down her back. “She’ll be fine,” he said with a quiet certainty Alex found very reassuring. “You can see it. The lass isn’t afraid.”

  “No,” Alex agreed, recalling Betty’s face. Lit from within she was, her eyes glowing like dark amber in the sun.

  She opened one of her many stone jars, sniffed at the content to ensure it hadn’t gone rancid, and rubbed hands and face and neck with this her home-made concoction of grease, herbs and roses. She took his hands in hers and worked some balm into them, twining fingers round and round his until they were both slippery-handed.

  “Bed?” she suggested with heavy innuendo, sliding his thumb in and out between her well-oiled fingers.

  The rope-frame creaked under their combined weight. Matthew had lit the headboard candle, throwing the room into a pleasant golden light. The linen rustled below them, smelling faintly of sun and hay. It was good to be home, to lie close to each other and say nothing at all. He caressed her face, her neck. She leaned towards him to place a kiss on his mouth. He tasted of beer and smoked trout, of butter and bread. When he rolled her over, she hooked her legs around his. It was good to be home, to feel his weight on her body, the heat of his skin. Her shift was shoved out of the way, his hot breath tickled her neck, her ear. They moved slowly together, joined from groin to sternum, hands tightly braided.

  “Home,” she whispered.

  “Aye, home,” he replied, dipping his head to brush her nose with his.

  Chapter 43

  “I need a new pair of breeches,” Matthew informed Alex a week or so later, holding up a well patched pair that had decided to give up on life.

  She looked at the new tear and frowned. “I’m seriously behind in my sewing, and Adam has shot up like a leek over summer, so he needs both shirt and breeches.”

  She went over to inspect her two winter skirts that hung neatly from their pegs. She’d have to sacrifice one of them to sew up breeches for her son, and then she’d make herself new skirts out of the dark green she’d bought in St Mary’s City. Luckily, Mrs Parson was taking up any slack in the knitting department, turning out woollen stockings at a horrifying speed for all of them.

  “Aye, well,” Mrs Parson said drily, “seeing as I was remiss in helping with the hogs, I’m making up for it like this, no?” Her eyes twinkled, taking the edge off the reprimand, and she went on to suggest that maybe Alex could bake yet another of those cocoa cakes as Thomas Leslie would be stopping by for dinner.

  “He is?” Alex asked.

  “Aye,” Matthew replied from behind her. “Not to pay court to Cinderella here, but to have words with me and the Chisholms about the Indians.”

  Alex swallowed back a laugh. Her family loved her stories, and the one about Cinderella was a particular favourite with Mrs Parson.

  “Cinderella,” Mrs Parson muttered and extended one stoutly shod foot. “And how do you see me fitting into a glass slipper?” She wagged a finger at him, and threatened she’d knit him pink stockings if he wasn’t careful.

  *

  Thomas Leslie sat back, replete, and beamed at the table in general and Mrs Parson in particular. Robert Chisholm gave him a surprised look, followed his adoring gaze across the table, and looked even more surprised, but forgot all this when Alex asked him if he wanted seconds.

  “Most tasty,” he complimented, and served himself some of the cake.

  “So, Indians,” Matthew said, shoving his plate away.

  “I somehow suspect these aren’t local Indians,” Thomas concluded after bringing Matthew up to date on the latest spate of homestead attacks.

  Robert and Martin nodded in agreement.

  “Oh aye? Why not?” Matthew asked.

  “Too violent.” Thomas offered his tobacco pouch to Martin, and the two men spent some minutes preparing their pipes. “There is an element of desperation, and the violence is such that any local tribe would know we will raise the militia and come after them.” Thomas shrugged and nodded to the south. “I think they are foreigners, dispossessed of their own lands, and, if so, the Iroquois will do away with them quickly.”

  “Iroquois?” Alex said, thinking of her Samuel.

  “Yes, this is their land – well, what isn’t ours, of course.” Thomas smiled reassuringly at Alex. “It’s no great matter, Alex. A few bands of desperate braves, no more. Easily vanquished, I’d reckon.”

  “But for now, we must watch out for our own,” Martin said, and the six men nodded and began to plan guard duty for the coming weeks. Alex kept careful eyes on them, but from their relaxed positions and their occasional laugh, she gathered none of them were particularly worried – not even Matthew seemed unduly concerned. She listened for some time longer but was soon bored out of her mind by the long rambling discussions and decided instead to go and check on the expectant mother, dragging Mrs Parson along with her.

  “How are you feeling?” Alex asked Betty who turned tired eyes in her direction.

  “I don’t get much sleep, and my back…”

  Mrs Parson patted her reassuringly on her thigh. “It’ll be any day now, lass.”

  Betty managed a faint smile and smoothed down her skirts. “I can’t wait,” she said, sounding as if she meant it. She patted at her head and frowned. Her hair stood like a red brown cloud around her face, curling wildly this way and that, and with an irritated sound, she clapped her linen cap over it. “Let’s hope she gets her father’s hair,” she said before waddling off.

  “It’s a big child,” Mrs Parson said, her cheerful tone wiped away. “And it hasn’t turned.”

  “And three weeks late.” They shared a concerned look: a huge child and a breech birth. “She’ll do fine,” Alex said brightly, “right?”

  “It’s in God’s hands, lass. I don’t think it will come amiss to pray.”


  The waters broke in the middle of the night, and Maggie came rushing to bang at the door. Alex and Mrs Parson ran to help, Matthew efficiently bundled Ian and his three children out of the cabin, stopped by Betty’s bedside to give her an encouraging smile, and then left the women to it.

  “I’m so sorry,” Betty said, shifting on the drenched mattress. Alex told her not to be silly and helped her up to stand, holding her while Agnes dragged the sodden, heavy material off the bed.

  “Walk her,” Mrs Parson said to Alex, busy warming oil rich with herbs by the fire.

  “What are you doing?” Betty asked, highly embarrassed when she was told to lie down, her thighs spread apart so that Mrs Parson could apply the oil.

  “Lubrication,” Alex said, and then Betty was back on her feet to walk. All that night and the whole following day, Betty walked, her stomach hardening into a huge orb at regular intervals. She drank the herbal teas Mrs Parson steeped, she allowed herself to be oiled, and she walked and walked, her breath whistling in and out of her nose during the contractions. And then, finally, the contractions changed, and Mrs Parson made odd noises as she examined Betty, lying once again on her back.

  Four hours later, they were all drenched in sweat. The room was out of necessity hot, Betty had torn off her shift to twist about in only her damp and reddened skin, and she no longer even tried to smile – she just concentrated on breathing as the pain seemed to tear her apart. Blood trickled out from between her legs, and Mrs Parson called for more oil.

  “It’s stuck,” Mrs Parson whispered to Alex, “and I can’t even get a finger in to help.”

  “Ian!” Betty screamed. “I want Ian!” She looked around wildly. “Please,” she croaked, “Ian, I…”

  Agnes was already on her way, braids flying behind her as she rushed across the yard.

  It was a testament of how worried Mrs Parson was that she didn’t even try to remonstrate when Ian rushed through the door.

  “Sit behind her and hold her,” Mrs Parson said to a white-faced Ian, “and help her push, aye?”

  “Help her push?” Ian had his wife in his arms, eyes fixed on her bloody thighs.

  “You’ll see,” Mrs Parson assured him, and he did, his wrists raked by Betty’s nails when she bore down time after time again. Nothing happened. The baby’s legs and pelvis had effectively corked the passage.

  “We have to cut her!” Alex hissed. “Otherwise, we’ll never get it out.”

  “Cut her?” Ian’s hands came down protectively over Betty’s belly.

  “Not there, you idiot!” Alex snapped, frazzled into impatience through a combination of fear and exhaustion. Betty twisted in pain, complaining that someone was driving knives into her, and could they please stop. Ian cried into her hair, begging that they do something.

  Mrs Parson palpated the distended belly and frowned. “The afterbirth,” she said in a low voice to Alex.

  “Oh shit,” Alex replied, and handed the knife to Mrs Parson, who just as promptly handed it back, indicating her shaking fingers.

  Ian stared at them and clutched his wife even harder. “What mean you to do?”

  “We have to give the baby passage,” Alex explained. “If it comes to the crunch,” she said as steadily as she could, “will you have us save the mother or the child?” For an instant, her arm shook wildly. Saving the mother might mean dismembering the child.

  “Betty,” Ian replied immediately, “save my wife.” His eyes looked huge in the dim light of the cabin, hanging off Alex’s face in search of reassurance. Alex nodded once.

  At the next contraction, Alex cut according to Mrs Parson’s instructions, two swift incisions in the perineum. Betty barely reacted. She was more or less unconscious by now, a swollen weight in Ian’s arms. Alex took a big breath, and timing it with Betty’s violent contractions, managed to insert her fingers into the birth canal. The pain had Betty sitting upright, shrieking like a flayed cat, and Alex had to grit her teeth not to scream when the smooth musculature closed around her hand and imprisoned it.

  A leg, two small legs, knees pressing into the vaginal wall and hindering the baby’s passage. She had hold of something – a foot – and with a quick prayer to God that He please not let it slip away or somehow come off, she pulled at the next contraction and one little leg was out, dangling grotesquely. One more contraction and both legs were out. There was blood, very much blood. Betty writhed and kicked, screamed and roared, and then the baby was outside, more or less tugged free by Alex’s panicked hands. The afterbirth descended in a rush of even more blood, drenching the bed.

  “Here!” Alex handed the blue and limp baby girl to Agnes.

  “She’ll bleed to death!” Ian wept. “Oh God, Mama, do something, please do something!”

  Alex didn’t reply. Together with Mrs Parson, she was trying to locate the bleeding, and, with a relieved sigh, she saw that most of it came from a deep tear up the vaginal wall.

  “For a moment, I thought I might have cut too deep,” she whispered to Mrs Parson, and without thinking too much, placed the red-hot blade of the knife against the welling blood. Betty moaned but didn’t wake, and the room was filled with the unpleasant stench of frying human flesh.

  “You did well,” Mrs Parson said, looking so haggard Alex told her to sit down by the fire while she finished with this.

  “Let’s just hope I don’t sew the wrong bits together by mistake,” she muttered, wincing every time she sank the curved needle into the pink flesh. No one heard her. Betty was in a deep faint, Ian was kissing the top of her head between repeating her name, Mrs Parson had leaned back against the wall with closed eyes, and Agnes was busy with the baby, massaging the little girl to breathe.

  “Will she live?” Alex asked over her shoulder.

  “She will,” Agnes replied, sounding determined. Some moments later, the baby mewled. “She’ll live. God be praised, she’ll live,” Agnes said, bursting into tears.

  “She’ll never heal entirely, I’m afraid,” Alex said to Ian once a cleaned and changed Betty had been put to bed. Her daughter-in-law looked like a shrunk wraith, all colour bleached out of her. “I think it will be painful for her to…err…well, to make love. At least for quite some time.” Ian just nodded and went back to stroking his wife’s face. “And no more children, Ian, no matter how she begs, never again.”

  “No more, I’ll never put my Betty through this ordeal again.” He gave her a despairing look. “She will live, won’t she?”

  “She will,” Alex said.

  Ian nodded and went back to staring at his sleeping wife. As yet, he hadn’t asked about the baby.

  *

  “A girl,” Betty said weakly a couple of hours later. Despite Ian’s irritation, Alex had insisted on waking her regularly throughout the night, forcing her on her feet and even at one point insisting she had to use the chamber pot.

  “Yes,” Alex smiled at her daughter-in-law. “A gigantic girl. Ten pounds and counting.”

  Betty’s lashes fluttered close, but her mouth turned up in a proud smile. Alex shook her gently and handed her a mug of rosehip soup, laced with the last of the cream for the season. Poor Betty could barely sit, but struggled bravely all the same, using her hands to lever herself sufficiently upright to drink.

  “What will you name her?” Alex asked Ian who was sitting on the bed with his newborn daughter in his arms. For an instant, she rested her finger on the fontanel and felt for the reassuring thrumming of the rapid pulse. Still tinged with blue, still somewhat flaccid, but definitely alive.

  “Grace,” Ian said, “for it’s through the grace of God that she lives, and her mother too.” His hand gripped tight around Betty’s wrist, he tipped towards her, rested his head on her shoulder, and cried. Betty lifted her arms to hold him, and over his dark head she met Alex’s eyes. It was time to leave, Alex decided, blowing Betty a kiss before stepping outside.

  Alex stood for a while on Ian’s doorstoop. Every limb, every square inch of skin on h
er was tired. She was dirty and smelled of blood and other fluids, and at present the walk over the yard to her own bed was like contemplating crossing the Sahara desert. Her knees gave way, and she sat, legs extended before her, head resting against the cabin wall. It was cold. Dawn was still nothing but a lighter band of grey along the eastern horizon, and she really should get back on her feet. Later. She closed her eyes.

  “Bath?” Matthew materialised out of the darkness. Gently, he helped her to stand, took her hand, and in the breaking November morning, they walked over to the laundry shed. The little space was agreeably warm – Matthew must have lit the fire some while ago – and Alex creaked down to sit on one of the long benches and began to undress. He helped her with knots and lacings, her fingers gone numb, her eyes blurred with tears.

  “She almost died.”

  “But she didn’t, did she?” He lit candles, filled the tub with water from the cauldron and the rainwater barrels until it was an adequate temperature, hot enough to make her dance when she got in, bearable enough that she could force her buttocks through the surface to sit on the bottom.

  “Oooo!” she gasped. Matthew got in as well, lowering himself inch by inch into the hot water.

  They didn’t talk as they washed each other. They came together for a kiss and a caress, and then slid apart to lie drowsily facing each other with water well up to their shoulders. Alex used her toes to tickle him, and he smiled and returned the favour. They added more hot water, they argued over the pumice stone, and by the time they regretfully decided they had to get up, their fingertips had shrivelled into raisins, and Alex’s hair had corkscrewed round her head, making Matthew grin and tell her she looked like the Medusa.

  He slapped her hands away and sternly told her to lie still while he spread the fragrant oil across her skin. Together, they examined the new scar on his thigh, and he rolled her closest nipple between his thumb and finger. She commented that his groin was once again well covered in hair, pretended mock horror and plucked a single hair she insisted was entirely white, and he yelped and growled that how would she like it if he plucked her? And the hair wasn’t white – it was her eyesight going, as anyone could see that if anything the hair in her hand was fair.