Page 52 of The Secret Word
It was longer. Perhaps three or four minutes. But then the door opened again, this time wide enough for Chris to step inside. His eyes went straight to the bed, then searched the room. Clem was walking to and fro by the window, arm in arm with Aunt Fern. She wore a robe, at the neck of which he could see the strings of a chemise, and her feet were bare. Her hair had been redressed into long plaits and these had been wound about her head, though some strands had escaped to droop around her face.
Chris’s feet carried him across the room in a couple of strides and he found himself looking into his wife’s eyes while clasping her free hand. “Is all well?” he asked. She looked well. But shouldn’t she be in bed? He glanced toward it and decided tosay nothing. If Aunt Fern and Mrs. Greene thought she would be better standing, who was he to argue?
“Darling,” he said, “your father has brought that doctor of his, theaccoucheur, Mr. Corgumbe.”
“I do not wish to see him,” Clem said, firmly, before Chris could say anything else.
“I told him he had no patient here,” Chris explained, “but would you object to him waiting here? Just in case? Since he is present?”
“We shall not need him,” said Mrs. Green, “but since he is here already, Mrs. Satterthwaite, let us hold him in reserve, shall we?”
Clem huffed out a breath. “Very well, Chris. Let him stay, but I do not wish to see him.”
“Understood,” Chris told her.
Clem turned her face toward Aunt Fern. “Another one,” she said, her voice high, as her hand in Chris’s groped to grasp his arm instead.
“Breathe, my dear child.” Aunt Fern said, transferring Clem’s other hand to Chris’s other arm. “Hold on to your husband and breathe.”
Chris rested his hands on where her waist had been and would be again. Her abdomen was rock hard, he discovered. “Lean on me,” he invited. “I have you, Clem.”
“You are doing well, dearest,” Aunt Fern said, probably to Clem, though his godmother might have meant him. He ignored the pinch as Clem’s fingers dug into his arms. So, this was labor! He would bear it for her, if he could—the pain that drew lines across her face, and sent her gaze inward, her breath short.
He did not know how long he stood there before her grip eased and she relaxed against him. He kissed her forehead, feeling helpless. Was that the way it was meant to go? Yes, apparently, for both Mrs. Greene and Aunt Fern were praisingClem and assuring her that everything was going exactly as it should.
He had no idea what that meant. “How much more of that…?” he began to ask, but Mrs. Greene spoke over him. “All is going exactly as it should, and Mrs. Satterthwaite is managing very well,” she said, firmly.
“Leave us to our work, Christopher,” said Aunt Fern. “We shall look after Clem.”
He would have ignored them all if Clem had not joined the chorus. “Go and keep Father from breaking the door down,” she said. “Tell him that I am too busy giving birth to his grandchild to put up with his nonsense.”
Chris left the room, and if he didn’t pass that provocative message to Wright word for word, he at least made it clear that all was going well, and that Clem wanted no interference from the men in the house. “Not even me,” he said plaintively.
“Eee, lad,” said Wright, looking contemplative, “it be hard on men, this waiting.” The Yorkshire accent he had lost resurfaced during this emotional moment. “I remember me when Clem was born.” He recovered his poise and his pronunciation, and proposed, “Have another drink, boy, and you and I shall wait it out together.”
The doctor waited with them for the next two hours, but then declared that if he was needed, he could be woken. He went off to the bed that had been prepared for him.
Chris and Wright continued to wait, saying little. Wright kept drinking. Chris tried to read, but he could not concentrate. His heart was a floor above him, and it was all he could do not to migrate up the stairs and, if necessary, park himself on the floor outside the birthing room.
Thank goodness he’d had the presence of mind to command information and messages from the maids who were comingin and out of the room to bring the occupants whatever they needed.
The most recent report was that Mrs. Greene was pleased with the progress and confident that all was as it should be, and that Mrs. Satterthwaite was nearly ready for the birthing stool.
What that meant, Chris wasn’t certain, but it sounded encouraging. It sounded like progress.
Wright had drunk most of a bottle of brandy and was asleep in his chair. The grandfather clock in the hall, which Chris and Clem had inherited with the house, chimed the half hour. Half an hour past what? Chris took a candle out into the hall and checked. Half-past one.
It must have been ten minutes later when he heard feet hurrying down the stairs. He rushed to the door to see one of the maids disappearing through the servants’ door. He waited. It was only a few minutes, but it seemed endless before the door swung open again and two maids came back through the door, one on each side of a bucket handle.
“What is happening?” he asked.
“Midwife wants more hot water, Master,” said one of the maids.
“Mrs. Satterthwaite is pushing,” said the other. “You’ll be a da any minute, sir.” They hurried up the stairs as fast as they could go without setting the bucket swinging.
Pushing? What did pushing have to do with it? But a father any minute. If that was true…
His excitement rising, he looked back inside the room to make certain that Wright was sleeping deeply, then followed the maids upstairs, where he stopped with the door still between him and his wife.
