“Be quiet now,” the cook warned. “All the other ladies is still sleeping, though I don’t expect they’ll be sleeping long once Miss Amy gets started good. I reckon she’ll shout the house down, don’t you?”
Sarah didn’t offer an opinion, although she felt reasonably certain the woman was correct. She had a moment of confusion at the thought of the “other ladies” still being asleep until she recalled that when she’d still lived in her parents’ house as a member of one of the wealthiest families in New York City, she’d always slept late, too. It was a natural consequence of late-night social gatherings.
They moved quickly down the hallway to the third door. The cook knocked once and then opened it without waiting for a response. “This here’s the midwife,” she announced, plunked down Sarah’s bag, and stood back for Sarah to enter before making her escape back down the hall.
The curtains were drawn, so Sarah needed a moment to get her bearings in the dimness. She found herself in a lavishly furnished bedroom. An enormous four-poster bed draped with netting, piled high with bedclothes, and skirted with royal blue satin flounces dominated the room. She saw an elaborate dressing table covered with all sorts of bottles and jars, and a wardrobe with one door ajar and a riot of petticoats hanging out of it. At the far end of the room stood a chaise and a pair of upholstered chairs in a grouping, as if for conversation. A woman had been sitting in one of the chairs, and now she was up and walking to greet Sarah.
“Mrs. Brandt?” she said. “I’m Rowena Walker. I’m so grateful you could come.” She looked to be about forty, but Sarah couldn’t judge accurately in the dim light. Her voice was well modulated and cultured, and she wore a housedress of rose pique, something Sarah’s mother might have worn to breakfast except for the excess of lace trimmings at the throat and cuffs.
“I’m glad I was available.” Sarah heard a moan and turned toward the bed, where she could now see a woman lay amid the confusion of satin coverlet, pillows, and sheets. “Is this my patient?”
“Yes, young Amy. This is her first.”
Sarah went over to the bed and greeted the young woman with a smile. Amy looked as if she might be about twenty and quite attractive under other circumstances. At the moment, she was moaning, her face twisted in pain, and her golden blond hair ratty and tangled. Her nightdress was silk, Sarah saw with surprise, and cut unusually low in the front. It was stretched taut over her rounded belly.
“Help me,” the girl begged, grabbing Sarah’s hand. “Please, get it out of me!”
“We’ll have to wait for the baby to come out on his own, I’m afraid, but I can help you be more comfortable while it’s happening.”
“Just tell me what you need,” Mrs. Walker said, “and I’ll have Beulah get it for you.”
Sarah requested a rubber undersheet and clean sheets to start. In a few minutes Beulah, the cook, brought them. Sarah got Amy out of bed and helped Beulah change it. Although this took only a few minutes, Amy began complaining almost immediately.
“I have to lay down. I can’t stand this pain! Give me some laudanum or something!”
Sarah left Beulah to finish the bed and hurried over to where Amy was reclining on the chaise. “You shouldn’t take any laudanum,” she cautioned. “It can affect the baby.”
“I don’t care about the baby,” Amy insisted. “I can’t stand this any longer!”
“What an awful thing to say, Amy,” Mrs. Walker said, glancing at Sarah with an embarrassed shrug. “You don’t mean that, and of course you can stand it. Thousands of women before you have stood it, and you will, too.”
“I promised I could make you more comfortable,” Sarah said. “The first thing we need to do is get you up and walking around.”
“Walking around?” Amy fairly screeched. “How can that make me more comfortable?”
“It will make your labor go faster. And do you have a . . . a plainer nightdress? One that’s looser? This one is so pretty, it’s a pity to get it stained,” Sarah added tactfully.
The young woman looked at Sarah for a long moment, as if she were seeing her for the first time. Then she threw back her head and started laughing hysterically.
Sarah’s mind was racing, frantically trying to decide what to do, but before she could, Mrs. Walker drew back her arm and slapped the girl smartly across the face. Sarah cried out in protest, but neither of the other women appeared to notice. Amy’s laughter ceased abruptly, and she stared at Mrs. Walker with mingled surprise and . . . Sarah needed a moment to identify the other emotion she saw in Amy’s clear blue eyes: fear.
The girl reached up and cradled her cheek and whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“You should be. Now stop acting like a child. Mrs. Brandt will lose patience with you and leave, and then what will you do? You can’t have this baby on your own, you know.”
Amy turned to Sarah in alarm. “I’m sorry,” she repeated, more fervently this time. “Don’t leave.”
“I’m not going to leave,” Sarah assured her. “But you need to do what I tell you. I’ve delivered hundreds of babies, and you have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
The girl glanced at Mrs. Walker, who was still glaring at her. Amy turned back to Sarah. “I’ll do what you say. I don’t have another nightdress, though. A plainer one, I mean.”
“That’s all right. I meant what I said about walking. It will make the baby come faster. Your mother and I can take turns walking with you.”
“My mother?” she echoed in surprise, looking at Mrs. Walker.
Mrs. Walker smiled rather stiffly. “I think she means me,” she said, an odd expression on her face. “I’m not her mother,” she told Sarah, “just her . . . hostess. She boards here, you see.”
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “I misunderstood.” Now she recalled that Jake had said one of Mrs. Walker’s guests was having a baby. She should have remembered that.
“That’s quite all right,” Mrs. Walker said.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a boardinghouse this . . .” Sarah groped for the right word, not certain how to say what she was thinking without giving offense.
“Fancy?” Amy offered, earning a disapproving glare from Mrs. Walker.
“Yes,” Sarah agreed.
“Mrs. Walker does run a fancy house,” Amy said with mock innocence.
Some silent communication passed between Mrs. Walker and Amy, a warning of sorts, and then Amy clutched her stomach and moaned again.
“Let’s get you up and walking,” Sarah said when the contraction had passed.
For at least an hour, Sarah and Mrs. Walker took turns holding Amy’s arm as she paced around the room. During that time Sarah asked her questions about her health and the progress of the pregnancy and the details of her labor thus far. One thing she didn’t learn about was the baby’s father. No one had mentioned him at all. Beulah had remarked that the other ladies were still sleeping, indicating the other boarders were all female. Sarah began to wonder if Mrs. Walker was actually running a refuge for other girls like Amy, unmarried girls from good families who had gotten with child and needed a place to have their babies secretly. She’d heard of such places, but she’d never been called to one before. She had always assumed they had arrangements with midwives whom they knew and trusted. She wondered why she’d been chosen today.
Beulah brought them some luncheon, an elegant arrangement of sandwiches and tea cakes. Amy could manage only a few bites, but Sarah ate heartily, not sure when she’d have another chance. Mrs. Walker nibbled a bit, but she seemed preoccupied.