“I’ll walk from here, laddie. Here’s athrupenny piece fer yer good work. May the Lord bless you.”
“Thank you, mum,” the boy said. Then heslumped forward and began sobbing. “Oh, poor, poor Betsy.”
“I’ll see she’s all right,” Dora said,stepping down and reaching back for her bag. “You wait here, willya? ‘Least fer a little while.”
The boy nodded, wiping his cheek with hissleeve.
She left him there and stepped towards thehouse, trying not to shudder at what she might be facing.
***
“Oh, thank God you’ve come!” cried Auleen Thurgoodas Dora pushed her way into the kitchen. “Betsy’s bad. Realbad.”
“You took yer time, woman,” was BurtonThurgood’s opening remark.
Before saying a word, Dora took a quick lookat the Thurgoods. She liked to size up the home situation beforeshe went to the patient, mainly to get a sense of whether theywould be a help or a hindrance. Auleen would be of little use, Doracould see right away. She was a scrawny woman with big, frightenedeyes who resembled nothing more than a mouse trying to shrivelitself into a corner where it might find a moment’s safety. Pale,almost sickly, she was wringing a pair of bony hands in her filthyapron. Thurgood himself was another matter. He was neither tall norburly, but rather had the physique of many mill-hands: strong andwiry with outsized hands and bunched muscles – like a lynxpreparing to spring. But where many a mill-hand effected thedowncast expression of one destined to follow orders, Thurgood hadbold, black eyes and a mass of curly, black hair that dared anyone,boss or toff, to knock the chip off his shoulder.
“Where’ the lass?” Dora said to Auleen,brushing by the surprised husband with practised ease.
“In there,” Thurgood snapped.
“Get that fire stirred up, mister. We’relikely to need lots of hot water. And you, ma’am, can find me someclean cloths.”
With that Dora entered the bedroom thatAuleen had indicated.
“We can’t pay ya much!” Thurgood shoutedafter her.
The room was dark, its window being in thenorth and away from the moonlight. A single tallow-candle, set in adish on an apple-box, offered the only illumination. Betsy waslying on a pallet on the floor, groaning and twisting about in adelirium of pain. And she was just a girl, Dora thought, as sheknelt beside her. Beneath the sweat-smeared shift, her onlycovering, her breasts were little more than swollen nubs. She hadkicked off a ragged quilt in her misery.
“It’s gonna be all right, luv. Missus Cobb ishere.”
Betsy’s response was a groan and a clenchingof her teeth. Dora placed a hand on the girl’s forehead. The feverwas well advanced, yet her skin looked cold and clammy.
“Let’s have a peek down below,” Dora said.She rolled Betsy gently over until she lay fully on her back, thenpried the girl’s legs apart.
Betsy shrieked.
“What the hell are you doin’ to her?”Thurgood shouted from the doorway.
“Go out to the well and bring in cold water,”Dora said sharply. “If I can get this bleedin’ stopped, we’ll haveto wrap the lass in cold towels to bring the fever down. Hurry!She’s desperate ill.”
Dora heard a muffled curse, but a momentlater the front door opened and then shut with a bang. Auleen camein diffidently with a kettle of hot water and several pieces ofcotton material.
“We’ll use them later,” Dora said. “Igenerally start with my own cloths.” Which are certain to be clean,she did not need to add. “Meantime, you can hold that candle upclose.” Tenderly but firmly she began to wipe the blood away fromBetsy’s thighs and belly. The girl moaned but no longer thrashedand writhed.
“What’s wrong with her?” Auleen whisperedbeside Dora, as if speaking too loudly might bring further harmdown upon her daughter.
“You don’t know?” Dora said,incredulous.
“Well, I . . . we – ”
Dora pointed to a black puddle on the pallet.“That would’ve been a babe if it had stayed in yer girl’s womb,missus.”
“Oh, but we didn’t know, Missus Cobb!” Auleencried. “I swear. She ain’t been livin’ here! She only come back tosee me through the grippe three days ago. And we knew nothin’ ofher bein’ with child until tonight when she – she confessed to usthat she might be.”
“And you thought Mrs. Trigger might be ableto tell you one way or another?”
Auleen was shaking, trying to hold back hertears. In her eyes Dora could see fear, resignation, and somethingclose to despair. She was a woman on the edge. “But she’s adrunk,” she wailed. “I had to beg Burton to send feryou.”
“But it’s midnight,” Dora said, stillswabbing at the dried blood and afterbirth.
Betsy groaned and twisted, and flung her armsoutward, in supplication or surrender.
Dora stopped her swabbing, reached into hercarpetbag and brought out a small vial. “Bring me a cup of water.We gotta do somethin’ about the pain before it kills her.”
“Oh, my God! Oh, Christ!”
“Go, woman!”
Dora took Betty’s right hand in both of hers.“I’m gonna help ya sit up, dearie, and then I’m gonna give ya somemedicine that’ll take the pain away. Think you can swallow it? Ferme?”
Betsy opened her eyes, but her stare wasglassy, other worldly. She seemed to be staring at some thing orsome one over Dora’s shoulder.
Auleen returned with a cup of cold water.Dora poured half of the water out, then put a tablespoon oflaudanum into the cup. Both women then moved to raise Betsy to asitting position. Dora pulled the girl’s jaw down gently, tippedthe contents of the cup into her mouth, and closed it up tight.When Betsy swallowed involuntarily Dora levered her back to thepallet.
“That’ll help the pain,” she said to Auleen.“But she’s still bleedin’. I think we should send fer a doctor. Mr.Smollett is the closest physician, I believe.”
“We can’t afford no doctor!” Thurgood wasback, filling the doorway.
“I’ll pay fer him myself,” Dora said. “Do youwant yer daughter to live?”
“’Course I do, you stupid woman! But this ismy house, and I say we ain’t callin’ in no doctor. It’s youwe’re payin’ to save my little Betsy!”
“Then make yerself useful. Soak some blanketsin that cold water you brung in. We got to deal with thisfever.”
Thurgood clumped away, grumbling as he didso.
“You ought not to get Burton riled up,”Auleen said softly. “He don’t take kindly to bein’ orderedabout.”
“Don’t you worry about me, missus. I beenhandlin’ men like him fer ten years. Now help me keep this clothpressed up against her. I can’t figure out where this fresh bloodis comin’ from.”
“She’s gonna live, ain’t she?”
“That’s up to God as much as us. We can onlydo what we’re able to. No more.”
After a moment, while they were changingcloths, Dora said, “If the girl just told you tonight about bein’pregnant, how did this miscarriage come about?”
Auleen didn’t answer right away. She seemedto be mulling over the question. Then she said, “She complained ofhavin’ pains down there. We thought it was her appendix, but whenBurton looked her in the eye, she burst into tears and said shemight be in the family way.” Auleen began to weep quietly. “She’sbut a child, Missus Cobb. She wasn’t sure. So I convinced Burton weneeded you.”
“Well, child or not, she’d remember whetherany lad had been at her, wouldn’t she?”
This probe brought on a shower of tears, butDora waited her out. In a voice barely audible, Auleen said, “Sheconfessed she’d been with a man just once. In August.”
From the look of the abortive foetus, Doraguessed it to be about two months old. She had seen dozens like itduring her years of service.
“Did she say who?”
More sniffling. “No. She refused. She gotvery upset but wouldn’t say who. Then she clutched her belly, andthe pain really started comin’.”
“Shut up, woman! You shouldn’t be blabbin’our family secrets to the whole town!” Thurgood was back, and thistime he took two steps into the room carrying a water-soakedblanket. He was careful to keep his eyes averted from thepallet.