The Midwife's Tale (39 page)

When the bell at Dr. McMillan’s bedside starting ringing again, she chuckled. “Lord, spare me from sick men! I’d rather deliver ten babes before I took another man for a patient. Pour the tea,” she suggested as she rose from her seat. “Let me see what he wants now, then we’ll spend some time together. Just remind me to add a prayer that Dr. McMillan lives long enough and with good health to spare me from ever treating him again.”

31

B
y late Saturday afternoon, only hours before the gala was to begin, Martha admitted defeat.

Much to her chagrin, she had no reprieve. Not a single valid excuse to offer that would spare her the ordeal of attending the gala tonight. Not that rumors of Thomas’s impending betrothal bothered her. Not a bit.

“Drat!” she exclaimed. She set aside the daybook for Victoria, unable to concentrate enough to make another entry today. She was all alone in her room. Not even Bird was there to listen if she spoke aloud. He was staying with Dr. McMillan. Much to her surprise, the doctor had taken an interest in figuring out a way to fix Bird’s wing and insisted on keeping the bird with him until he did.

“Thomas Dillon can marry whomever he likes,” she grumbled, and laid her russet gown on the table to press out the wrinkles. She put the iron on the stove to heat and slipped again on her way back to the table. The wool socks she wore kept her feet warm, but they were a poor and apparently dangerous
substitute for her new chamber slippers, which she had forgotten and left behind at Dr. McMillan’s in her haste to return home.

She made another mental note to stop at his house after meeting tomorrow to collect her slippers and walked more slowly in her stockinged feet to keep from taking a nasty spill.

The rumor about Thomas’s announcement tonight had overshadowed the evening’s original purpose, to allow Eleanor to see all her friends again. As the day approached, Martha had had ample opportunity to examine her feelings for Thomas. Even now, she remained confused. She had loved him once before. Did she love him now?

“Certainly not,” she grumbled as she tested the iron and proceeded to attack the bodice of the gown first. Whether she had any affection for him, beyond friendship, was beyond the point. As his friend, she worried that he was making a terrible mistake by asking Samantha to be his wife.

The girl was beautiful enough to turn any man’s head, but she was also younger than his own daughter! Martha also knew Samantha and her mother well enough to know the twit would not have given Thomas a second look if he had been a yeoman farmer like Alexander Pratt, who had been in love with Samantha since childhood but had found his plea for courtship soundly rejected not once but three times. She had also spurned the interest of Matthew Lansdown, a middle-aged, well-heeled shopkeeper in Sunrise who visited his sister in Trinity each month.

Lansdown had money but no status. No power in his community. As mayor and heir to the Dillon fortune, Thomas Dillon had everything Samantha apparently found attractive, along with roguish good looks. Whether she loved Thomas was altogether possible, but not likely. Given the attention of someone wealthier and more powerful, Samantha would no doubt leave Thomas standing alone to pledge his vows.

Martha moved the iron too quickly and pressed a wrinkle into the fabric. She scowled. Thomas was going to make an utter fool of himself tonight. From all accounts in tavern gossip, he had been acting like a lovesick schoolboy. Unless Martha was wrong, he was going to saddle himself with a wife who was going to make his life utterly and completely miserable in the long run, but probably very satisfying in the short.

Witnessing his announcement tonight with a happy smile would only make it harder later, when she might have to tell him why she had not warned him he was making one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Annoyed that he could be so blind and so foolish, she pressed the wrinkles out of the gown’s skirts with a vengeance. She dressed slowly, still half hoping someone would call for her help. Babies usually picked the most inopportune times to enter the world. Why not tonight? Why not now?

She checked her appearance in the mirror, donned her outerwear, and pasted a smile on her face. When she opened the door to leave, Samuel rushed in past her and nearly knocked her off balance.

Panting, he held his side with one hand and his forehead with the other. Blood trickled between his fingers and down the bridge of his nose.

“Get your bag. Quick!” he ordered.

“Mercy, Samuel! What did you do to yourself?”

“I lost an argument with a tree branch. Don’t fuss with me,” he argued when she tried to pry his fingers away from the wound. “Will’s at my cabin. He’s bad off, far as I could tell. I didn’t want to move him. Get your bag of simples! You need to see him. Now.”

She handed him a clean cloth to press against his forehead and grabbed her bag. “What’s he doing back here? How did he get here?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “He’s ramblin’ ’bout my treasures and other nonsense. I couldn’t get much outta him that made any sense. Maybe you can,” he suggested. He tugged something out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Found this in his pocket.”

She recognized one of her old bedroom slippers despite the fact that it was covered with dirt and leaves. A chill raced down her spine, but she had no time to ponder why or how Will had one of her slippers. “Hold that cloth tight against your forehead and take my arm,” she ordered.

Of all the reprieves she might have gotten, this one probably inspired the most guilt. “Tell me what you could see was wrong with him while we walk.”

When Martha entered Samuel’s cabin, she found Will lying on a makeshift mattress of old blankets on the floor in front of the Franklin stove. The boy was completely oblivious to their arrival and in far worse shape than she had hoped.

She tugged off her bonnet and cape and studied him while Samuel found his way to his chair and plopped down. The boy had tossed off the blanket on top of him, so she could see his tattered and torn clothes. His face was bruised and badly scratched, as if he had battled his way through a forest of thorned thickets. His hands were covered with caked mud. His knees, scraped and bleeding, were visible through the rips in his trousers.

The skin on his forehead was cold and clammy to the touch. His breathing was labored and irregular and far too soft. “Will? It’s Widow Cade. Don’t fret. I’m here with you now, too.”

His eyelids fluttered briefly, then stilled. She ran her hands over his lean body. She detected no broken bones, but she suspected he was bruised from head to toe. She looked up at Samuel. “Add more wood to the stove. He’s still very cold, and he’s in shock.
I’ll need more blankets, too. Once I get him warm, I can undress him and wash him up. For now, I can tackle his face and hands.”

While Samuel worked to fulfill her requests, she set water on to heat. “I’ll need some clean cloths and some soap.”

Samuel pointed behind her. “In the bottom of the cupboard.”

She secured the cloth and soap. While she waited for the water to heat, she removed Will’s wet shoes and socks and rubbed his feet until they were no longer blue. She took the blankets from Samuel and tucked them around the boy until only his face was visible.

Still frighteningly still and silent, he offered no resistance. When the water was hot, she bathed his face as gently as she could while still working away the crusted filth. He groaned several times, but never regained full consciousness.

When she finished, her horror at his condition deepened. Dark bruises beneath each of his eyes, as well as one on his left temple, left no doubt the boy had been beaten. Recently, judging by the dark purple and red coloration of the bruises.

Anger churned in her stomach, but her hands were steady as she prepared several poultices for his face. “He’s been beaten, Samuel,” she murmured. “These bruises aren’t from a fall or from running through the woods to get here.”

Samuel scowled. “I feared as much. Couldn’t see well enough to be sure.”

She washed the boy’s hands, one at a time, and placed them back under the blanket. “His knuckles are scraped raw.”

“No doubt the lad tried to protect himself. He’s a good scrapper for his size. Musta ganged up on him.”

The image of the other boys attacking Will made her shiver with outrage. “But why? Why would the other boys attack him? And why wouldn’t Reverend Hampton stop them?”

Samuel shook his head. “We’re gonna have to wait for Will
to give us those answers.” He slapped his knee. “If I had two good eyes, I’d ride straight to Denville and get those answers for myself. I knew somethin’ was wrong! I shudda listened to my gut. I shudda listened to you and let the boy stay here with me.”

“There’s nothing either one of us could have known that would have predicted this would happen,” she assured him. Her words, however, rang hollow, and she wished she had forced the issue with Samuel and convinced Reverend Hampton to let Will remain behind.

“Mama? Mama? Help me, Mama!” Will thrashed about and whimpered while tugging at the poultices on his face.

“Sh-h-h,” Martha crooned. “You’re safe now, Will. Samuel is here with me. He’ll protect you, too.”

Instead of being a comfort, her words only made the boy more agitated. “No. Can’t stay. Gotta go. Can’t stay,” he pleaded. He opened his eyes as wide as the swollen flesh would allow. “I tried to stop them. I tried,” he cried. “They’re comin’. They’re all comin’ back here!”

“Who’s coming back, Will? Who do you think is going to hurt you?”

He turned his head and faced the fire as sobs racked his entire body. She stroked his back until he quieted. “All of ’em. They’re gonna come back.” He yawned and curled into a ball. “Fire. Big fire,” he whispered, and fell asleep.

Confused, she looked up at Samuel. “Did he say fire?”

“That’s what I thought I heard. Don’t make no sense to me. The boy’s probably outta his head. He don’t know what he’s sayin’.”

She chewed on her lower lip. “I suppose. Earlier, you said he kept rambling about your treasures. What exactly did he say?”

“Not much. He’s always been fascinated by ’em. You know that.”

“Yes, I remember.” In fact, Will had been fascinated by everything and anything connected to Samuel. Olympia had even mentioned how Will had been teaching knots he had learned to some of the other boys, which meant Will had probably talked about the treasured mementos Samuel had accumulated during his years at sea, too. Try as she might, she could not connect those treasures to Will’s injuries or a fire of some sort, and she concentrated, instead, on washing the rest of his body while he slept.

By the time she finished, his clothes were piled up, ready to be discarded in the trash pit. He was sleeping comfortably now, snug in a cocoon of blankets. “Let’s see to that gash on your forehead,” she told Samuel.

He snorted. “I’ve had worse. Dozens of times. It’ll heal.”

“I’m sure you did and it will, but I’d feel better if you’d let me take a look and put something on it.”

“I know you were just born to meddle. Can’t help it. Comes with bein’ female,” he complained.