The Midwife's Dilemma (20 page)

She refused to let that happen.

Swallowing hard, she tightened her resolve and wrapped it tightly around her heart, where her love for him would always be true, protected by her dreams of what could have been.

She now knew what her answer to Thomas must be—and would be—unless by some miracle one of the women she had approached was waiting for her to return to tell her she had changed her mind and would take over Martha's duties. Or, by a more incredible miracle, a woman who was already a midwife in her own right arrived in Trinity.

Her tears began to trickle down her cheeks. That such a miracle would occur seemed impossible, even for God. She had only one hope left: to eliminate her dilemma by convincing him to wait to marry her until she was no longer bound by her duties as a midwife.

If she failed, the only answer she could give him then would break her heart and his.

And this time, there would be no second chance . . . for either of them.

B
aby Alexander arrived the next morning, but to Martha's profound dismay, she did not return home to Trinity for many, many days.

Summoned by families in the hinterlands who took advantage of the fact that a midwife was in the area, she had remained for nearly four weeks. She had even been desperate enough to expand her search for her replacement to include this area and had spoken to more than half a dozen women, despite the fact that it would take a good two years to train any one of them. As she had feared, none were interested, primarily because it would have meant relocating the entire family to be closer to Trinity, and the offer of having a rent-free cottage to live in did not sway them at all.

She was bone-weary and travelsick by the time she finally made it back to town. And she carried no small measure of guilt for abandoning everyone in Trinity for so long. Now that the month of August had almost entirely been spent, she held no hope that Thomas was still away, which meant she would
probably be giving him her decision in a matter of hours. Victoria, though, was probably back from her wedding trip, which meant there was a joyous reunion waiting for her, too.

She deeply feared the outcome of the former, but she looked forward to the latter.

It was well after dark when she returned and long after everyone else in Trinity had taken to their beds. Except for a lantern she needed to guide her way, she left all the rewards she had received in the alley near the front of the building, rather than the back door, to keep noise to a minimum. The kindly tinker who had brought her the final ten miles home had stacked a fair number of boxes and crates there, but she was confident they would be perfectly safe there until morning.

With her heart racing in anticipation, she entered the back door and slipped into the confectionery. Although no baking had been done for hours and hours, the aroma of sugar and spice and everything sweet and gooey lay heavy in the air.

She grinned. Yes,
now
she could believe she was actually home!

She tiptoed down the hall carrying the same things she had taken with her. With her still-lit lantern and travel bag in one hand and her birthing stool and nearly empty bag of simples in the other, she would have looked like a pack horse if anyone had been awake to see her. She felt like one, too, and only one thought kept her from literally falling asleep on her own two feet: Tonight she would finally sleep in her own bed.

The blistering heat of the day, unfortunately, had barely abated. Her well-soiled travel gown was limp, and her chemise was pasted to her skin. Covered from head to toe with fine travel dust, she moistened her lips and tasted pure grit.

Anxious to quench her thirst and wash her face before crawling into her own bed, she set down everything but the lantern
at the bottom of the staircase and turned around to walk to the pump and fill a pitcher of water to carry up to her room.

“Jane!” she gasped. Shocked to find anyone in the kitchen at this hour, especially in the dark, she rocked back on her heels and stared at the woman, who looked like she had been dozing at the table before Martha startled her awake.

Wearing only a thin robe and nightdress, Jane leaped to her feet, nearly knocking over the glass of water in front of her. “Martha! I'm so sorry. I-I didn't mean to frighten you by being here, but no one else is ever up at this hour. I never even heard you coming down the hall, let alone the alley. I must have dozed off for a bit,” she explained in a voice just above a whisper.

“There's no reason to take any blame for not hearing me. I was deliberately trying to be very quiet.” Martha followed Jane's lead and kept her voice low to keep from waking the rest of the household.

“You would've seen me if I'd bothered to light a candle, but that might have been even worse, considering the fact that I fell asleep.”

After Martha put the pitcher of water onto the table, she set her lantern on the floor so the light would not shine directly into their eyes and plopped down into a chair. “Is there a particular reason why you're sitting down here in the middle of the night?”

“Other than the fact that I've had more trouble sleeping lately than I usually do, it's the heat, and tonight is especially warm,” Jane admitted. “I finished the water I'd taken up to my room and came downstairs to get more, but it was so much cooler here I thought I'd sit awhile.” She rose, took a glass from the cupboard, and set it down in front of Martha.

Martha swiped away a limp lock of hair that fell in front of her eyes before taking her seat again. “I'm hoping you'll be able to tell me that my daughter is back home again.”

“You'll be happy to know that she is. Or at least she was. She stopped by the day before yesterday to tell us that she and Dr. McMillan were leaving for a few days to visit her Uncle James and Aunt Lydia in Sunrise, but that she was hoping you'd be back home again by the time they returned. In fact, there's a letter from her that came some weeks ago waiting for you upstairs in your room. And you have several letters from Mr. Dillon waiting for you to read, too. From all I've heard around town, he's been delayed in New York, and I don't think he's expected back for a good while yet. I put all your letters in your room to keep them safe.”

Overjoyed to learn that her daughter had returned from her honeymoon, she was equally disappointed that their reunion would be postponed for a few days, though it pleased her Victoria had gone to visit family in Sunrise. Martha also couldn't deny she was relieved to know of Thomas's delay. “How on earth did you get Wesley Sweet to turn over my mail to you?”

Laughing, Jane shook her head. “I didn't. Mr. Fancy did. He used the note you'd written out once before, giving him permission to collect your mail, as well as your daughter's. Since you keep such irregular hours and might return when the general store is closed, he said he wanted your correspondence to be here waiting for you so you wouldn't have to wait to collect it.”

Martha furrowed her brow for a moment before she smiled. “I'd forgotten all about writing that note for Fancy. I hope Bird didn't cause any trouble for you while I was gone.”

Jane rose to refill the pitcher and chuckled on her way back to the table; she filled both of their glasses and sat down again. “No trouble at all. I kept food and water in good supply, changed the cage once a week, and put the cover on the cage at night, just
like you do. Miss Ivy and Miss Fern will be very glad tomorrow to find that you're home again. They both think it's long past time for Bird to go back where he belongs.”

Cringing, Martha took a couple of deep breaths and sighed. “They're probably right. I'll take him out with me in a day or two to see if he's strong enough to fly off,” she promised and mopped her brow. “Mercy, it's hot.”

Jane nodded. “It can be steamy in Philadelphia in August, but I never expected to find the same heat here. Fern and Ivy insist that it's not typically this hot in late August, but I suspect they've stretched the truth a bit.”

Martha drank her water and refilled her glass again. Prompted to take advantage of this time alone with Jane to learn more about her past, she posed a question. “Would you ever consider moving back to Philadelphia?”

Jane grew paler, if that was even possible. “No. I've seen quite enough of that city.”

Martha swallowed hard but followed her intuition. “Forgive me for even asking, Jane, but I think that we've become friends over the past few months, and I'm concerned about you. Did something happen to you in Philadelphia that still troubles you and perhaps keeps you from sleeping well?”

Jane closed her eyes for a moment, and her breathing quickened. She moistened her lips before opening her eyes, then folded her hands atop the table. “I've come to know you and respect you as a fair-minded woman. I'd like to think that we've become friends, too, but I haven't been completely honest with you, or Miss Fern and Miss Ivy, either,” she admitted.

She paused for a moment to draw a deep breath. “As far as the sisters are concerned, all they knew when they offered me a place here with them was that my last position had been caring for Mr. Pennington. What no one here knows is that
before that, I had been a midwife in the Philadelphia area for over twelve years.”

Too shocked by Jane's admission to interrupt, Martha tried to concentrate on what the woman said next.

“I worked very hard to maintain an unblemished reputation as a skilled and compassionate midwife, which became crucial as more and more doctors took over caring for women and children, forcing many of the other midwives out of the city. I lost that reputation and so much more several years ago.”

Martha reached across the table to take one of the woman's hands. When she found it cold to the touch, she covered it with her other hand. “Go on.”

“The last time I was called to a delivery, I had no reason to expect there would be any problems at all. I had helped Priscilla Ward to birth her first two children without any trouble at all. I did everything I could think of to do. Everything, even prayer. But I couldn't get that babe to draw a breath,” she explained, and tears began to trickle down her cheeks.

“I've buried two of my own babes,” Martha said, “and in my work as a midwife, I've lost a babe, too. Several, in fact. It's the saddest ending to what should be a miraculous event.”

Jane sniffled. “And the mother? Have you ever lost the babe's mother, too?”

Martha caught her breath. Losing both a mother and her babe was the worst possible outcome while attending to a birthing. Grandmother Poore had had that happen only once, but Martha had been spared that nightmarish experience, and she shook her head. “As much as we'd like to think otherwise, not everything is within the midwife's control. Nature can be very unpredictable, but knowing that doesn't make it any easier to bear when we lose both the mama and her babe, does it?” she asked, using the very words her grandmother had used to pre
pare Martha for the possibility that it might one day happen to her. “You must have been devastated.”

Jane looked down but squeezed Martha's hand hard. “I truly was, and as much as I loved my work and considered it a calling, I—I knew I never wanted to be faced with such a tragedy again and decided I could never be a midwife again. Never. When I saw the ad for a caretaker for Mr. Pennington and got the position, I considered it an answer to prayer. After he died, I stayed on but had little luck finding work there because the area was so remote and I had no funds to leave. If it hadn't been for Miss Fern and Miss Ivy, I don't know what I would have done.”

“I've always been taught that God sends people to help us when we need them the most,” Martha suggested. A hard tug to her conscience, however, forced her to take her own words to heart and embrace the idea that God had sent Jane here as an answer to Martha's prayers, too. Unfortunately, the midwife he had sent was broken in spirit, and He had left it to Martha to find a way to help her to heal.

“I'm so sorry. If I had known that you'd had such a tragic experience with Priscilla and her babe, I never would have approached you about replacing me the way I did. You're obviously still grieving for the mama and baby you lost, as well as the calling you set aside.”

Jane held tight to Martha's hand and used the back of her free hand to wipe the tears from her cheeks. “Ever since you asked me to take your place, I've been lying awake, praying and praying, night after night, asking God to give me the courage to tell you the truth and accept the idea that God had led me here to take up my calling again by replacing you, but . . . but I can't. I just can't. If anything like that happened again, it would destroy me. And it would be even worse this time, because I would be letting you down, as well as the women and children
here, too. I hardly think that's part of God's plan for either one of us, do you?”

Martha thought about what Jane said for a moment before she answered. “In all truth, Jane, I find it to be more than just a coincidence that God sent you to a town that needed a new midwife, and I'm tempted to think my grandmother was right. I'd like to tell you a faith story that was a favorite of hers, if I may.”

Jane nodded.

“According to my grandmother, God's plan for each of us is so grand that He's the only one who knows how those plans are often intertwined. When I was a little girl and didn't want to go to sleep at night after I'd said my prayers, she would tell me that she believed that God always listened to all of our prayers, but because there were so many, He only sifted through them at night while we were all asleep. Some He answered right away, but He waited awhile to answer others. If He found two prayers that were related to one another, He'd play matchmaker and put them together, with one answering the other. But He couldn't answer a single prayer until we were all abed and fast asleep.”

Jane chuckled. “I assume you went to sleep pretty quickly after hearing that tale.”

“Only when I was praying and praying for something I wanted,” Martha admitted. “And as far as the two of us are concerned, I'd think God put our prayers together. You're the answer to mine, and I'm the answer to yours. I also think that if we can pray together each night, you'll find the courage to take up the calling He has blessed you with, and He'll give me the strength and will to continue as midwife until you do. What do you think?”

Jane blinked back fresh tears. “I think you have a greater faith than I do, but . . . but I'd like to try. Perhaps I could ac
company you when you're helping a woman or child who is sick and I don't have to tend to my duties at the confectionery. I'd also like to be there with other women to help you with a birthing, although I'd rather wait before I even attempted to deliver a babe again myself. Can we . . . would you . . . that is, do you think we could pray together now?”