The Winter Rose (14 page)

"I want you to curl forward, Mrs. Stokes. Round your back, there you
go. Now tuck your chin into your chest and grab your thighs."

Mrs. Stokes shook her head. "I can't do it," she sobbed. "Not again. I just can't. The last one tore me so."

India had seen the scars. "We won't let this one. We'll go slow and
you'll be all right." Mrs. Stokes's eyes searched hers and India saw she
didn't believe her. "Trust me. And help me. When I say go, give it all
you've got. To the count of ten, then rest. All right?"

Mrs. Stokes nodded. "Good. Deep breath, and...push!"

For nearly two hours Mrs. Stokes pushed, with India and Ella holding
her legs and cheering her on. She panted and cried and heaved, and
between each contraction she swore she could not push even one more
time, but then Ella would wipe her face and India would coax and the
urgency would come on her again and she would.

Finally, at 4:30 in the morning, the baby's head crowned. "Easy now.
Take a breath, Mrs. Stokes. That's it. Stop pushing for just a second...
hold on... almost there..." India said, carefully easing the baby
along. And then its head was out and Mrs. Stokes fell back against the
bed and laughed out loud with the relief of it.

But India did not join her. She had seen the cord wrapped around the
baby's neck and the bluish tinge of its skin. "Clamp it, Ella," she
barked.

Ella swiftly clamped the pulsing cord in two places. India cut
between the clamps, then pulled the cord away. She tugged the baby--a
boy--all the way out. He was motionless.

"Come on now, old chap," she whispered, laying him on the bed. She
swept his mouth clean with her finger and suctioned his nose. When he
didn't respond, she picked him up, supporting his back with her left
hand, holding his legs with her right, then gently arched his spine,
pushing his chest up and out, allowing the abdominal organs to drag the
diaphragm downward and suck air in. Then she carefully bent his tiny
body the other way, bringing his knees to his face to force the air out.
He wanted to go back, but she wouldn't let him. He was hers. All
through the long, tortured night she'd coaxed him here, and she wasn't
about to let go of him now. Two more fiexes and compressions. Nothing.
Another three, and then miraculously he twitched and mewled, and the
mewl became a cry and India heard his mother let out a great sob and she
knew she had them both, mother and baby--breathless, bruised, and
battered--but here. In this world. Alive.

This is what it feels like, she thought, smiling, as she wrapped a
cloth around the baby and held him close, just for an instant. She
glanced over at the children. They were still asleep. She wished the
little girl was awake. She would hand her her brother and tell her this
was what it felt like to be a swan....

"Wakey, wakey."

India opened her eyes. Ella was back with a plate of toast and a pot
of jam. She sat down across from her. "What a bleedin' night. And you
know we're going to be back there in nine months' time, don't you?"

"If we are, it'll be with a coroner," India said grimly, remembering
what she'd told the woman before they'd left: "Mrs. Stokes, you cannot
bear an-other child. You must stop having relations with your husband."

"How am I to do that?" Mrs. Stokes had asked, bewildered.

"You'll have to tell him no," India had replied.

Mrs. Stokes had looked at her in disbelief. "Missus," she said, "have you ever tried to tell a fifteen-stone bricklayer no?"

Ella had cut in then. She'd told Mrs. Stokes to use a hollowed-out
lemon half or a small sponge soaked in vinegar. Mrs. Stokes said she'd
tried both of those and a fat lot of good they did. She still ended up
pregnant. India told her she could get a cap from certain chemists. Mrs.
Stokes had shaken her head. "You're not from these parts, are you?" she
asked. "I can find the sort of chemists you mean, but I can't pay them.
Nobody can. The bloody things cost two shillings and thruppence
apiece."

India had looked at the poor woman, half-dead. At the baby hungrily
seeking milk its mother could barely produce. She had looked at her
wide-eyed kids and she'd known she would have to find a way to help her.
But how?

"We have to do something for her, Ella," she said now, pouring herself more tea. "We have to."

"I know, but what?"

India sipped her tea then said, "Dispense birth control."

"I told you earlier, that's a very dangerous idea."

"I got it from you."

"Me?!"

"Yes, you. Remember what you said yesterday... regarding morality and helping suffering people?"

Ella shook her head. "Don't pay attention to what I say. I talk too much."

"Your words stayed with me. They made me think."

"Uh-oh."

"About Mrs. Stokes and others like her. About the things I saw in
medical school. Infants smothered by broken-down mothers driven mad from
their crying. A pregnant, unmarried teenager beaten to death by her
father. Women damaged beyond repair by too many pregnancies."

"Blimey, luv. You're a right ray of sunshine this morning, you."

"We have to do something, Ella. We have to make a start."

"Can I eat me breakfast before we save the world?"

"I'm very serious."

"Come on, India. What can we do, the two of us? Nothing."

"Something."

"What?"

"Provide free medical care to the women and children of Whitechapel."

Ella, who'd taken a bite of toast, nearly choked on it. "Is that all? And here I thought it might be complicated."

India fixed Ella with her intense gray eyes. She'd known her only
twenty-four hours, but already she felt close to her. Maybe it was the
kindness she saw in Ella's eyes, so dark and warm, so different from her
own. Maybe it was having brought a new life into the world together.
Maybe it was sheer exhaustion, but for some reason India felt she could
tell her anything.

"I want to open a clinic someday, Ella. For the poor. To minister to
the ill, but to do more, so much more. The best medicine is preventive,
you know, not curative. If we can get to children while they're very
young-- before they're born, even--we can break the cycle. We have to
start in the womb. Give pregnant women and babies good care, educate new
mothers on nutrition and hygiene. Help them limit the size of their
families..."

India was so busy talking, she hadn't noticed that Ella had stopped
eating. She hadn't seen her pull a small book from her bag. She saw it
now, though, as Ella pushed it across the table. Introductory Notes on
Lying-in Institutions, by Florence Nightingale.

"I know this book by heart!" India cried, her eyes lighting up. "I
particularly support Miss Nightingale's belief that each woman on the
lying-in ward should have two thousand three hundred cubic feet of
space, plus a window."

"I lie awake at night dreaming about being matron in a place like she
describes--a clean, modern lying-in hospital with brand-new plumbing,"
Ella said.

"With good sanitation, proper ventilation, and sterile linen," India added.

"Wholesome food, fresh milk."

"A body of health-care visitors. Trained nurses whose job it is to go
into the community to check up on mothers and babies after they've been
discharged."

"An entire ward just for women's diseases. And another one for children's."

"A modern operating theater employing Lister's rules for aseptic environments."

Ella sat back in her chair. "Crikey, an operating theater. Now, that's ambitious."

"Maybe it is," India conceded. "Maybe we'd have to wait a bit on that
one. It would have to be a small clinic to start, wouldn't it?"

"Even a small one would cost a pile," Ella said. "Have you got anything?"

"Yes. I've started a fund."

Ella arched an eyebrow. "How much have you got?" she said.

"Fifty pounds in prize money. From my graduation."

Ella's face fell. "That's all? We couldn't open a fruit stall with that."

"I'm going to add to it. I'm saving my wages."

"You haven't earned any yet!"

"I will. I'm going to do it, Ella. I'm going to make a difference."

Ella rolled her eyes, but before she could say anything else her
mother came bustling over with two plates of fried eggs, hashed
potatoes, and stewed apples. She set them down with a bang, took her
daughter's face in her hands, and kissed her forehead.

It was a gesture so full of emotion, one could be forgiven for
thinking mother and daughter had been separated for the past ten years.
But watching her, India sensed that Mrs. Moskowitz kissed her daughter
like this every day. She shyly looked away. She couldn't remember ever
being kissed like that by either of her parents, though she did recall
being allowed to kiss her mother's cheek when she was tiny--if she
promised beforehand not to rumple her gown.

Mrs. Moskowitz sat down. Ella introduced her to India. She looked at her, then back at Ella, then said, "Why such long faces?"

Ella told her about their shared dream of a clinic, but that it was only that--a dream.

Her mother clucked her tongue. "Instead of moping, you must make a start. If only a small one. God helps those--" she said.

"Oh, Mamaleh!"

"Who help themselves," she finished, wagging a finger. "And don't Oh
Mamaleh me, Ella. You know I'm right. Mr. Moskowitz!" she yelled, waving
at her husband. "You're going to the cellar? Bring me up some eggs,
please!"

Her husband, who was embroiled in a conversation at the samovar with a
group of men and most definitely not on his way to the cellar, looked
up at her and blinked.

"Three dozen."

Mr. Moskowitz sighed and got to his feet.

Mrs. Moskowitz turned and looked behind her. Her eyes narrowed at the
sight of two young men seated at another table. "Yanki, Aaron--why are
you here?"

"Do you ask that in the philosophical sense, Mama?"

"Don't be so fresh, Mr. Yeshiva Student Who Still Needs His Mama to
Tie His Shoes. Finish and go or you'll be late. Aaron, come here. When
did you last wash? You could grow potatoes in those ears."

"Mama!"

"Go and wash!" She turned back to India and Ella. "Small children
give you headache; big ones heartache. Do you have any little ones, Dr.
Jones?" she asked, eyeing India's left hand.

"It's India, please. And no, Mrs. Moskowitz, I haven't. I'm not married."

"Ach, I don't understand girls these days. Tell me, why do you and my
daughter do this awful doctoring work instead of marrying? How will
either of you ever find a husband? Look at yourselves! Pale, tired,
shadows under the eyes. What man would want to wake to such a face?
Would a little jewelry, maybe a little scent, go so wrong?" She reached
over and pinched India's cheeks to redden them. "Eine shayna maidel,"
she said, smiling, then frowned again. "But you should do your hair
differently."

"Mama, genug!" Ella said.

A delivery boy came in. Mrs. Moskowitz sprang up, berated him for
taking so long to return, then took her position by the cash register.

"I'm sorry, India. My mother lives to meddle."

India laughed. "I think she's lovely. And she's right."

"About what? Your hair?"

"That, too. But I meant about making a start. If only a small one."

"What do you have in mind?"

"We can begin by helping Mrs. Stokes. We'll make some inquiries about
obtaining reliable, affordable birth control for her and other women
like her. There has to be a chemist, a doctor, an affordable source
somewhere. We'll find it and tell her."

"We'll have to be bloody careful."

India nodded. Contraceptives were not illegal, and discreet
prescriptions were a matter of course for middle- and upper-class women,
but many in the public sphere--clergymen, politicians, members of the
press--considered them immoral and angrily denounced those who advocated
them. She knew that people had been vilified, sent to prison, even had
their children taken from them, merely for publishing pamphlets on birth
control.

"We will be careful."

"All right, then, Dr. Jones," Ella said gamely. "Today, we fix Mrs.
Stokes. Tomorrow, we build a shiny, new, fully equipped clinic for the
women of Whitechapel."

"It's a deal," India said.

The two women clinked their teacups and tucked into their food. Ella
told India to eat every last bite, for she would need it. Dr. Gifford's
appointment book was even more crammed today than it was yesterday. Then
she reminded her that she was expected to take rounds at the hospital
in the evening, too.

India wondered how she was going to get through the morning, never
mind the whole day. She looked at Ella and saw that she was weary, too.
They would get through the day together. She smiled, happy in the
knowl-edge that she had made a friend.

Not a difference--not yet--but a friend.

Freddie Lytton turned heads wherever he went. As he loped across
Mayfair's stately Berkeley Square in the rain, females from fifteen to
fifty stared after him, their eyes drawn by the thick shock of golden
hair, the chiseled jaw, the languid amber eyes. Long, lean, and
loose-limbed, he epitomized an effortless patrician elegance. And though
he affected not to notice, he registered every feminine glance. Glances
indicated interest, and interest proved useful. In ballrooms and
bedrooms and at the ballot box. Women couldn't vote, thank God; but they
often influenced their husbands, who could.

He dodged a carriage, skirted a pram, then bounded up the steps to
number 45, an enormous Adam townhouse. He was greeted by a butler and
escorted past opulent rooms containing extraordinary antiques. All of
them had come from Lady Isabelle's side, he knew, none from her
hus-band's. Lord Burnleigh was a nobody, a Welsh coal baron who just
hap-pened to have more money than God. Isabelle was an Audley, and could
trace her bloodline back to the de Clares and William the Conqueror.