Timepiece (8 page)

“David, it is the most beautiful clock.”

David studied her face anxiously. “Do you like it?”

She stepped forward to her gift and ran her fingers across its exquisite carvings. “It is so ornate. Yes. Very much.”

David joined her. “I wanted the exterior to be as intricate as the interior clockwork.
The chime is exquisite and unlike anything I have ever heard. It is angelic.”

MaryAnne was enthralled. “I have never owned anything of such worth.”

“May I tell you why I wanted to give you a clock?”

She turned to her groom. “There is greater significance than its beauty?”

David stared into the clock's face. “You once asked me why I collected clocks.”

MaryAnne nodded.

“I have given this question a great deal of thought since then. A clock is a strange invention. A collection of cogs and gears that are always in motion, yet accomplish nothing. Not like a pump that provides water or a cotton gin that leaves something useful. A clock just moves without thought or meaning—worthless without interpretation.” His eyes focused on the clock in condemnation. “It is just motion.” He
turned and looked into his new wife's eyes. “And so has been my life. I have moved, not with feeling, but because it is all that I could see to do. You have given my motion meaning.”

MaryAnne looked into David's face. “I have given you my life, David.”

“And in so doing, you have given me mine.”

They embraced again, kissing at length. David smiled as they parted. “Let us be on our way!”

“Yes, my love.”

Gibbs was already outside with the hackney, loading the travel cases into the carriage. On the front step, MaryAnne hugged Catherine.

“Thank you, Catherine. You have made this day beautiful.”

“I am so happy for you both. Take good
care of him, MaryAnne. I love him dearly.”

MaryAnne embraced her tighter. “How could you not, my sister.”

After counting the cases, David took his bride by the hand and helped her up into the carriage.

Gibbs stood by the side of the carriage. “Good luck, David.”

“Thank you, Gibbs. We will return in a fortnight. The company is in your hands.”

 

“I had never supposed the cost women bear in the perpetuation of the species. Nor that such courage could be had in such a petite frame.”

David Parkin's Diary. January 17, 1909

MaryAnne's pains were still light when the hurry-up call went out to the midwife, one Eliza Huish. The woman was known as one of the most revered midwives in the city, and had given birth herself on eleven occasions.

Eliza arrived on horseback shortly before dusk. She was older than MaryAnne
had expected; a stern, aged countenance worn into the matriarch's hard face. She was wide-hipped and buxom, her hair was streaked with gray and drawn back tightly in a bun with a few prodigal strands falling across her cheek. Her attire matched her manner. She was dressed austerely in a drab muslin dress partially concealed beneath a faded ivory apron, which carried the stains of previous deliveries. At her side was a worn carpetbag filled with the implements of her profession: herbs, ointments, tonics, and tattered rags.

“Waters not yet broke, Catherine?” she asked.

“No, ma'am.”

The woman stopped at the room's threshold and surveyed the elaborate Victorian parlor, her eyes raised to the ornate frescoed ceiling. She was not likely to have seen such wealth before. The parlor was one of David's favorite rooms, and
though he spent little time there, he endowed the room with his favorite collectibles, including MaryAnne's grandfather's clock. MaryAnne, at Catherine's suggestion, had chosen to birth in the parlor, as it was more convenient to the water closet and kept better temperature than the other upstairs rooms.

The woman sized up the room's occupants, then went to work with priggish fervor. Her first official act was to expel David from the room. In reluctant retreat, he left the parlor with his hands raised above his head and told Mark outside, “It is a time of female despotism.”

“Why can't David be with me?” MaryAnne asked.

The question stunned the woman, who found the very wish unnatural and could see no reason why a woman should desire a man's presence at such an occasion.

“It is not a man's place when a woman
is in travail,” she said. “Only a woman can know what a woman is suffering.”

MaryAnne was in no condition to argue and relinquished herself to the woman's government. The midwife placed a hand on MaryAnne's forehead, then walked to the foot of the bed and lifted MaryAnne's gown up to the waist, singing hymns beneath her breath as she worked. She poured virgin olive oil into her hands and began rubbing it into MaryAnne's hips and abdominal muscles.

“This'll stretch you out, darlin'. Make it a whole lot easier. Also brought along some Lydia Pinkham's vegetable compound. Fetch that from my satchel, Catherine. And the spoon.”

Catherine lifted a brown glass bottle filled with the tonic. She leveled a spoonful and offered it to MaryAnne, who made a face at the bitter substance.

“Two spoonfuls, Catherine. Works miracles with all female ailments,” the
midwife said confidently, as she kneaded MaryAnne's thighs. After administering the dosage, Catherine pressed a cup of coffee to MaryAnne's lips, which she gratefully received. The woman wiped the oil from her hands onto a rag.

“How long since labor started?”

“She had the first strong pain shortly after noon. She started regular several hours ago,” Catherine said. Her voice rose hopefully, then fell in disappointment. “. . . But they stopped just before you arrived.”

MaryAnne sighed.

The women sat and looked at each other quietly.

“Would you care for something to eat, Eliza?” Catherine offered.

The woman nodded. “Thank you.” She looked over at MaryAnne. “Haven't had a bite since breakfast.”

Catherine excused herself, returning fifteen minutes later with a silver tray
stacked with cut cucumbers, honey candy, pine nuts, and cream cheese and walnut sandwiches. The woman snacked on the fare, eventually joined by Catherine, who ate only to pass time. A half hour later, MaryAnne suddenly began breathing heavily. The midwife set down a sandwich and placed both hands on MaryAnne's stomach, concentrating on the contractions with professional intensity. Three minutes later, MaryAnne started into another. “There, that's a good start. Long pains, close together.”

MaryAnne grimaced. “It's taking so long.”

“It is natural, the first birth always takes longer. We'll likely be here all night.” As if to emphasize her words, she glanced over her shoulder at the grandfather's clock. “There's a fine clock . . . help us time these pains.”

A minute later, MaryAnne tensed again, then groaned with another contraction.

“Just breathe easy, darlin'. No sense making it any harder than it need be. First always takes longer,” she repeated. “Seen a first labor once go up on two days . . . but once the water broke.”

MaryAnne was oblivious to the chatter, concentrating on the strange forces that had seized her body.

In the next ten minutes, MaryAnne had gone through five more cycles.

“How do you feel now, darlin'?”

“I want to push,” MaryAnne panted.

“Good, good. It's moving along right quickly now. You go right ahead and push with the next pain.”

The woman wiped her forehead with her wide sleeves. Two minutes later, MaryAnne started into another contraction. As she began to push, her water broke. MaryAnne felt the sheet beneath her wet.

The midwife gasped. “Oh, dear.” She stood looking at the bright red discharge. MaryAnne was bleeding heavily. The
woman became suddenly grave. “Catherine, hurry now, get me some rags.”

“What's wrong?” Catherine whispered.

“There may be separation of the afterbirth.”

“What is wrong?” MaryAnne asked, her voice strained.

“A little bleeding, darlin'.”

Catherine said nothing. MaryAnne was bleeding profusely.

MaryAnne looked up at the ceiling. “Is my baby all right?” She clenched for another contraction. Her voice pitched. “Catherine, where is David?”

“I don't know, MaryAnne.”

“I want David,” MaryAnne said between heavy breaths.

“It is not proper,” the midwife returned, studying the continued flow of blood. MaryAnne sensed from the change in the woman's countenance that the crisis was greater than she confessed. Fifteen minutes
passed beneath the clock's serpentine hands. The midwife's anxiety increased. MaryAnne began to feel light-headed.

“Is my baby still alive?” she asked again.

The woman did not answer. The blood continued to flow.

“Will I die?”

The midwife shook her head unconvincingly. “You will be well enough.”

MaryAnne's breathing quickened with the onset of a new contraction. She did not believe the woman's reply. “Is there a chance that I will die?”

This time, the woman did not respond. MaryAnne exhaled, then clenched down with the pain. “If we are to die in travail it will be with David by my side.”

The midwife looked up at Catherine. “Call the man.”

At Catherine's summons, David quickly entered the dim room, his face
bent in concern. He walked to the side of the bed and took MaryAnne's hand. It was impossibly cold. He glanced up at the midwife, who silenced him with a sharp shake of her head. His heart froze. She did not want to concern MaryAnne with the seriousness of her condition. How bad was it? He looked down at the foot of the bed and saw the pile of blood-soaked rags. He felt his stomach knot. MaryAnne was wet with perspiration. David held her hand as he blotted her forehead.

Oh, God, do not take her from me, he silently prayed. I will give anything. He rubbed her hand to warm it. “You can do this, Mary. It will be all right. Everything will be all right.”

“I am so cold.”

David bit back his fear. “It will be all right, my love.”

Just then, the midwife walked to the side of the bed and bent over MaryAnne.
Her forehead was beaded in perspiration and her face bore a solemn, dark expression. There was no more time to shield MaryAnne from the truth of the crisis. “MaryAnne, the baby needs to come now.” Her words came slowly, each weighted with emphasis. “You need to give birth now.”

“I don't know how to!” she cried.

“You can do it, MaryAnne,” she replied firmly. “Go ahead and push. The baby must come.”

“Is my baby alive?”

The midwife said nothing. Catherine began to cry and turned away.

“Is my baby alive?!” she screamed.

“I don't know. It is the baby's sack which is bleeding, so the baby is in the gravest danger. But it is still your blood, and if it does not stop soon . . .”

A chill ran up David's spine. “Can't you just take the baby?!”

“No,” MaryAnne said. David turned to her pensively. Her face was pallid and though her eyes were dim they did not veil her determination. “No, David.”

David clasped her hand in both of his.

“Oh, MaryAnne.”

“I don't want to leave you.”

“You're not leaving me, MaryAnne. I won't let you leave me.”

Eliza walked back down between MaryAnne's legs as she started into another contraction. Just then, a cuckoo clock erupted in festive announcement of the second hour, followed by a gay, German melody accompanying tiny, brightly colored figurines waltzing in small circles on a wooden track.

“I feel the baby!” Eliza was certain that she would first feel the afterbirth, nearly assuring the infant's demise. “MaryAnne, push again!”

“I feel as if all my insides are coming out.”

“You are doing wonderfully.”

“Yes, you are doing wonderfully.” David was seeing a whole new side of his wife, and of life, and it filled him equally with awe and terror.