Delivering the Truth Read online

  With the chaise’s raised back, it doubled as an examining table. “My feet hurt mightily these days, Rose. And this boy kicks at me all night long.” Dark patches under her eyes confirmed she was short on sleep.

  I smiled. Of course she and William Parry wanted a boy for their first baby together, but I also knew we had no means of determining if a boy or a girl would greet her at birth.

  “That’s good. It means it’s a strong, healthy baby. How has thee been eating? Plentiful meat and vegetables, I hope?” As I spoke, I knelt to loosen her shoes so I could examine her ankles. They were swollen but not too badly.

  “I don’t have much of an appetite. I pick at my food. How long after the birth can I start going out again? It’s miserable eating alone.” Her nasal tone sounded more like a petulant child’s than a first-time mother’s.

  I glanced up. “Your husband must be busy running the Parry Carriage Factory. Your transport is as lovely as a piece of art.”

  “Oh, that. He’s giving me a nicer, more spacious model after the baby comes.” She sniffed. “He says he’s busy with work, but I know better. I—” She bit her lip and said nothing more.

  I stood. I held her wrist and counted the beats of her pulse while watching the mantel clock that had been my grandmother’s, with its bucolic meadow landscape painted on the glass in front of the pendulum.

  “I need to check the baby now, Lillian.”

  She nodded as I knelt again. I lifted her skirts and exposed the skin over her womb, which looked like she housed a large ball inside. She was one of those women who gained their pregnancy weight solely in the belly. I pressed the flared Pinard horn on her stomach and laid my ear against the narrow end of the tube, listening to the baby’s heart this time, counting the beats. I then used a firm touch of my hands to locate the baby’s head and its bottom.

  As I felt the babe, I said, “Does thee mean to say William isn’t busy with his work? Surely such a renowned factory provides much business for him to attend to.”

  “He’s out with that strumpet. I know he is.”

  I kept my silence. I brought out my tape and measured from her pubic bone up to the top of the womb. I jotted the number down in my book, adding the date and the baby’s heart rate before lowering her skirts.

  Lillian looked away, out the window, and then back at me. Tears filled her eyes. “My sister saw him enter that O’Toole woman’s abode as she returned from a visit to South Hampton. He has no reason to see that woman. My sister was quite outraged, and bit scornful, too. I was humiliated beyond belief. What’ll I do, Rose?”

  Oh, dear. Minnie O’Toole. “Perhaps it was company business. Has thee asked thy husband?” I patted her hand.

  “Oh, I couldn’t. He wouldn’t tell me the truth, anyway.” Her voice wobbled.

  “Was he in agreement about conceiving a child with you?”

  She nodded. She wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. “Yes. We were married last April and we wanted to start our family right off. He’s nearly two decades older, and he has a son of twenty, Thomas, from his late wife. Not much younger than I am. We don’t exactly get along. Thomas resents me and I … well, he’s hard to like.” She shook her head. “But I’ve made my bed and I must lie in it. There’s no going back now.”

  “Well, thee has a lively child inside. It hasn’t yet settled into the birth canal. I want thee to eat as much as thee is able of good wholesome foods. Beef, chicken, and well-cooked pork. Fresh milk and cheese. Try to have some squash and an apple every day. Some spinach or other green vegetable if thee can find it. And drink weak tea.”

  “What about wine?” This privileged woman’s whiny tone was back.

  “A drop once in a while won’t hurt the baby now. It is big enough.”

  “Good,” Lillian said with a toss of her head. “Are we finished?”

  “We are. I’ll visit thee at home in one month’s time. Attend to thy baby’s movements. If they cease for more than a few hours, send for me at once. After my next visit, I’ll see thee more often.” I extended my hand and helped her stand.

  While she fastened her hat on her light hair, Lillian said, “Please forget what I said. I am happy with my husband. I am sure he is, indeed, merely busy with the carriage business.” She lifted her chin as she pulled on her gloves.

  We said our good-byes. I showed her out and made sure she descended the stairs safely. Her driver helped her into the carriage, where she sat alongside a slender, light-haired young man, and they drove off down the hill. Perhaps I should also hang out a shingle advertising my services as a pastor. With some clients, more of my work was in listening and counseling than in making sure a pregnancy ran smoothly.

  My eldest niece lifted her skirts and stepped over a pile of manure at the edge of High Street, then dropped them quickly before anyone could glimpse her ankles as we walked at the end of the day. Faith Bailey dipped her head in her plain bonnet as we passed James Nilan climbing into a carriage, his clerical collar a pristine white against his black cloak.

  I glanced at her. “Why did thee bow to that priest?”

  I knew my sister had instructed Faith to keep her head up when she encountered any adult, whether the priest of Saint Joseph’s or President Cleveland. “As members of the Society of Friends,” I’d heard her tell Faith many times, “we believe in equality under God.” That was why my brother-in-law—Faith’s father, Frederick—didn’t doff his simple hat when he met an Amesbury selectman on the street and why Friends didn’t use titles to address each other, not even children to adults. Both Frederick’s family and my own father’s were Friends, although my mother had come to the faith only after meeting my father.

  “Mother is gone, Rose. Annie Beaumont, my best friend at the mill, respects her priest. I don’t want to tempt fate by not showing him courtesy.”

  I shrugged. Faith was still young, only seventeen. What harm could it do? Yet, I felt a pang to see her discard Harriet’s teachings so lightly, and then a renewed pang of missing my sister.

  We passed the closing shops on Market Street. A bitter wind rushed up from the Powow River despite it being past the spring equinox. The thrum of the textile mills’ waterwheels filled my ears. I pulled my shawl closer around my neck as we trudged up Carriage Hill.

  “I hope I can see Zeb when he finishes his shift. He works longer hours than I,” Faith said.

  “And I know thee pines to see him as he leaves work.” I smiled at my niece with her rosy cheeks and then looked down at the roadway again. I was pining a bit to see David again soon, myself.

  Faith hurried ahead of me. A moment later, she stumbled. An arm stretched out to break her fall before I could reach her.

  “In such a hurry to see my brother, Faith?”

  Faith straightened and smiled at her tall rescuer. “I thank thee, Isaiah. I admit to an eagerness that overruled caution. I turned my ankle a bit on the cobblestone.”

  “Greetings, Isaiah.” I surveyed the road outside the Parry Carriage Factory gates. Workers trickled out from the ironwork opening. We must have missed the earlier surge. “Is Zebulon working late?”

  “He wasn’t scheduled to work longer than his twelve hours.” Isaiah frowned. “But we’re on different shifts. Mine starts now and continues until dawn.”

  “I’m lucky to work only ten-hour shifts,” Faith said. “Twelve would ruin me. Even so, I feel a tiredness that barely goes away by the end of First Day. My feet hurt constantly and my ears ring after a day monitoring four looms in a room so noisy from the hundred machines I can’t even talk to the girl next to me.”

  But she was the eldest, and strong. Frederick, a teacher at the Academy, couldn’t take on the burden of five children alone, no matter how much he wanted Faith to continue her education.

  “Did thee see my Annie this day?” Isaiah asked Faith.

  “Only on our break. It must be hard for y
ou to find time for each other, working opposite shifts.”

  He smiled ruefully. “Indeed. ’Tis only on First Day we can visit. And then only after she’s been to her church and I’ve been to mine.”

  “At least her family finally agreed to let her see thee,” Faith said. “She told me they weren’t so happy about thy courting her at first.”

  “I seem to have won them over. Even Catholics can learn to like a charming Quaker.” His smile was self-deprecating in a truly charming way.

  A man in a ragged cap pushed by us on his way out, bumping into Faith. Isaiah steadied Faith with a hand again.

  “Ephraim Pickard!” Isaiah called. “Has thee changed thy work to the day shift?”

  The man turned, glowering. “They’ve given me the boot. I was on warning. And now how will I feed the family, what barely gets enough as it is?” The collar of his woolen coat shone from years of wear, and a neatly sewn patch at the shoulder was beginning to fray.

  “Why did they release thee?” Isaiah asked.

  “That son of Mr. Parry’s said I was late once too often.” He shook his head hard. “And he didn’t like me reading on my lunch break. How’s a man supposed to get ahead?” He clomped away with an uneven gait, a tattered book in one hand.

  “More’s the pity.” Isaiah watched Ephraim go. “Thomas Parry isn’t much of a manager. No one cares for him, and he has the worst manner of dealing with the men I have ever seen in a supervisor. I’d best go in so I don’t risk being late myself.” He smiled. “I’m sure Zebulon will appear in a moment.”

  Faith and I bade Isaiah farewell as he strode toward the two-story wooden factory. We waited, inhaling the sharp smell of impending rain. Faith paced outside the tall fence. She squinted at the large clock on the building’s face.

  When the new electric streetlights twinkled to life down the hill, I said, “We need to return home.”

  “I must have missed Zeb.” Faith hung her head. “I suppose I tarried too long putting supper on the stove.”

  The damp wind chilled as we began to descend Carriage Hill. I whirled when I spied a moving shape in the gloaming. I peered back at the side of the carriage factory. A flowing figure crept by the fence, walking with a limp, I thought. The shape dissolved into the falling darkness. I shuddered and shook my head before I continued on my way.

  three

  I sat at home by the stove in the sitting room later that evening. Faith knitted while my brother-in-law Frederick read and Luke, the oldest boy at thirteen, did ciphers for school. I had been trying to catch up with my recordkeeping of whose baby was due next and who owed me a payment, but mostly I was helping Luke when he had an arithmetic question, since I had an aptitude for mathematics. The ten-year-old twins, Matthew and Mark, and eight-year-old Betsy slept upstairs.

  “Rose, what about this one?” Luke extended his notebook. “I can’t figure it.” He pointed to his penciled calculation.

  I took the book and peered at it under the gas lamp. The new system of electric lights in town hadn’t yet extended to this modest abode. A moody, difficult man, Frederick and his five children lived in a tidy home just uphill from the Hamilton Mill, where Faith had taken over her mother’s job after Harriet’s death a year earlier. The mill owner, Cyrus Hamilton, had ordered three identical houses built to house several workers and their families. Normally it would have been let out to a male employee. However, my brother-in-law had given special tutoring to Cyrus Hamilton’s difficult son and Cyrus apparently felt he owed Frederick some kind of debt. When the first occupants left town, Cyrus offered Frederick and Harriet the middle house of the three, now only eight years old.

  After Harriet’s death, Frederick had asked if I’d like to join their household and take possession of the parlor that fronted on the lane. Despite how I felt about his moods, which sometimes resulted in a shouting match between him and his eldest children or looks of scorn delivered to his younger ones, I’d agreed. I was grateful to now have both an office in which to see clients and a bed in a real home.

  My own parents lived in distant Lawrence, but I had come to Amesbury to apprentice with Orpha and to be close to my dear sister. Orpha had delivered all my sister’s children, and I’d met her at Betsy’s birth shortly after I finished my schooling in Lawrence. I was so drawn to Orpha’s profession, to her care and skill, to her understanding of both the human body and the mind, and to the miraculous process of childbirth, that I’d asked to study with her. To my great good fortune, she’d agreed. I moved to Amesbury the next week. I’d known of the New England Female Medical College, a training school for midwives, but Orpha’s teaching had been so detailed and complete that I never felt the need for further studies.

  For seven years I’d rented a room in Virginia Perkell’s, an Amesbury boarding house for ladies, and visited my pregnant women in their homes. Now I helped Faith with the considerable chore of fixing meals and doing housework when I wasn’t seeing clients or out ushering a baby into the world.

  When a shrill whistle went off outside and then bells began clanging in town, I set down Luke’s notebook.

  “It’s the fire bell. I can smell the smoke.” Frederick was already on his feet, his heavy eyebrows lurking close to his eyes. He pushed up the sash and sniffed.

  I could smell the fire, too. Luke darted upstairs. A moment later he was back.

  “It’s on Carriage Hill. The flames are shooting into the sky!”

  “I hope it’s not the Parry factory. Isaiah is at work.” Faith brought her hand to her mouth.

  The four of us rushed up the stairs, then tiptoed into the front bedroom Luke shared with the sleeping twins. We clustered around the windows and opened one to the cold air. Sure enough, flames teased ever higher into the black sky and the smell of smoke snapped at my nose. I couldn’t tell which of the dozen carriage factories was burning. Amesbury was famous nationwide for its graceful, and well-built carriages, and the town was home to more than a dozen establishments that produced them.

  The two young men who lived up the road rushed by below, buckets in hand.

  “I must join them,” Frederick said, turning for the stairs.

  “Father, I’m going, too.” Luke, not yet fully grown and still a string bean, pulled at Frederick’s sleeve.

  “Thee? Thee is too young, Luke.” Frederick tossed his son’s hand off. “Amesbury has a fire department and many dedicated volunteers. We will extinguish the fire.”

  The crushed look on Luke’s face made me want to weep. Harriet had buffered her husband’s moods for her children, but now they bore the brunt of his occasional flares into anger or contempt, which had worsened since my sister’s death.

  To the sound of Frederick clattering down the stairs and the never-ending whistle piercing the night, I linked one arm through Faith’s and stretched the other around Luke’s shoulders. Faith leaned into me as a windswept rain dampened our clothing. I closed my eyes, holding Isaiah Weed in the Light.

  four

  I added wood to the cook stove in the kitchen the next morning at first light, put water on for samp—the corn porridge little Betsy loved—and the washing, then ground coffee and measured it into the blue enameled pot. I hadn’t slept well, as the awful whistle had screeched until nearly dawn. Zeb had stopped over last night on his way to help fight the conflagration. He’d been determined, despite his own anguish about his brother, to reassure Faith that he himself wasn’t in the factory, and it had helped to set both Faith’s and my mind at ease about his safety.

  When Frederick opened the back door, I glanced up. He trudged in, carrying the smell of smoke and tragedy. I watched as he sank into a chair at the table and unlaced his shoes without speaking. When he tossed his hat on the table, the soot streaking his hands and face stopped at a sharp line above a thick forehead that jutted out above his eyebrows. He padded to the sink and pumped water, then scrubbed until his skin was clean
. He finally met my gaze.

  “Isaiah Weed is gone. Along with a dozen other men. Trapped inside the Parry factory.”

  I gasped and brought my hand to my mouth.

  “Let us pray they didn’t suffer too much.” Frederick let out a deep, mournful sigh. “All the major carriage factories burned, plus other places of business. The post office and telegraph office. Many homes. All gone.” He shook his head, gazing with light eyes out the window in the direction of Carriage Hill.

  “Poor Isaiah. And Zeb, and his parents. What a sad, sad day.” My throat thickened and my eyes threatened to overflow.

  Frederick nodded, taking a seat again. Faith appeared at the doorway, securing her hair with both hands raised behind her head. She stopped with wide eyes. “Oh, Father. I see terrible news in thy face.”

  “Sit down, my daughter.” He patted the chair next to him. After she sat, he went on in a low tone. “Isaiah is dead, I’m afraid.”

  She lay her head on her arms for a moment, then sat up with a tear-streaked face. “I must go to Zeb. And then to Annie.”

  “There will be time for that,” he said. “Sit here and have thy breakfast first, Faith.” He laid his thick hand atop hers.

  I was grateful he acted kindly toward her. I could not predict when his mercurial temperament would strike, but at least for now he was tender. I doled out a serving of samp for both of them and set the dishes on the table.

  “How can I eat cornmeal porridge, or anything, with so many in pain?” Her brown eyes—so much like her mother’s, so much like my own—pleaded with me.

  “Faith, dear.” I smiled gently at her. “If there is one thing I have learned in my practice, it’s that I can’t help others if I don’t take care with my own well-being. Thee must eat and drink if thee is to be strong for thy friends.” Despite my advice, I often violated it myself when my schedule grew too busy.