Dorothy Garlock (5 page)

O
wen
took the lamp from the kitchen table and motioned for Ana to follow. She hurried after him, noting that he limped even more than he had in Lansing. They passed down a narrow hallway to a door at the end. Owen flung it open and handed Ana the lamp.

“She’s up there.” He turned on his heel, and left her.

Ana went up the steep stairway holding her skirt up with one hand and the lamp in the other. The upper hall was as narrow as the lower one. A light shone from beneath a door at the far end. Ana’s heels on the wooden floor echoed as she hurried down the hall and pushed open the door.

The room was dimly lit, but what Ana saw caused her eyes to go wide with surprise and horror. Harriet lay writhing on the bed. Her hands were tied to the iron bedstead above her head. A rag was tied over her mouth. The girl’s eyes rolled with crazed terror. A woman in a black, high-necked, long-sleeved dress stood beside the bed, her arms folded across her flat bosom. She jerked around to face Ana.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” The woman’s hair was parted in the middle and slicked back into a knot at the back of her head. Her face was sharp and bony, and her ears large.

“I’m Harriet’s mother,” Ana said in a no-nonsense voice, setting the lamp on the washstand and hurrying to Harriet’s bedside. “Oh, honey—” Her nervous fingers began to work at the knot tied in the rag holding the gag in place.

“Stop that!” The woman’s heavy hand came down on Ana’s shoulder. “If she can’t keep quiet, the gag stays.”

Ana reared up in surprise. Her arm went flying out across the woman’s chest, shoving her back.

“Get your hands off me! I’ve never heard of such inhumane treatment in all my life. If you don’t want to hear her screams, get out!”

“It’s disgraceful the way she’s been carrying on.”

“You’d carry on, too, if your body was being torn apart. Now stay out of my way.” Ana had never been so close to hitting anyone in her life.

The instant Ana pulled the rag from Harriet’s mouth a powerful contraction shook her. She let out an agonizing scream as pain took over her body and mind.

“See what I mean? It ain’t decent.”

“M-ma . . . ma! M-ma . . . ma!” Harriet rolled her head on the pillow while Ana worked to loosen the bonds that held her arms above her head.

“I’m here, honey. I’m here,” Ana crooned.

“M-ma . . . ma! M-ma . . . ma!” Harriet’s eyes, glazed with pain, looked right through Ana without seeing her. Her face was white and slick with perspiration.

“My word!” Ana gasped when she threw back the covers to lift Harriet’s legs and bend them at the knees. The girl lay on an oilcloth in a puddle of blood, water and excrement. A stench arose that almost choked Ana. She looked into the dark, glittering eyes of the woman who stood like a black vulture at the foot of the bed, her arms still folded across her flat chest.

“How dare you let her lie in this . . . filth!”

“What do you mean . . . filth? The oilcloth protects the bed from the mess of birthing.”

“I don’t give a holy damn about the bed!” Ana shouted in a voice she had never used in her life.

The woman drew in a quick, gasping breath. “Swearing! I’ll not have swearing in my house.”

“You’ll get more than swearing, you mean old witch, if you don’t get clean bedding for my daughter.”

“Well, I never! You’re wicked! Just like her.” She jerked her head toward the suffering girl.

“You’re a stupid, ignorant woman!”

“It’s God’s will that all women suffer during childbirth. It’s his punishment for Eve tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden,” she said with her mouth puckered like a prune.

“Leave God out of this! You’re the one who’s wicked,” Ana shouted, almost beside herself with anger. “You’d let a child be born in this filth?”

“Women have been having babies since the beginning of time. My mother had a child out in the potato patch all by herself and carried it to the house.”

“You ignorant clod! You crazy, cruel-hearted woman! I’ll not argue with you now.” Ana ripped off the sheet covering Harriet and threw it on the floor. “Get me some clean bedding for my daughter, or . . . I swear I’ll . . . pull every hair out of your ugly head!”

“My brother will throw you out of this house! You’re nothing but an intruder.”

“Damn you, and damn your stupid clod of a brother to hell! Harriet needs clean bedclothes, and I’ll tear this place apart if she doesn’t get them.”

The woman stood with her head up and her arms crossed, a defiant gleam in her dark eyes. Ana marched to the door and threw it open.

“Owen!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Owen Jamison, get up here.”

“No!” the woman screeched and exploded into action. “He’ll not come in here!” She tried to close the door, but Ana shoved her aside.

“Owen!” The yell was accompanied by Harriet’s sudden scream. Ana ran to the bed and grabbed her daughter’s hands. Minutes passed while the tortuous pain rolled over Harriet.

The woman closed the door and stood against it.

There was a pounding on the door, then Owen pushed it open and came into the room. Ana almost didn’t recognize him without his hat. His hair was soft and wavy. He had an aura of hard vitality about him she hadn’t noticed before. His size overpowered everything else in the room. For a minute she could only stare at him helplessly. He turned to his sister who had grabbed his arm possessively.

“Esther?”

“Get out, Owen. It’s not fitting for you to be here.” She tried to push him back out the door.

“Stay!” Ana commanded. “Why shouldn’t he be here? He’s the one responsible for her condition!” Ana was holding tightly to Harriet’s hands as pain rolled over her again. “My daughter needs a doctor.”

“The nearest one is in Lansing. He couldn’t get here until tomorrow night. Esther and some of the women attend the birthings here in White Oak.”

“Then I’m surprised if any of the women live! Look at this bed,” Ana demanded. “This stupid woman had her hands tied above her head and a gag in her mouth. If you’re any man at all, Owen Jamison, you’ll get clean bedding for your wife. Do you want your child to be born in this filth?”

“What’s going on here, Esther?”

Ana heard the puzzled tone in Owen’s voice. She looked up to see the look of dismay on his face as his eyes fastened on Harriet and the condition of the bed.

“Don’t let her interfere. It’s God’s will that women suffer during childbirth.”

“What is the matter with that crazy woman?” Ana demanded of Owen. “Your wife and your baby will die of fever if she delivers in this mess. I need clean pads to put under her. There isn’t even warm water here to wash her, or the baby either, for that matter. What did she plan to wrap the baby in?” Ana demanded, her voice quivering with rage. “Or did she plan to let it lie here and die?”

“Get what she needs, Esther.”

“Owen! No! The stain will be forever on our mother’s bedsheets!” Esther’s voice was a horrified screech, her thin mouth worked even after she had finished speaking.

“Who in hell cares about the stains on the sheets?” Ana’s voice was even louder than Esther’s. “This woman is crazy. Can’t you see that?”

Ana stood, drew off her suit jacket, rolled the sleeves of her blouse up above her elbows, and unfastened two buttons at the neck of her blouse. She looked pleadingly at the big man with the puzzled look on his face.

“Well, I never!” Esther gasped. “Flaunting yourself in front of my brother in the very room where his wife is giving birth! That shows what kind of a loose, ungodly woman you are. A woman who swears is a disciple of Satan. It says so right in the Bible.”

The last of her words were drowned out by Harriet’s bellow. When the pain rolled away, the girl opened her eyes and stared at Ana.

“M-mama? Is it you? Am I . . . dreamin’?”

“No, darling. You’re not dreaming.”

“Don’t go!”

“I’m staying right here with you. You’ll have your baby soon now.”

“Mama, I’m so . . . sorry—”

“Shhh . . . It’s all right—” Ana placed her hand on the girl’s swollen abdomen. “How long has she been in labor?” she demanded of Esther.

“How do I know? Ask her.”

“M-mama . . . don’t go. Don’t let Esther run you off,” Harriet said frantically, holding tightly to Ana’s hands. Tears rolled from the corners of her fearful eyes. She rocked on the bed and moaned like a wounded animal.

“Don’t worry, honey. That old black crow doesn’t scare me at all.”

Ana’s words seemed to comfort Harriet as she closed her eyes against the pain. Ana lifted her head and glared at Owen, surprised to see the look of concern on his face. Their eyes met. Ana made no attempt to hide her contempt for a man who would abandon his wife and allow her to be treated in such a manner by a woman who was obviously demented.

“Mr. Jamison,” she said bitingly, “do you put clean straw in the stalls when your animals give birth? How many of those born in the manure live?”

His eyes searched Ana’s face. He was having difficulty thinking of her as Harriet’s stepmother, and he was shocked by Esther’s treatment of the girl. He knew his sister didn’t like Harriet, thinking she had enticed him to marry her on the day he met her in Lansing. She had told him again and again the girl was lazy, shiftless and ungodly. He knew that Esther would resent any woman coming into this house, but to treat her like this—

“Get the sheets, Esther. Plenty of them,” he said briskly. “I’ll fire up the stove and put on the water.”

“I’ll not stay and see our mother’s things desecrated,” Esther said heatedly, her dark eyes flashing hatred at Ana. The two spots of red on her cheekbones were the only color in her face.

“The child is a Jamison, Esther,” Owen said on his way to the door.

“If you insist that I do this, I’ll leave, never to return,” she threatened.

“Do what you have to do,” he answered with a bite in his voice, “but get the sheets or whatever else she needs. The damn sheets will wash!”

“See what you’ve done,” Esther said as Owen’s footsteps faded down the hallway. “See what you and that
slut
have done!”

Ana didn’t know what she meant and didn’t care. She ignored her, and the woman went out, slamming the door behind her. Ana eased the filthy nightdress up and over Harriet’s head. Her arms were painfully thin, but her feet and legs were so swollen it looked as if the skin would break. What was the most frightening for Ana was that Harriet’s stomach was oddly shaped. The bulge was low, but high and lumpy on one side. Ana had been present at more than a dozen births and had never seen anything like it. She wished with all her heart for the doctor in Dubuque who had taught her all she knew about childbirth.

She covered Harriet and jerked open the drawers of a bureau looking for a clean nightdress. What she found were the few things Harriet had brought with her and two crudely made baby dresses and two neatly hemmed blankets. Ana wanted to cry, but there was not time.

Owen came into the room, his arms filled with sheets and pieces of pieced quilts.

“I’m looking for a clean nightdress.” Ana opened and closed the drawers in the chest. “Do you know where I can find one?”

“As far as I know, her things are there.”

“There’s nothing here.” Ana closed the drawer and took a deep trembling breath. “Well, never mind that now. Will the woman downstairs help me?”

“Hettie went home with Esther.”

“Esther doesn’t live here?”

He shook his head.

“Thank heavens for that!” she said, boldly looking him right in the eyes. “You’ll have to help me. I can’t do it alone.” Ana made no attempt to disguise the contempt in her voice or in her eyes before she turned her gaze on her stepdaughter.

The pain seemed to have left Harriet for the moment. She was breathing deeply through her mouth and appeared to be asleep. Quickly Ana whipped off the sheet covering her and sopped up the water and blood on the oilcloth. She tried not to think of the man standing at the end of the bed or her daughter’s naked body lying on it. She gently eased the girl’s heavy body over onto her side and rolled up the soiled bedding. After spreading a clean sheet on half of the bed, she rolled the girl over the soiled bedclothes and onto the clean one. Then, she hurried to the opposite side of the bed, pulled away the soggy mess and smoothed out the clean sheet. Ana quickly folded two pieces of tattered but clean quilts into pads, slipped them under the girl’s hips and covered her. She glanced at Owen. He stood with his face averted, the muscle working in his tight jaw.

When Ana finished, she straightened and looked at the big, silent man when he turned to her. Her amber eyes were rock-hard and as cold as a stormy sea.

“Have you ever seen a woman give birth, Mr. Jamison?” Ana asked, tight-lipped.

“No. But I’ve tended my animals.”

“Evidently you take better care of them than you do your wife.”

The cobalt eyes watching her revealed nothing. She might as well have been talking about the weather. When he spoke, it was to ask, “What else do you need?”

“Right now I need soap and warm water to wash Harriet. Later I’ll need linen string to tie the cord and a sharp, clean knife to cut it.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Wait. Stay with her while I get her a clean nightdress out of my trunk.”

“It’s in the room across the hall.”

Ana picked up the lamp and went out. The room she entered was as sparse as the rest of the house, furnished with a bed, a four-drawer chest, and a washstand, but they were beautifully made and looked as though they had never been used. Her trunk sat at the end of the bed. She opened it and took out a nightdress. Then she delved deeper for two baby gowns, two flannel blankets and the diapers she had brought as gifts for her step-grandchild.

“I need the water now,” she said briskly to Owen when she returned to the room. She walked past him without looking at him, placed the baby clothes on the bureau and moved both lamps closer to the bed. After he left the room, she slipped the gown over Harriet’s head, pulled her arms through the sleeves and tugged it down to her waist.

Ana’s brows puckered in a frown. The pains had stopped and Harriet, worn out, was sleeping fitfully. Ana pulled the chamber pot from beneath the bed. It had been used and stank. Repelled as she was, she was forced to use it. When she finished, she replaced the lid and carefully pushed the chamber pot back out of sight.