The Fire's Center (29 page)

"I’ll do my best. And my mother’s employer works for one of the big linen factories in the city. I’ll ask her to see if there is any cloth they might be willing to donate to the clinic."

"That’s an excellent idea, Angela, thank you."

Angela scurried off to do her chores, and soon Breda came back with two of her eldest daughters. "If you're willing to pay them a few pennies, they can help with the washing and scrubbing today."

Riona looked around at the mountain of washing which had accumulated in the baskets in the last couple of days, and the ward full of dirty sheets, and nodded.

"Aye, we can use them all right. I’ll need every tub in this place filled with hot water, do you hear me? If you can bring you laundry tubs from home too, girls, it would be a great help."

The two pale redheaded girls, with skin so fair it was almost transparent, nodded. They reappeared a short time later, and began scrubbed the sheets and towels with a vengeance.

Riona poured disinfectant into all the wash tubs as well, and was relieved to see it was going to be another hot sunny day, a perfect day for drying.

So far Riona had tried to stay out of the way of the two doctors attending the pregnant woman, but since Angela had her hands full and Ursula the day nurse had not yet arrived, nor any other doctor, they soon asked for her help.

Riona strode into the room, trying not to show her discomfort at being there. The woman’s screams continued unabated, though they were weaker than when she had first arrived.

"She has been pushing and pushing, but I don’t see any sign of movement at all. I also don’t think I feel the head," Dr. Kennedy said quietly.

"It might be a breach birth then?" Riona asked.

Dr. Kennedy looked surprised, but asked, "You’ve had experience of this, coming from such a large family, haven’t you?"

"My sister in law, in fact. She had a difficult birth, and then caught childbed fever and died," Riona admitted with a shudder.

Riona recalled he hadn’t been able to save Emer then, and she had very little confidence she would be able to help this poor woman now.

"Who is she?"

"She says her name is Mary Smith, but sure, all the prostitutes say that," Dr. O’Carroll sneered.

"Mary, can you hear me? Mary, I’m just going to go get some warm oil to rub on you, to try to ease this a bit, and then I'm going to examine you, all right?" she said loudly to the woman who writhed on the bed.

"Anything, please, only hurry!" the woman panted in the bed helplessly.

Riona got some eucalyptus oil from the pharmacy. After heating it briefly in a small pot on the now blazing stove, she massaged the woman’s distended abdomen for several moments.

"From the size of her, I would say the problem might actually be twins," Riona assessed as she worked with large, even strokes. "If they're both turned around the wrong way, we will have problems. I have no way of knowing if they might be wrapped around each other, or even have the cord wrapped around them," she admitted in an undertone to Dr. Kennedy, who seemed slightly more sympathetic to the woman’s plight.

"Do the best you can, Riona," Dr. Kennedy said resignedly. "We’ve tried everything."

Riona noticed Dr. O’Carroll assiduously ignoring her, but she didn’t care. A woman was suffering, and would surely die if she didn’t help. What difference did it make what the arrogant gentleman thought?

Riona washed her hands in the basin carefully until the were free of eucalyptus oil, but she then put some salve on her hands and examined the woman internally, probing as far as she could with her petite hand.

"I need you to bear down for me, Mary," she requested. Sure enough, she could feel a foot.

"It is a breach," she confirmed instantly. "We are going to need some strips of cloth, and we should give her some opium to relax her a bit. We don’t want to tear her, but I think we are going to have to make a cut here and here to try to widen the passage," she advised, wiping her hand on a towel before pointing.

"Are you mad! Cut her?" Dr. O’Carroll exclaimed with a snort.

Riona grew impatient at his mocking tone. "We can sew up an incision again afterwards easily enough, but if she tears we might not be able to manage," Riona argued rationally. "I’ve heard of it being done, so please trust me."

"But it's surgery, and we aren’t really experienced..." Dr. Kennedy hesitated.

"Do you think this woman is going to care as long as you save her life?" Riona argued angrily.

"And if she's dead because I've made a mistake, no one is going to come complaining to you, now are they!" Riona added sarcastically to Dr. O’Carroll, who glowered at her across the room.

Dr. Kennedy looked from one to the other as they stood there at loggerheads, and in the end declared, "All right, I agree with you, Riona. We’ve tried everything else. We have nothing to lose by doing things your way at this point."

Dr. O’Carroll scowled darkly, but asked, "What did you say you would need, Miss Connolly?"

"Opium, some cloth strips, and some muscle power. I’m going to loop the cloth around the baby’s feet, and while I'm massaging her stomach, you will apply gentle but steady pressure to try to tug the baby out, is that clear?"

"What do you want me to do?" Dr. Kennedy asked.

"Stand by ready to catch the baby, or to try to revive it if it isn’t breathing. You can have a turn tugging if you like as well. Are we all ready?"

"Right, here’s some opium out of my bag," Dr. O’Carroll said, shaking the bottle with a small amount of white powder in it. "There isn’t much, but it's the best we can do since the medicine cabinet got broken into."

Riona shot him an assessing look, then nodded.

After Mary drank down the bitter draught he prepared for her under Riona’s close scrutiny, they began to resume their efforts.

"Bear down, Mary, now, bear down!" Riona urged. She managed to loop the cloth around the infant’s foot. "Again!" she ordered repeatedly, until at last, after several tries, she secured the second foot.

"Right steady pressure, Dr. O’Carroll, but don’t yank. Now, Mary, I need you to push, and I’m going to help."

Riona got onto the bed, and despite the shocked looks from both O’Carroll and Kennedy, she hoisted her skirts up and straddled the woman, pinning down her top half so she couldn’t wriggle away, and massaging her stomach with downward strokes to encourage the baby along.

"Here we go! Push, Mary, push! Now you tug, Dr. O’Carroll, go on, push, tug," Riona urged.

"I think I feel something," she said to Dr. Kennedy with a grin.

So absorbed were they with their efforts to help the woman that they never even noticed the witness standing outside looking in through the glass windows.

Lucien stood there, stunned and angry that Riona should be assisting at a birth, but also wondering why Dr. Kennedy and Dr. O’Carroll were on duty when he was certain that Dr. O’Shea and Dr. Briggs were meant to be there, and why the entire place looked like a Turkish bath.

His first instinct was to remove Riona from the birthing room, but just as he put his hand on the door knob, Dr. Kennedy yelled excitedly from his vantage point, "It’s coming. You were right, Riona, it’s coming."

"Push, Mary, come on, push!"

At last, Dr. Kennedy caught the tiny infant in his arms and began to clear its mouth and nose.

"It’s a lovely boy!" he exclaimed, until he noticed it was too quiet.

The child didn’t seem to be breathing, and even after a few resound whacks on its bottom from Dr. Kennedy, there was no response.

Riona jumped down off the bed then and told Dr. Kennedy to hold it upside down whilst she rubbed its back, but still there was nothing.

"After all that, it’s dead anyway!" Dr. O’Carroll grumbled bitterly.

"Don’t say that! Don’t you dare say that!" Riona rounded on him, trembling with anger.

She took the infant from Dr. Kennedy, and laying it down on the side table, she pinched its tiny nostrils closed, and blew air into the infant’s mouth

"Riona, really!" Dr. Kennedy protested, shocked. "Let it go. You’re doing no one any good..."

Just then the infant gave a tiny gurgle, and Riona turned its head to one side as fluid dripped out of it. She tapped it lightly on the bottom, and the boy gave a watery cry at last.

"You were saying, Dr. Kennedy?" Riona stated flatly, before she handed the child to him and turned back to where Mary lay.

She felt the abdomen and confirmed, "It is as I said, twins."

She wiped her hands off and then probed again. "This one is well on its way, gentlemen, and it’s the right way around."

Within moments another tiny boy popped out, and the exhausted Mary began to cry with relief that at last it was all over.

"Not all over, Mary love, it’s only just started," Riona said with a smile. "You’ll have you hands full with this lusty pair, you mark my words."

With Dr. Kennedy’s help, she bathed the babies, put them in clean napkins, and then tidied up the room and the mother, giving her clean sheets and a fresh gown, and bundling all the dirty items into the nearest wash tub with Breda’s help.

All the while Lucien stood outside tending to lesser medical issues, and stunned by what he had seen. He had known Riona was a skilful healer, but she seemed to have some sort of gift that he himself had always felt that he lacked.

Just as he was about to go in and speak to Riona about what she had been doing, a distraught looking man came running in and begged, "My wife Mary, where is she?"

Lucien wordlessly pointed inside, and the husband, overjoyed, ran in to see his wife, pale and wan, clutching not one but two babies.

"I just got word at the factory, my love," he apologised as he ran up to the bedside and kissed her tenderly on the forehead. "When the neighbours said that you’d been taken to the clinic, I thought I’d lost you for sure. "

"I’m fine, really." Mary smiled. "And look, two babies instead of just the one. I don’t know how we’ll manage."

"We’ll manage, even if I have to work around the clock, my darling. A first child is always special, but these two, they’re like a miracle!"

He turned to Dr. Kennedy, who was mixing the last of the opium so that Mary could get some rest.

"Thank you, doctor, thank you so much for everything," he said, offering his hand.

Dr. Kennedy cleared his throat and said sheepishly, "Don’t thank me, thank Riona here. She saved your wife."