two

I pulled aside the parlor curtain in the Bailey house where I made my home as the clock chimed twelve times, followed closely by the blast of the noon whistle several blocks away in the town center. In front of the house, the finest carriage I had ever seen pulled up. The polished wood on its shafts shone in the midday sunlight and the large spoked wheels were as graceful as dancers.

Lillian Parry stepped out, assisted by a driver in a dark uniform. Lillian’s long cloak didn’t fully disguise her seven months of pregnancy. This would be her last visit to my office in the parlor. From now on I’d be visiting her in the couple’s large home on Hillside Street. She lifted her skirts to climb the stairs. Hurrying to the door, I welcomed her in and extended my hand, helping her up the last two steps. She wiped the snow off her boots on the mat and we moved into the parlor, where I shut the door to the hall and pulled the curtain over the glass upper portion of the door.

“William was complaining again.” She stood with both hands resting on her lower back, elbows out, as pregnant women do. “He still thinks I should be seen by Dr. Douglass instead of you.”

“John Douglass delivers a good many babies in town. He has a fine reputation.”

“I told him I want a woman and that’s that. I don’t want some man touching my …” She shuddered as she trailed off.

“I understand.” Many women were more at ease exposing their private parts to another woman than to a man. “I’m pleased to attend thee, Lillian. Now please make thyself comfortable on the chaise.” It had taken some time for this upper-class woman to get used to my not addressing her as Mrs. Parry. But because of my reputation as the best midwife in the town, she acceded to my Quaker ways.

She sank down onto the day bed, pulling her gloves off and then removing her stylish hat. Her equally stylish frizzled bangs set off an upswept hairdo ending in ringlets. Her dress, in a lovely lavender-sprigged lawn, featured tiny pleats now stretched tight across her full bosom with the waist pulled high above her belly.

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 you 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.