Laurie Alice Eakes - [Midwives 01] Read online

  From the moment Tabitha walked into the town hall, her back straight, her head high, her knees wobbling, to present herself before the council, she knew the men had been listening to Harlan Wilkins a great deal. Only Mayor Kendall, residing at the head of the long table, did not look upon her with censure. He rose, drew out a chair, and set a glass of water before her, though a manservant—not Dominick—hovered nearby to perform these tasks for the council.

  “We just need to ask you a few questions,” Kendall said in a gentle voice. “You do understand why we’ve called you here.”

  “Yes, sir.” She refrained from glaring at Wilkins.

  He sat at the opposite end of the table, his dark eyes narrowed, his jaw bunched. If he’d been closer, she feared she would have lost her temper and thrown her water in his face. He deserved worse, but that wasn’t her place.

  “Mr. Wilkins has accused me of being unqualified to practice my profession,” she continued. And dared not take her to court for fear of what she might testify about his actions. “He wishes to have me censured from practicing.”

  “What do you have to say for yourself regarding these charges, Miss Eckles?” Kendall asked.

  “You’ve said it all right there.” Wilkins surged to his feet. “She is Miss Eckles, not Mrs. Eckles. She shouldn’t be allowed to deliver babies when she hasn’t borne one herself.”

  “Many women who have never borne children are midwives.” Tabitha spoke those words calmly, out of practice. She’d been challenged on her status since taking over her mother’s work.

  “We should have sought for another apothecary to come when Teagues died,” another council member declared. “A female this young? It’s bound to cause trouble.”

  “Many women are not comfortable with a man attending—” A hubbub of voices interrupted Tabitha’s explanation. From the exclamations, most of these men didn’t care if their wives were uncomfortable or not.

  “It’s the safety of the mother and the child that matters,” Mr. Lester, the postmaster, said in his soft voice. “I understand that doctors can use implements that help the birthing process and have saved many lives.”

  Tabitha clenched her fists beneath the shelter of the table. The man was right. Doctors held the monopoly on the use of forceps. From what she’d read, many mothers and their babies had been saved by this instrument, as it was thinner than even slender hands like hers and could aid the baby’s entrance into the world.

  “In Norfolk,” Wilkins declared, “women are happy to use a physician’s care.”

  “Not all of them.” Tabitha caught and held his gaze and smiled.

  His face reddened. But he held all the cards in this game, if he persuaded the others to go along with his scheme of discrediting her. If Sally sued for support of her child and called Tabitha to testify, Wilkins’s lawyers could bring her testimony into disrepute by claiming she merely wanted revenge.

  Oh, you are a clever man.

  All she could do was attempt to discredit him now.

  “You’ve accused me of providing poor care to your wife on the night of her accident,” Tabitha said. “But you weren’t with her, so how would you know what sort of care I provided her?”

  Most of the men frowned at her. None gave Wilkins the glances or murmurs of disapproval she would have expected at the least.

  “What man wishes to be about when his wife is in travail?” Lester shuddered, and his spectacles slid down his nose.

  Now the murmurs came—murmurs of assent to Lester’s assertion.

  Tabitha glanced from one to another and was almost glad she wasn’t married. Almost. She knew these men, had known most of them all her life. She’d delivered a few of their children and had been present when her mother delivered still more. Most of them loved their wives, some even as devoted as bridegrooms. Their devotion led to a horror of hearing their wives suffering to bear the fruit of their union and affection. Most of them had stayed nearby, despite their terror of “women’s things.”

  But Wilkins had left his young, new, and expectant wife alone even before her travail . . .

  Which meant none of the men would blame him. He hadn’t known until his presence was no longer necessary.

  Tabitha compressed her lips to stop from biting them. She tried to catch the eye of each man present. Only Mayor Kendall, the one unmarried and childless man in the group, would return her gaze. “What qualifies you, Miss Eckles?” he asked.

  Tabitha took a long, deep breath to ensure the steadiness of her voice. “I apprenticed with my mother for six years before her death. The women of my family have always started working with their mothers at the age of sixteen, whether married or not. So when Momma died, I took on the practice. And when the apothecary died last year—”

  “You thought you could act like a surgeon at the least.” Wilkins sneered. “Uppity for a female.”

  “Mayor Kendall’s redemptioner owes a well-healed hand to my care,” Tabitha shot back. “If I hadn’t cleaned it and stitched it—”

  “Was that what you were doing with him on the beach yesterday?” Wilkins overrode her explanation, his upper lip curling. “Cleaning and stitching his hand, with your hair hanging down like a wanton?”

  The room erupted into exclamations of outrage.

  “Hair down in the middle of the afternoon?”

  “And the Sabbath.”

  “Wasn’t at church.”

  “And him a bondsman. Indecent.”

  Kendall called for silence. Once the men had complied, he turned to Tabitha, his eyes full of sympathy and concern. “Please wait for us in the entrance hall. We will call you in when we finish our discussion and vote.”

  “Yes, sir.” Head high, back straight, knees too tense to wobble, Tabitha exited the council room.

  In the hall, where meetings open to everyone and town-wide activities took place, she walked to the fireplace at one end of the room and gripped the mantel. Above her, a portrait of the town founder, Peter Bourne, hung in all his outmoded splendor of embroidered satin coat, lace jabot, powdered wig, and patch, beside a firm, unsmiling mouth. His dark eyes seemed to bore into hers, accusing her. How dare you taint my town with your female incompetence.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong.” She pounded her fist on the carved wooden edge of the mantel. “She didn’t die from childbirth.”

  As many times as she’d gone over that night in her head, she could find nothing wrong with her actions. Yet, if she were more experienced, had gone through her own lying-in, maybe she would have worked out something she was too young and naive to see.

  And if she weren’t so young and empty in her heart and her soul, she wouldn’t have succumbed to the charms of a certain Englishman and let him hold her hand.

  She glanced from the council room door to the front entrance. It stood open to the sunshine and crystal blue sky, washed clear of clouds after the previous day’s rain. A long walk along the beach would do her good. She may as well leave. From the moment Wilkins divulged knowledge of her behavior the day before, she knew she’d lost. They would discredit her. She wouldn’t be able to support herself or Patience and Japheth or assist Sally Belote in getting help for her baby.

  “So much for God taking care of us,” she muttered and started for the door.

  “Miss Eckles,” Mayor Kendall called from the council room entrance. “Tabitha, come back. We’ve reached our conclusion.”

  14

  ______

  “We’re going out in your boat?” Tabitha looked so dismayed, Raleigh wished he’d planned a day on the beach, fishing from one of the coves or digging for crabs.

  “I thought you’d like to be on the water.” He glanced from her white face to the open water. “It’s a perfect day. Not too sunny. Not too rough, though the wind is kicking up a bit.” He gave her what he hoped was a coaxing smile. “And you used to always like going out on the Marianne.”

  “That was before the men around here started to disappear.”

  �
�From land.” He set his jaw. “The last five have been from land.”

  “Well, yes, but Raleigh—” She gazed at him from eyes that revealed she’d enjoyed too little sleep lately. “It’s not safe for you. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to you, for you to be taken up again.”

  The tenderness of her voice warmed his heart. She cared about him. She still cared. When he’d called Monday night, a time calculated to coincide with the city council meeting’s aftermath, she had talked with him in the garden for half an hour, though she’d refused to discuss the council meeting more than to say no one was forcing her to stop her practice—yet. Before he left, she agreed to spend the following afternoon with him, as long as no one needed her care.

  He prayed the only care she would give would be to him—smiles to soothe his fears, words to heal his envy of that upstart bondsman, perhaps the touch of her hand to restore his soul to a state of a free conscience.

  “Not even the British are crude enough to take up a woman,” Raleigh said to reassure her. “Everyone who’s disappeared has done so at night.”

  “And you came too close the other morning.” Her look was direct, piercing despite the soft blue-gray of her eyes beneath the brim of her straw hat. “How did you do it this time?”

  Raleigh’s gut tightened. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why would they let you go last Monday, if they didn’t before?” She clasped her elbows and looked like nothing so much as a stern schoolmistress asking for an explanation of why his slate was empty instead of full of sums. “Your birth hasn’t changed.”

  “Different captain.” Raleigh shrugged and leaped onto the deck of the single-masted boat. “Some of them are decent fellows.” He held out both his hands to her. “Now come on board. We’re losing the ebb tide.”

  “All right.” Her movements slow, appearing as though she still doubted the wisdom of their actions, she leaned forward, clasped his hands, and made the jump between jetty and deck.

  Two years away from regular excursions on his boat hadn’t ended the grace with which she leaped aboard. Of course, she might have been on other boats, sailed with other suitors.

  He stifled the stab of jealousy. He had no right to feel envy for the men who had stayed at home and tried to win her.

  Except for that bondsman.

  Lips thinning at the thought of the Englishman, Raleigh sprang back to the jetty, released the painter, and bounded onto the deck before the gap between land and boat grew too wide.

  Tabitha laughed. “I always admired how you could do that without falling on your face. But I always expect you to go splash one of these days.”

  “I expect I will.” Her laughter eased his tension and gave him the courage to take her hand in his. “Thank you for coming, even if you are afraid of the British.”

  “I’m not afraid of the British.” She lowered her gaze to the deck. “I’m afraid for your sake. You just returned. And the other day—” A shudder ran through her.

  “Then there’s hope, Tabbie?” He tucked his hand under her chin and urged her to meet his gaze. “Does that little speech mean there’s hope for my suit?”

  “There’s always hope, Raleigh.” She smiled. “For the time being, I’m a midwife and, due to lack of anyone else, a healer. One thing we learn with patients is that if they are still breathing, they have a chance of pulling through.”

  “Then your feelings for me are still breathing?” He stroked her jaw with his thumb, loving the softness of her skin. “And maybe there’s a pulse somewhere?” He touched the pulse beneath her ear and heaved a silent sigh that it didn’t feel the least bit accelerated.

  Not compared to his.

  “Yes.” She smiled. “But there won’t be if we don’t get that sail up.”

  “Right.” Laughing, he dodged across the deck and pulled the halyard to unfurl the single sail. “Get the tiller, will you?”

  For the next quarter hour, he could pretend they were on that last sail together, working in harmony, as he raised and secured the sail and she manned the wheel, keeping the little craft headed away from land on the gentle swells of the outgoing tide. He didn’t need to shout directions to her. She knew. She’d grown up on these shores too, sailed with him from the time they were old enough to go out on their own, and with others before then. Her light skirts fluttering around her legs and her hat ribbons hovering around her face, she bent and swayed with the roll of the deck to keep her balance. Sunlight stole beneath the hat brim and lit her features, washing away her pallor and dark circles of fatigue. And she was smiling.

  “This is all worth it, God,” he spoke to the opalescent sky. “Being here with her is worth every risk I’ve ever taken.”

  Lines belayed to the rail, Raleigh joined Tabitha at the wheel. “Have you been sailing since we went last?”

  “No.” She shook her head.

  “You haven’t lost your touch with the wheel.” He stood behind her and set his hands on the spokes next to hers, encasing her in his arms. “But I’d better take over from here. You don’t know where the sandbanks and rocks are now.”

  “No.” He felt her go rigid from his nearness, and she snatched her hands away from contact with his. “If you’ll just move one arm for a moment . . .” She pushed at him harder than necessary to break his hold on the wheel, as though his forearm was a barricade or a prison bar.

  He released the spoke long enough for her to step away from him, leaving him cold where she’d stood. “We used to steer like that.”

  “That,” she said with the hint of a chill, “was when we were going to get married.”

  Raleigh’s insides felt as though the boat had twisted into the deep trough of a wave. “I’m sorry. When you came with me today, I’d hoped . . .”

  “I came with you today because I want to rebuild our friendship, Raleigh.” She gave him one of her direct, clear gazes. “I want to forgive you, and if we can be friends again, then maybe I can.”

  “Not forgiving harms you,” Raleigh told her. “Sunday’s sermon was on forgiving those who hurt us again and again and how not doing so harms our relationship with God.”

  “I don’t have a relationship with God that can be hurt.”

  “Tabbie.” He reached one hand out to her. “I could never forgive myself if I’m the cause of your damaged faith.”

  “Don’t concern yourself about it.” She smiled, though her eyes were sad. “I must not have had a good relationship with God in the first place, if it could be shattered so easily.”

  “Easily? You suffered a great deal.” Raleigh returned his hand to the wheel and began to make a sweeping turn to take them up the coast. “I disappeared and your mother died. You’d already lost your father.”

  “Well, Grandmomma lost her husband when she had a small child to raise and then later lost that child.”

  “He brought me home.” Raleigh turned so he could look at her. “I prayed every night to come home, and He finally answered my prayer.”

  Even as he spoke, Raleigh’s conscience pricked him. If he’d trusted in the Lord to get him home, he wouldn’t be in such a pickle. Yet he would tell Tabitha anything to bring her back into fellowship with the Lord.

  “And I’m glad you’re here.” This time, her smile reached her eyes. “Let’s sail out a bit further and drop anchor. I want to indulge in some real fishing for once.”

  For that smile, Raleigh would have sailed to Halifax. He tacked northeast, making a diagonal course from the land. Off the larboard quarter, the roof of Tabitha’s house and her prized apple tree showed above the dunes. Along the beach, several children dug for clams in the hard-packed sand below the tide line. One or two adults watched over them, and a lone figure strode across the dunes—a man, judging from the clothes, with long hair blowing in the breeze.

  Raleigh jerked the wheel. The fishing smack yawed, hit a wave with the starboard bow, and rolled over far enough to touch the larboard gunwale. The sail flapped, lost the wind, then caught it again wi
th enough force they rolled in the opposite direction.

  Tabitha staggered. Raleigh shot out his arm and caught her around the waist, drawing her to safety, drawing her close to his side.

  “Hold on to me while I straighten us out.”

  When he felt her grasp his waist with her arm, he released his hold on her and returned his attention to the wheel and wind and waves. The smack dipped and twisted like a confused dancer, then caught the next wave beneath her prow and rose with the grace of one of the seagulls whirling and calling near the shore.

  Tabitha released him as soon as the boat’s pitch grew even enough for her to stand on her own. Far too soon for Raleigh. She didn’t even look at him—she was looking at the shore. Too easily, Raleigh guessed what on shore held her attention, and he nearly sent the bow rolling beneath a wave again. With an effort, he said nothing. He wanted to, but feared mentioning his suspicions about the man would do him no good at the moment and probably would harm the day. Just mentioning his name would bring him aboard the boat. Later, when they were on shore, he would warn her to stay away from the bondsman.

  Raleigh tacked again, heading further out to sea. The land fell away, its inhabitants too small for identification. And Tabitha seemed to lose interest. She made her way forward, to where poles and lines lay tethered to the deck.

  “Did you bring bait?” she asked.

  “Some rock crabs.” Raleigh glanced at the horizon, the angle of the sun, and the now distant shore little more than a horizon itself. “I’ll get the sail down, then you can help me with the anchor.”

  Raleigh leaped forward and furled the sail. Then, together, they spun the windlass and got the anchor dropped over the side and down to the sandy bottom of the clear blue water. The Marianne jerked like a large fish at the end of a line, then settled to rise and fall on the swells of the sea. Around them, sunlight sparkled off the waves like golden-backed fish. The rising wind tugged at Tabitha’s hat ribbons and flirted with her frilly hem.