Chapter 31
Nora’s gaze crept up the ornate columns flanking the foyer of the lecture hall. She flinched. The size of this place… “Might as well be Parliament,” she muttered.
“Not so very large,” Horace grumbled. “But I didn’t know we were coming to an aviary. Look at the plumage.”
Nora laughed, then ducked her head to stifle the sound.
No color in the palette had been neglected—dresses, hats, feathers, jewels, clashing in a garish riot of fashion.
But what else did she expect from the wealthy attendees of Marylebone Literary and Scientific Institute lectures, who flocked to Grotrian Hall as much to be apprised of the newest styles as the latest news in art and science.
Unfortunately, her midwives, after careful, persistent coaxing to attend, now appeared poised to bolt.
Every attendee had been forced to consult a corpulent physician as they arrived, who checked each wrist for rapid pulse or clammy skin, vigilant in keeping the cholera far from their respected circle.
He’d taken one look at Nora’s modestly dressed guests and insisted on feeling for fevers, and humiliated the women by looking at their tongues before reluctantly letting them through.
“Good heavens,” Ruth whispered over her shoulder. Mrs. Howell and Mrs. Bailey looked too pale and intimidated to say a thing. “What have you gotten us into?”
Squelching her own misgivings, Nora touched Ruth’s arm—less a kind gesture, perhaps, than her attempt to keep the others from fleeing the room. “Don’t let that man intimidate you.”
“I’ll show these ladies to their seats,” Mrs. Phipps offered, nodding at the reserved chairs in the front row. Nora glanced to her other side, but Horace had disappeared, wandering off to talk to someone. Unlike her, he relished large crowds. More ears to hear his tales.
Nora scanned the assemblage for Daniel, who was escorting his aunt tonight as a conciliatory offering.
She located Aunt Wilcox in the fourth row, appraising the spectacle she’d created.
No sign of Daniel, though. Worried, Nora cast her eyes again over the crowd and found him, weaving his way toward her.
“Is everything all right?” she asked, darting a look at Aunt Wilcox.
“She’s in a pet,” Daniel said. “I think she expected a smaller crowd.”
She thinks I’ll humiliate her. Nora blew out air slowly.
She’d followed Aunt’s rules of dressing to the letter—with Julia’s help.
She’d borrowed a burgundy silk gown and an ornament she could not bring herself to call a hat.
It was a scrap of netting, a velvet ribbon, and a flower.
She’d thought it too fine for the evening until now, looking over the crowd.
“I wish I’d worn nicer jewelry,” she whispered.
“That’s not going to help.” He stepped close and tapped her temple. “This will.”
Heat stung her eyes. Daniel’s intellect garnered respect, but Nora had never received the same, not from all her study, practice, and skill. “I wish Horace hadn’t abandoned me to discuss his newest fossil or whatever he’s on about.”
Daniel raised his eyebrows. “You’re fine on your own. Didn’t need him in Italy, did you?”
No, but now she wished she could look out and spot Magdalena. She turned her glance to Mrs. Phipps and the midwives. Women on my side.
Her lips quirked. It wasn’t at all the same. None of them had Magdalena’s audacity or confidence. Therefore, the confidence—and maybe the audacity, too—must come from her.
“I’ll see you afterward,” Daniel said, and left after squeezing her hand.
Her stiff, trailing skirts whispered against the floorboards as she half stumbled to the table in the middle of the room, feeling like a girl playing dress-up.
But this wasn’t a game of pretend. Three quiet midwives, waiting with impassive faces in the first row, and hundreds more across England depended on her to plead their case.
Row upon row of crowded seats surrounded her. It would have felt even more claustrophobic if not for the dark skylights overhead.
The president of the Marylebone society stood and called the meeting to order, giving a complimentary, but anemic, introduction.
He hesitated over his notes, especially at the part describing where and in what Nora had earned her university degree.
She walked to the lectern like she was making her way across a tightrope.
“Thank you for having me.” The words came out weak and scratchy.
“Louder,” someone yelled from the back.
Nora’s face blazed and she lost her voice altogether.
She gave a conciliatory smile to hide the nerves and inhaled as deeply as she dared.
“I’m honored to be here,” she nearly shouted.
She’d give anything at the moment for one of those effortless, booming voices.
Hers sounded reedy and thin. Horace made it look so easy.
Had he been yelling his lectures all these years?
She continued her introduction. It wasn’t hard to talk about Italy.
Though she saw numerous skeptical frowns, the numbers spoke for themselves.
Magdalena and her physician mother had collected ample evidence to prove the advantages of providing rigorous, lifesaving training to the nuns who served as midwives.
“Most of you came here because you have an interest in improving society or to learn of the latest advances in culture and science. The education of midwives addresses both. While families with means choose to consult doctors and accoucheurs, most expectant mothers rely on their local midwife. And while they have their own expertise, there is much to learn from modern medicine. Rigorous training of competent midwives will save the lives of women and children, and provide worthy employment to women practitioners.”
In the front row, a heavy-jowled man thumbed the head of his cane in lethargic boredom, his dismissive attitude so profound that Nora lost her place. The rustle of starched skirts and whispered asides hummed like thunder in her head, making the next sentence even harder to force out.
“There are also skills familiar to practicing midwives that doctors could do well to learn. The records of midwives’ lying-in houses speak for themselves, with rates of puerperal fever many times lower than those in hospitals.
When we consider it logically, it makes no sense to house expectant mothers, new mothers, and infants with those who are ill.
They aren’t sick. But they do require expert care, and that care should be provided in a way that doesn’t expose them to the risk of infection. ”
Across the room, Daniel gave a minute nod, his dark eyes shining in the dim light. Her shoulders loosened slowly as her voice deepened to a richer tenor.
This was what she’d come to say. “Decisions about who can and should be caring for babies and mothers must be focused on what is best for them, and that is doctors and trained midwives working together.” Nora scanned the faces before her. Unsmiling, but attentive.
“Many of you contribute to charities that educate poor women in dressmaking and millinery and domestic service.” Several heads bobbed in the dim light.
“What if you also adopted the mission of training impoverished women as midwives? It not only benefits the women; it also frees doctors to attend to other urgent cases, especially in times of epidemic disease. Perhaps helping your own families or servants in their hour of need.”
In the second row, Aunt Wilcox lifted her eyebrow expectantly.
“What of doctors who train for years at great expense and sacrifice? Are they to be replaced by hobbyists and amateurs?” a man with a billowing mustache who Nora didn’t recognize called out from the midst of the crowd, followed by rumbles of agreement.
“You haven’t been listening if you think that is what I’m advocating,” Nora said, pressing her hands against the lectern.
“A doctor might have extensive training, and many patients generally assume that he does. But the truth is, in obstetrics particularly, only two lectures are necessary to be licensed. A man might not have attended a single birth before he is allowed to go out collecting payment from women patients.”
A portly man jumped to his feet. “I’ve delivered hundreds of children in my career.”
She fumbled for his name, snatching it at the last second. “And I hear great things of your abilities, Dr. Gordon. But how many children had you delivered when you first received your license?”
He huffed and sat down, silenced, which Horace took as a cue to guffaw, his amusement audible to everyone in the room.
“I do not disparage doctors. Do not forget, I am one,” Nora said. “I mean to point out that midwives have had their own children, so they know from experience the hardships of labor. They have also attended dozens of births before practicing alone.”
“Lies!” a man thundered. “What of Caroline Jepson in Surrey?”
“A tragedy and a crime,” Nora agreed. “But if a man had pretended to be a doctor and killed a patient, we would not attempt to ban the entire profession outright. We’d insist on requiring licenses and stricter proofs of ability, and that is what I propose.
Education and certification that prove a midwife’s knowledge and skill.
” Nora’s eyes strayed to the three midwives.
Mrs. Bailey’s lips were pressed so tightly she might have bitten them off.
“Some midwives I’ve worked with have managed to successfully deliver babies that I was taught were impossible to bring through. ”
Nora turned the page of her notes, but before she could continue, a man rose from his chair in the back of the room.