Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Mark stared aghast at his wife as she put her face in her hands and sobbed. “What’s happened?” he stammered, pausing in buttoning his shirt and putting his arms around her. “Darling, tell me.”
“I’m p-p-p-pregnant.” She sagged against him.
His mouth dropped open. So many emotions surged through him that he didn’t know what he felt. Ellen was grabbing him like a drowning person, gasping for air and still unable to catch her breath. Mark grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back to look in her face.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her sobs shook her whole body. She gasped over and over for air, but it was like her lungs refused to receive it.
Alarmed, Mark held her tightly. “Ellen, Ellen. Breathe. Just breathe, don’t fight it, darling.”
Her wide eyes latched on his, and he could see her trying to follow his instructions, but her body wasn’t cooperating.
Mark removed his hands from her shoulders to cup her chin and leaned close, pressing their foreheads and noses together.
“In, Ellen. Hold it, hold it, then out.” He’d seen young men, boys, really, panic at things on a ship.
Sometimes from the close quarters and darkness, sometimes from the sickness that spread like wildfire on a ship no one could escape.
Mark coached Ellen like he’d coached a few boys before, counting and breathing with her until her body relaxed against his, and her sobs quieted to little whimpers.
When he was certain she could breathe regularly again, he moved to rub her back in soothing circles.
He backed them to the wingback chair in the corner, the one he’d made her sit on three nights ago, naked with her legs slung over the arms while he feasted on her.
Now he eased down on the chair and brought her down on his legs, curled up and leaning against his chest.
“Now, when you’re ready, tell me.” He rested his chin on the top of her head and closed his eyes. Pregnant? A baby? His pulse spiked, either in anxiety or excitement, he wasn’t sure which. He glanced at their photo of Constance on the nightstand to steady himself.
After a moment, Ellen spoke. “I skipped four teas. It was stupid.”
Skipping tea, after what you said about needing it? he wanted to demand, but bit his tongue. “Why?”
“The Carlson family needed us that night. And then I slept half the day, and then I took care of you because I was afraid you were going to get sick. I started taking it again, but…I suppose that was just enough for it to happen.”
Mark tried to be rational, even as his mind spun. “What are our options?”
She sniffled, her grip on his shirt collar tightening. “What do you mean?”
“You said you never wanted to birth a child again. Surely if there are teas to keep from conception, there are teas to…keep things from progressing.” Inwardly he shriveled at the possibility of having an heir and discarding the opportunity. But Ellen was more important.
“I don’t want to keep things from progressing,” Ellen wailed. “I just wanted to never be in this position!”
“I don’t understand.”
“I want a baby. I want kisses and baby hair and snuggles and lullabies. I used to dream about it. But I couldn’t risk it happening again.”
“And now we’re here. Risking it.” Mark was beginning to understand. He continued to rub her back in soothing circles.
“I suppose it’s happening.” Ellen’s voice wavered. “I refuse to actively destroy my dream.”
“So…we’re having a baby?” Mark’s heart leapt, though he tried to keep his voice neutral.
“I’m not sure it will be a live one, but yes, I suppose so.” Ellen gripped his arm. “Mark, I’m so frightened.”
“I’m frightened, too,” he said, and it was truer than he’d imagined. “If this illness comes back we’ll fight it.” Mark glanced at Constance’s photo again. I cannot bear it. I cannot bear the possibility of another stillbirth. “We’ll get Mrs. Daugherty’s opinion on how to make it safer.”
“I’m terrified,” she whispered. “I cannot let myself be happy about this at all. It will become my worst nightmare. All over again.”
Mark kissed her hair. “What’s your worst fear?”
“That we’ll have two headstones under that tree instead of one,” Ellen said without hesitation.
“And your second worst fear?”
“That I’ll miscarry. That I won’t even be pregnant long enough to have a stillbirth.” She glanced up at him. “It happens, you know. A lot. Almost every woman has at least one miscarriage.”
Mark’s jaw tightened in fear. “What can we do about that?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. It either happens, or it doesn’t.”
He’d had no idea how fraught with peril and terror he’d feel in the face of creating a family.
Yes, women died in childbirth. It happened, though less often than it used to.
He’d never considered someone he loved going through the experience.
It was petrifying. He forced his mouth to work. “Any other fears?”
“That we’ll have a beautiful baby and fall so in love with him we forget Constance.” Her voice was so quiet Mark strained to hear it.
His arms tightened around her, and he nudged her head away and up, so he could kiss her. “Never,” he vowed against her mouth. “That fear shall never come to pass.”
Their kiss, so hard and painful, softened. She sighed against his mouth, and Mark reveled in feeling so close to her, so at one, that he could almost slip inside her skin.
“Ellen, my love,” he whispered against her skin as he kissed her jaw. “I am in awe of what you have survived. Your strength, your joy in the face of adversity. I am honored to be a part of your life.” Tears still wet her cheeks, and he kissed them away. Wished he could kiss away the fear and pain.
“You didn’t see me several years ago. I told you, for the first six months I barely got out of bed. That's why my mother was so thrilled when I threw your bouquet across the drawing room.”
Mark smiled as he kissed her brow. “I think waking up at all, day after day, was very brave.” He paused, holding her close, feeling her heartbeat against his. “How did you get involved in saving premature babies? You never said.”
“About seven months after Constance my mother dragged me to a modiste. She was convinced it was time for me to move to half mourning, and it was winter. She wanted a new wardrobe for both of us.” Ellen tilted her head back, cheek pressed to his shirt, and he took advantage to press a kiss to the pulse in her throat.
“I was there, all in black crepe, wishing I was back in bed and Mother hadn’t dragged me out.
And then I overheard a pair of seamstresses in the backroom talking.
One of the women had an older sister who was pregnant.
And she’d been itching for three weeks. The seamstress talked about how it wasn’t her belly that itched, but the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet, day and night.
And how at night, the itching grew across her entire body.
To the point she was frantic for relief, trying to lay outside to numb her skin.
“I came alive, in that moment. All those horrible words the doctor told me came back, and I knew the same thing was probably happening to this pregnant woman. I didn’t even think.
I just walked past the counter into the backroom, went straight up to the girl who was talking and I said, ‘Your sister needs to have her baby right now, while it’s still alive. ’”
Mark kissed away a tear forming at the corner of Ellen’s eye.
“She, uh, was obviously shocked. I was in a full, black mourning gown, so she eventually listened. And then the next day I slipped out of the house to go meet the girl’s sister and tell her my story.
And then we tracked down her midwife and I explained.
She was skeptical, so I went to the women’s medical school to find a doctor who would listen, which was how I bumped into Amelia, when she was still a student there.
Eventually, the pregnant woman and I wore down the midwife, who agreed to induce labor a month early. ”
Mark was afraid to ask what happened.
“So I was there, because once I’m involved I don’t know how to back out, when she went into labor.
It was awful and brought back every single bad memory I have of my own labor, but it was also beautiful and healing.
” Ellen took a breath, regaining control of her calm.
“And I held that precious little girl in my arms. And she was red and crying and alive, oh so alive.” Her voice was level, but tears streamed from her eyes. Mark wiped each away with his thumbs.
“I realized my baby girl died. But hers lived. And it doesn’t make it worth it.
It doesn’t make it better, but it did make it mean something.
So I decided if I couldn’t save Constance, I would save every other baby I could.
” Her chin quivered. “The very next day I went to audit a nursing class at the Nightingale School and never looked back.”
Mark felt tears slipping from his own eyes as he looked down at his fierce wife. “What a beautiful legacy for Constance. I’d rather have her here. But if I can’t, then this, done in her memory, is beyond expression.” He placed a reverent kiss on her lips. “You are a wonderful mother.”
When Ellen slipped from his lap a few moments later, she wiped her eyes and glanced at the clock. “Oh goodness, I’m late. I’m so late.”
Mark felt bereft without her warm weight on his thighs, but he followed her example and continued to dress himself. “Let me walk you down to the dispensary. We can have Mrs. Daugherty examine you for sure.”
Ellen hesitated, then nodded. “She’s retired, though. She might want me to ask someone else.”
“Then she can recommend someone.” Mark slipped back into his room, where Dryden was brushing any lint or hair off his clothes. Dryden paused in those duties to help Mark tie his necktie and slide his frock coat on.