The Midwife's Tale Read online

  “I’m Widow Cade.”

  He tipped his hat. “Jacob Rheinhold.”

  She cocked a brow.

  He swallowed so hard, his Adam’s apple bulged in his thin, narrow neck. “I’m a peddler by trade. Heading west. Passed through Trinity a few days back. When folks at the tavern found out I was headed this way, they asked me to bring you this.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a folded document, and handed it to her before he left as abruptly as he had arrived.

  More curious than concerned, and relieved he had not come to summon her for a birthing, she unfolded the document. To her surprise, she found herself staring at a badly wrinkled broadside advertising a theater troupe of some kind, replete with a list of scheduled stops at towns all the way east to New York City, including Trinity.

  Why anyone might think Martha was interested in such a theater troupe defied reason, but when she turned the paper over, she read words that literally stole her breath away:

  Dearest Martha,

  Victoria has run away with the troupe. We tried to find her, but failed. Please forgive me.

  Your brother,

  James

  Shock. Disbelief. Horror. They exploded with such force that they destroyed the gay celebration Martha had been enjoying within a single heartbeat. Martha’s body went numb as questions raced through her mind. Victoria had run away? With a theater troupe? Impossible. Totally impossible. Victoria was a difficult young woman at times, but she could not be that irresponsible or that impetuous to just up and run away from home.

  When she read James’s short note again, her heart began to pound. It was true. It was true! Her daughter had run away! But when? How? Why? Dear Lord in heaven, why?

  Nearing a state of total panic, she turned the broadside over and read the schedule of appearances, although her hands were shaking so badly she could scarcely make out the words. According to the broadside, the troupe had been in Trinity about a week ago. By now, the troupe itself was long gone from the local area, but the printed schedule she held in her hands was the key that would lead her to Victoria so she could bring her home.

  Hilary approached her with concern etched in her features. “Is it bad news?”

  Martha quickly folded the broadside and put it into her pocket. “A note . . . just a . . . note from my brother. Nothing to worry about,” she murmured, too ashamed to admit to anyone here that her own daughter had been so unhappy she had run away from home. “I’m afraid I truly must be getting along. Will you stay until Mrs. Calloway arrives?”

  “Of course.”

  “Thank you. I’ll just check Diana once more before I leave,” Martha suggested. As tears formed and threatened to overflow, she hurried from the kitchen and went directly to the bedchamber. As she walked, she quickly formulated a plan of action. Rather than waste days traveling back to Trinity, she would head straight for the town where the theater troupe was scheduled to next appear, confront Victoria, and force her to come home to Trinity with her mother.

  At most, finding Victoria would take a week or two, and her reward from Captain Tyler would surely cover her expenses.

  By then, Martha would have complete control of her emotions. By then, Martha would be able to speak to her daughter in a civil tone of voice. By then, Lord willing, she would be ready to hear Victoria’s explanation, talk some sense into that girl, and be able to forgive herself for not being at home where she belonged, especially when her daughter so obviously needed her.

  2

  For nearly three months, Martha had battled numbing fear, anger, frustration, and despair in a quest that had taken her hundreds of miles from home. Faced with total defeat and stunned by grief after failing to find Victoria, she had had only one place left to go. Home. To Trinity.

  Sorely tested, her faith was a bit tattered and frayed around the edges, but she kept it tucked around her broken heart to keep the pieces together. And it was her faith, along with her own determined nature, that kept her exhausted body upright in the saddle and her hands tight on the reins as she traveled the final few miles in her journey home.

  She should have stopped hours ago and spent the night in York. Instead, she had ridden on, driven by a deep yearning to bring her ill-fated journey to an end. Guided by the harvest moon overhead that filtered gentle light through the dark curtain of night, she was a solitary but familiar figure, with her split skirt lying in gentle folds across the flanks of her faithful mount, Grace.

  Half draft horse and half saddle horse, the gray mare was massive and strong, but she was slow and a bit ungainly as a mount. Carrying haphazard splotches of black and white on her coat, she was a rather sorry sight, but she had stamina, a big heart, and a steady gait—qualities some attributed to her mistress, as well.

  Most important to Martha, Grace never balked when Martha was called to duty. She carried Martha and her usual accoutrements—a treatment bag stocked with her simples, herbs and medicines she collected or grew herself, and a birthing stool—without complaint. “She’s a true gift. In many ways,” Martha murmured to herself, reminded of the many blessings she had received along with her trials.

  She gave her mare an appreciative pat on the side of her neck. As they approached the final bend in the roadway that led directly into the town, the mare quickened her gait. Martha stiffened. Beneath heavy leather gloves that protected her hands, her palms began to sweat. She tugged on the reins to slow their approach as memories of these past three months tumbled through her mind and a swell of self-pity threatened to consume her.

  Tears stung her eyes, but she blinked them back as she relived those fateful days when she had tried to find Victoria and bring her home. The fact that Victoria had run away with that theater troupe had given Martha false hope it would be relatively easy to find her daughter. As it turned out, Martha had invariably arrived in one town a day or two after the troupe had already left for another. In the end, she had tracked the troupe all the way to New York City, but as fate would have it, she had arrived the day after they had all sailed away.

  She was not sure whether or not Victoria had actually sailed off to London with the original members or had joined the group that had splintered off and sailed to Charleston. Even if Martha had known for sure which ship she should have followed, she did not have the means left to purchase her own passage.

  Only then did she face the darkest, most frightening nightmare ever to shadow a mother’s heart: Her young, vulnerable, seventeen-year-old daughter had disappeared, and Martha could not find her.

  To compound her misery, she still could not understand why Victoria had run away, even after hours of careful rumination during sleepless nights that followed endless hours spent in the saddle during the day. Martha was able to be honest enough to admit to herself that Victoria had been increasingly discontented in Trinity. Exactly why she had chosen to leave with a theater troupe still remained a mystery, yet in and of itself, vivid testimony of the depths of Victoria’s unhappiness and desperation. And Martha’s failure to provide the proper guidance to her daughter.

  The reality of that failure was a burden that lay so heavy on her heart, she wondered how it was able to beat at all.

  Fighting to regain her composure, she choked back a sob, took a deep breath, and prayed hard for a miracle—that somehow Victoria had returned home and was waiting for her.

  She tightened her hold on the reins as she battled the sin of self-pity that nibbled at her faith, and continued toward home. Soon, she heard the rushing sound of the waterfalls that anchored the town of Trinity on her right as she passed the sawmill, silent now till first light. Directly to her left, she regarded the outline of the new fence that blocked the rear exit behind the stables and wagon yard adjacent to her brother’s tavern with the same regret she had when James put it up just last spring.

  Preventing guests, especially transients, from leaving without paying for their accommodations by slipping out the rear yard had been necessary; unfortunately, the fence added only inconvenien
ce for her, since she would have to use the front entrance to the property and then go all the way around to the back to reach the outside door to her room.

  Given the ribald laughter that filtered from the tavern and the number of horses, mules, and wagons that filled the yard, her brother and his wife were obviously still hard at work.

  Approaching Main Street, which reached a dead end directly ahead, where it met West Falls Road, she sucked in a deep breath and straightened her back. She had no doubt James and Lydia would welcome her home unconditionally. It was the rest of the community that concerned her.

  When she reached the crossroad, Martha turned left. With the falls behind her now, she faced the length and breadth of Dillon’s Stream, which bisected the small town of Trinity and separated the descendants of the original settlers who lived and worked along East Main Street from the newcomers whose homes and businesses lined West Main Street.

  Above the falls, homesteads stretched for miles on end, scattered along and between the three creeks that joined together and dropped as one in a magnificent natural curtain of water dubbed Crying Falls long before Trinity existed. A sawmill and a gristmill lay on either side of a small pool of water that fed Dillon’s Stream, which flowed into the Faded River some thirty miles to the southwest.

  Save for the sounds and light emanating from Poore’s Tavern, the town itself was dark and fast asleep, yet she could see the town center splayed before her mind’s eye. Trinity had grown significantly since it had been founded sixty years ago, but the town had changed little in the past twenty. Because Dillon’s Stream was too shallow to support any type of heavy boat or large raft, the town had little chance of developing, and in a rapidly changing world it remained an oasis where people lived much as their ancestors had done and their lives reflected the same treasured values of God, family, and community.

  To her right, businesses once only a dream of the town’s founder now flourished along West Main Street. Before his death, Jacob Dillon had parlayed a wilderness investment in land into a fortune through a carefully executed lottery that had eventually brought yeoman farmers and mechanics together to create a community. Those businesses now slumbered beneath a cloud-scudded sky.

  Straight ahead of her down East Main Street, beyond Poore’s Tavern, lay the Dillon mansions. Mayor Thomas Dillon, Jacob’s son, made his home in the first and oldest mansion—a home that she would have shared with him had she accepted his marriage proposal nearly twenty-five years ago instead of John Cade’s. Nestled in between the original homestead and one built a scarce twenty years ago by George Sweet for his bride, Anne Dillon, lay the simple log meetinghouse where the community gathered to worship as one each Sunday and the cemetery where they buried their dead.

  Doc Beyer had his home and office farther down the road, just shy of the second covered bridge that connected the businesses and homes separated by Dillon’s Stream. At the very end, near the limits of the town proper, an open-air market covered by a massive roof operated once a week on Wednesdays.

  Trinity.

  Home.

  Her chest tightened, and her eyes filled with tears as her mind filled with images of Victoria. What drove Victoria to leave her home here? Why did she leave with a theater troupe, adding scandal to the grief Martha would suffer each and every day until Victoria returned home?

  During her journey, Martha had been unable to find the answer to these questions. Now that she was home, she prayed she would find those answers, however painful they might be. She was only moments away from facing her family, her friends, and her neighbors now, when she would have to admit her failure, and she hoped they might forgive her for abandoning them so abruptly.

  The greater part of her wanted to believe that the community of women, who depended on her to help treat them and their children for a host of minor ailments or to guide them through the travails of childbirth, would understand that as a mother, Martha had had no choice but to leave and try to find Victoria, even if that meant temporarily abandoning those who needed her care.

  A smaller part of her knew that some would see Martha only in her role as midwife and would resent being left without a skilled and experienced midwife during illnesses or childbirth.

  A small wagon pulled out from the shadows between the stable and the tavern and headed straight toward Martha, interrupting her thoughts and setting her heartbeat into double time. The hunched driver, muted by shadows, had the two horses in a near gallop, and Martha instinctively backed out of the way.

  For better or for worse, she was about to meet and greet her first friend or neighbor . . . or foe.

  3

  While wagon wheels ground to a halt, raising a cloud of choking dust, a familiar voice rang out. “Martha Fleming Cade, you’re barely in time! We expected you hours ago! We need to hurry, girl. There’s a babe just about ready to join this world who needs you.”

  With her heart pounding in her chest, Martha coughed, moistened her lips to remove the dust, and struggled to find her voice. “Aunt H-Hilda?” she stammered, amazed that her aunt-by-affection would be out so late. Aunt Hilda had been her staunchest supporter since Grandmother’s death a decade ago. The last of the town’s original inhabitants, Aunt Hilda carried every one of her seventy-seven years with quiet dignity and pride. Known for her uncommon good sense and straightforward manner, as well as for the thick, chalk-white braid she wore like a crown atop her head, she was also an avid beekeeper, which added an aura of eccentricity to her persona. She also brewed the best honey wine west of the Susquehanna.

  There were precious few women within fifty miles who had not spent one of their lying-in periods following childbirth without Hilda Seymour as their afternurse. They sang praises about her knowledge and compassion, just as they had done when speaking of Martha’s late grandmother, Sarah Poore, the first midwife to settle in Trinity.

  They also lauded the healing comforts of Aunt Hilda’s infamous hot tea toddy, which was laced with, of course, honey wine, a remedy that cured even the most difficult grumbling pains that inevitably followed all deliveries.

  “Adelaide Finch said she’d wait and have you deliver this babe or keep it to herself till her hair turned silver. She’s been suffering grinding pains since early yesterday. Her forcing pains started at supper time, and the rest of the women are with her already, so we’d best hurry.”

  “Adelaide Finch? Her time was nearly a month ago! She couldn’t possibly still—”

  “Babes always come in their own time, not ours. Besides, first babes are always hard to predict. Leastways, that’s what your grandmother always said. Now, let’s go before we’re too late. You can tell me all about your trip and what you learned about Victoria on the way.”

  Without waiting for either a reply or an argument, Aunt Hilda clicked the reins and let out a sharp whistle. She passed Martha, turned the horses left, and soon had the wagon wheels clattering through the covered bridge.

  Martha watched the shadow of the wagon retreat into complete darkness before her inbred sense of duty knocked her stupefaction aside, along with the irrational disappointment of learning Victoria had not miraculously returned home while Martha was away.

  She spurred Grace forward to follow her aunt with all of her thoughts focused on the immediate hours ahead. Once inside the bridge, she quickly closed the gap between them. “Wait!” she cried.

  Her aunt’s chuckle echoed within the confines of the enclosed structure. “There’s no time to waste. I’ve been expecting you for hours. I’m worried that young scamp of a doctor might be there already.”

  She paused and raised her voice over the sound of wheels clicking against wood. “Doctor Benjamin McMillan. He can’t be a day over twenty-four, and here he comes to Trinity, Mr. University himself, ready to take over after ole Doc Beyer passed on, God rest his soul, and then some. I told that young snippersnapper I’d have him run out of town if he ever used those birthing weapons of his on any female I knew. In a proper, ladylike manner, of course,”
she added with a huff.

  Befuddled by the old woman’s rantings, and shocked to hear Doc Beyer had died during her absence, Martha held back her questions. She waited until they had passed through the bridge and were winding up West Falls Road to reach the Finch homestead, located along Candle Creek, before attempting to unravel what Aunt Hilda had said.

  Eventually, Martha had the answers to most of her questions. Aunt Hilda had known to wait for Martha because earlier that day, shortly after Martha passed a tollgate and left the turnpike to travel home on back roads, Thomas Dillon had passed the very same tollgate and the gatekeeper had mentioned that Martha had recently passed by. While Martha had stopped to have lunch and take a short catnap, Thomas apparently continued straight home, a fortunate turn of events that had prevented her from sharing the last of her journey with him. As soon as he had arrived back in Trinity, he had quickly spread news of her imminent return.

  She also learned there had been no word from Victoria, despite her fervent hopes otherwise. She was, however, as surprised to learn Doc Beyer had gone on to his final reward as she was to find out he had been eighty-three years old.

  A physician of the old school who had learned the rudiments of his trade through apprenticeship, Doc Beyer and her grandmother had worked side by side in Trinity for nearly fifty years, each respecting the other’s abilities, as well as the need for both a doctor and a midwife in Trinity and the surrounding areas.

  According to Aunt Hilda, Dr. McMillan had purchased his predecessor’s home and office and opened his very first practice. A bachelor, he had even kept Rosalind Andrews as his housekeeper, an arrangement that allowed Rosalind to continue living in the home as well.

  Unlike Doc Beyer, who had limited his part-time practice to treating male patients, setting bones, and treating serious illnesses beyond Martha’s expertise while earning additional income from farming, Dr. McMillan was an upstart straight out of medical school in Boston, and he had apparently made it very clear he intended to practice medicine full-time, treating every man, woman, and child in Trinity himself.