The Midwife's Choice (8 page)

He turned and tilted her chin. His eyes glistened with affection and longing so startling, he nearly stole her breath away. “Say yes. Say you'll marry me and come with me. Reverend Welsh can marry us today. I'm the mayor. I can convince him to waive the banns.”

Martha's head was spinning. “M . . . marry you? Go with you?”

“Marry me,” he repeated. “These past few months, I've come to think you feel the same affection for me as I have for you. Have I been wrong?”

All the affection she had tried to deny for so long silenced her intended denial. “No, you haven't. I . . . do care for you, Thomas.”

He caressed her cheek with the knuckles on one of his hands. “Then marry me. Today. We can leave for Philadelphia first thing in the morning. We'll stay in the finest hotels. You can shop while I wrap up my business affairs during the day. At night, we'll dine in candlelit restaurants, go to the theater, whatever you want. Together, we can decide exactly how we want to spend the rest of our lives.”

“I can't leave today,” she said, ignoring the greater issue of marriage. “What about Victoria? Heavens, she just got home. There's still so much to resolve—”

“I thought you decided—”

“No, I said I was
considering
letting her go back to New York. Oh, bother!” She tugged her hands free.

“Bring her with us,” he offered. “Then there wouldn't be any reason you have to stay in Trinity.”

“I have my duties to think about,” she reminded him. “If I marry you and leave, who will tend to my patients?”

He frowned. “Dr. McMillan is here. I know he's young, but he's well educated and very committed to his profession. He's also more than a little anxious to take over your duties. He's made that clear from the start. And you've gone out of your way to help him, or have I just imagined the sketches and essays you've made for him to describe the herbs and simples you use?”

She instantly regretted showing her work to Thomas. “He hasn't any idea about how to treat teeming women,” she quipped. “That's my duty and my calling. I have the experience he lacks and my patients need. I can't abandon these women. Not again,” she whispered. The memory of abandoning her
patients last summer while she searched in vain for Victoria was still painful.

Disappointment doused the affection in his gaze. “Can't? Or won't?”

She squared her shoulders. Apparently, her dedication to her calling was an obstacle that would stand between them now, just as it had so long ago. “Both,” she said firmly.

She had secretly hoped Thomas might have grown to accept her calling as a midwife and respect her for her commitment to her patients. Based on her conversation with him now, however, whatever secret hope she carried in her heart that she might someday marry this man suffered a very sudden death.

Until he cupped her cheek with one hand and looked deep into her eyes.

“You're still so stubborn, so strong-willed,” he whispered. “I didn't think I had a prayer of convincing you to say yes, at least not today, but I had to try. It's going to be a very long time until we're together again, but when I return, I intend to convince you to embrace the life we could have together. I won't ask you to give up all of your duties, but I would hope you could curtail them so we can spend time together.”

His proposal hit a nerve, inciting her fears that sooner or later, most women would call for the doctor instead of her, sharply reducing her patients to relatively few. Tears welled. Her throat constricted. Her calling was the one constant in her life that kept her firmly rooted in this community, if not her faith, and she simply would not know how to live without her work as a healer and midwife. Even with all its blessings and rewards, her calling had exacted a heavy price. First, her daughter. Now, her last chance at happiness? “I . . . can't promise to marry you,” she murmured.

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and pulled her into a warm embrace. “You've worked so hard. You've been alone for so long. Let me take care of you. Just promise you'll think about
me while I'm gone. Think about how different your life would be if you accepted my proposal.”

She nuzzled into his strength and weakened. “I promise,” she whispered. Her heart ached, almost more than it had twenty-five years ago when she had ended their courtship, but she knew, in the end, that no matter how deeply she might be tempted by the life of ease he offered, her calling would always stand between them.

The sooner Thomas accepted that reality, the better off he would be.

And so would she.

Thomas nearly broke his promise to have her home before dark. Twilight had but a few last moments of life when he finally delivered her to the back door of the confectionery.

“Home, delicious home,” he teased, breaking the awkward silence that had ridden back to Trinity with them. He helped her down from the sleigh, and his hands lingered overlong at her waist. “If I write, will you promise to write back?”

She nodded. “Of course.”

He took one of her hands and kissed the back. “Good. And you'll take good care of Eleanor and the babe?”

“You know I will. I . . . I should get inside. I need to talk with Victoria,” she said, grateful to have had the opportunity to continue their discussion about her daughter on the way home, if only to divert any further talk about his proposal.

“You're making the right decision,” he offered.

She swallowed hard and gently removed her hand. “I hope so. Godspeed, Thomas. Be safe and well in your journey.”

“I'll be home to visit my new grandchild. Perhaps you'll have changed your mind by then, and—”

“No,” she countered, refusing to let him leave with false hopes, if only to make their next meeting easier for both of them.

He smiled. “We'll see. I'm a patient man. A lot can happen between now and then.”

She took her leave without commenting. She was almost too afraid to think about the prospect of any more change. She had had enough in the past seven months to last a lifetime. She stomped the snow from her feet and entered the storage room. Moist heat and tantalizing aromas from the chicken stew simmering in the kitchen were a welcome that lightened her steps.

When she entered the kitchen, she found Fern and Ivy sitting at the table with their backs to her. Victoria sat on the other side facing Martha, an empty place setting beside her.

Victoria met her mother's gaze and smiled a bit awkwardly. She patted the back of the chair next to her. “Mother! We've just started supper. Sit down and have something hot,” she suggested. She rose and poured hot cider into a mug, which she set in front of Martha's place.

Fern and Ivy each turned around. Fern frowned. Ivy grinned. Martha took her seat.

“How's Thomas?” Ivy asked. “Lovely day for a sleigh ride.”

“He's well. Pass the honey, will you, Fern?”

She added a hearty dollop to her cider the moment she had the jug of honey in her hands.

Victoria chuckled. “You're the only one I've ever seen do that.”

“What?”

“Add honey to your cider.”

Martha paused, glanced down at her cider, and shrugged her shoulders. “This batch was a little tart,” she commented. She carefully sipped the cider and let it warm her throat.

Victoria chuckled again. “
Every
batch is tart. At least every batch you ever tasted.”

Martha huffed.

“We all have our little foibles,” Ivy suggested as she spread
a thin layer of butter on top of several chunks of chicken. She swatted Fern's hand when she tried to take the butter away. “My sister should mind her own plate, or I'll simply have to insist we make another batch of apple taffy using that recipe she was so set on trying last fall.”

Fern pulled her hand back and pursed her lips.

Victoria looked from one sister to the other, clearly puzzled.

Martha took a long sip of cider before she explained what had happened. Fern had a penchant for trying new recipes and doctoring up old ones, which invariably led to disaster more often than not. On this particular occasion, her attempts to try a new taffy recipe with apple flavoring had failed miserably. Instead of soft, pliable taffy, they had bowls and bowls of a concoction that hardened like a rock nearly faster than they could roll it out and cut it into small squares. At Martha's suggestion, the sisters had presented the results as Lynn's Lozenges, along with a direct warning that anyone who tried to chew them would likely break a tooth.

By the time Martha finished recounting the episode, they were all laughing. “There is a moral to the story,” she added.

“Never give up,” Ivy suggested.

“Never admit defeat,” Fern added.

Victoria looked at Martha with hope glistening in her eyes. “Never let mistakes go undone.”

Touched, Martha placed her hand on top of Victoria's. “And never forget that life's troubles or disappointments always contain blessings. They are His gifts to us, His children.”

Victoria squeezed her mother's hand.

Fern stood up and tapped her sister on the shoulder. “Come along. I need you in the shop.”

Ivy shrugged her shoulders. “The shop's been closed for an hour. I've not finished my supper.”

Fern tapped Ivy's shoulder again. “That curtain we hung this morning is crooked. I need you to help me fix it.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “Now? Can't it wait for morning? Martha and Victoria—”

“Need time together. Alone,” Fern insisted as she urged Ivy from her seat and nodded toward Martha and Victoria. “We'll be a while, but just leave the dishes. We'll do them later,” she promised and led Ivy from the room.

Martha took in a deep breath and looked directly at her daughter. “I'm sorry I overslept. I wanted to speak to you first thing this morning. I was on my way to Dr. McMillan's to fetch you when I met Mayor Dillon. He said you'd gone out with the doctor and Mrs. Morgan so I didn't think it would do any harm to spend some time with him. We had some matters to discuss.”

Victoria blushed, as if she knew her mother had attracted a suitor. “Miss Fern and Miss Ivy told us how busy you've been these past few days. You needed your rest.” She dropped her gaze. “I should have come home first, to see if you were awake. I'm sorry.”

“I wasn't up. Not when you left,” Martha admitted. As curious as she was about where the trio had gone, she was more anxious to end the estrangement with her daughter. “I assume Mrs. Morgan told you we talked.”

Victoria nodded, but kept her gaze focused on her lap, where her hands lay, trembling.

“Well, there's nothing to be gained by waiting. I may as well tell you I've made my decision about your future. All I expect is that you will abide by my decision and respect my authority, whether or not my decision is to your liking. I'll also have no more ultimatums or tantrums. And no threats to run away again, either. Whatever problems you have with my decision, we'll discuss here and now and settle, once and for all.”

M
artha waited with bated breath. Her mouth went dry. Her heart began to race faster. Victoria's willingness to accept Martha's authority was crucial and would spell whether the path their relationship would follow would be rocky or smooth. She would have felt a lot better if she had been able to talk this over with Aunt Hilda first, but Martha could not wait and simply had to rely on her own ability to handle this as best she could.

Victoria toyed with a curl that draped over her shoulder. Pale pink blushed her cheeks. She lifted her gaze, moistened her lips, and nodded ever so slightly.

Heartened, Martha took a deep breath and tried to remember all she had written in the daybook she had been preparing for Victoria before the fire at the tavern rendered the book a pile of ashes. It had been easier to write down her feelings. Expressing them face-to-face was so much harder.

But necessary.

“First,” she began, “I don't approve or in any way condone what you did, running off with that band of misfits.”

Victoria paled.

“What you did was wrong. Pure and simple. You put yourself at great risk, young lady, and only the grace of God protected you. I was more frightened than you will ever know, until you have babes of your own.”

Victoria's bottom lip quivered. “I think I know. Now. And I'm . . . I'm sorry. I told you that.”

“You did. And now that I've had some time to think everything over, I want you to know I accept my share of responsibility for your running away. I haven't always been home for you, and when I was, I was either too tired or too busy helping Aunt Lydia to notice how unhappy you'd become. The good Lord knows how different it could have been if your father hadn't passed on, but even if he'd lived, I probably wouldn't have faced even the remotest possibility you weren't going to follow me into my calling like I followed your great-grandmother Poore.”

She paused and took another deep breath. “Family tradition is important, a link to both the past and the future that binds us all together. I was so certain you'd embrace our family tradition, and it was tradition, rather than your needs, that blinded me. But you're not the first to want to take another path,” she admitted.

Confusion darkened Victoria's gaze.

“You know my parents died when I was very young. My grandparents raised me,” Martha explained. “I was taught that my mother embraced the calling to be a midwife, and I wanted desperately for you to embrace it, too. It was only after you'd left, when I was so hurt and so distraught, that Aunt Hilda set me straight.”

Victoria leaned toward Martha.

“Contrary to what my grandmother had told me, and I, in turn, told you, my mother had no gift for healing or growing herbs or tending to teeming women and their babes. She was very talented with the needle, though. To hear Aunt Hilda tell it, my mother made the finest quilts this side of heaven.”

“Those were her quilts we had on our beds, weren't they?” Victoria asked.

Martha nodded. “We lost them in the fire. We lost so much that night. If you'd been here working in the tavern, I might have lost you, too,” she whispered.

Victoria laid one hand on top of Martha's.

Martha turned her hand and entwined their fingers together. “All I wanted, all I ever prayed for while you were gone, was to have you back home with me. I still want that. Desperately. And I had so hoped you'd want that, too.”

Victoria's eyes flashed with disappointment. She bowed her head.

“I'm not so unusual,” Martha argued. “All mothers have dreams for their daughters. We watch them grow up and pray they'll find good men to love them. That they'll have healthy children and teach them to be faithful to the Word. That they'll embrace the very traditions that bind us all together as families and as neighbors, so the rhythm of life, like the seasons, continues here in Trinity. Where I hope you'll one day have those dreams, too.”

Victoria's shoulders sagged. Martha put her arm around her daughter. When she stiffened, Martha felt the girl's resistance and the difficulty she had in accepting Martha's words.

Martha continued, speaking quickly for fear the girl would close her mind and her heart to what Martha had to say. “I've had moments of great worry and sorrow while you were gone, but I've also experienced great joy. I've had time to reflect on our life together, and I've learned many lessons. Traditions are important. To all of us. But no matter how important tradition is to me, I can't put that tradition before my own child. I must learn to trust you and to trust your instincts, to allow you to make your own mistakes.

“You're a talented, bright young woman. You've proven yourself to be responsible to me and to the Morgans. I must let you
develop your gifts and follow your own dreams and pray, pray so very hard that your dreams will one day lead you back home to Trinity and to me.”

Victoria eased from her mother's embrace. When she looked up at her mother, tears welled. “But I thought . . . you're . . . you're really going to let me go back to New York City? Truly?”

Martha wiped away a single tear that escaped and trickled down Victoria's cheek. “Assuming you'll agree to several conditions.”

Victoria hugged Martha tightly enough to nearly squeeze the breath out of her. “Thank you! Oh, thank you! You won't be sorry. I promise. I'll do anything you wish. Anything!”

Martha gave her a squeeze and set her back so she could look her square in the eye. “Don't be so quick to get all excited. You haven't heard my conditions yet.”

Victoria nodded so hard Martha thought the girl's neck might snap.

“First thing in the morning,” Martha said, “I want the three of us to sit down. You, Mrs. Morgan, and me. I don't want any misunderstandings between us.”

Victoria grinned.

“Second, you're to tell no one, absolutely no one, about your plans until the three of us have come to an understanding, just in case we fail. And that includes Miss Fern and Miss Ivy.”

Victoria's cheeks flushed with youthful enthusiasm and excitement. “It's not very late. Couldn't we both go to see Mrs. Morgan now?”

“The morning will be soon enough,” Martha countered, coveting at least one night alone with her daughter before she had to share her with June Morgan again. She also kept some worries about her decision to herself, but vowed to speak to Victoria about them before she left. “I have other business with the good doctor, and I'm not sure there would be time to do that, too, at least not without imposing on his bedtime. Now,
be a good girl and heat up some of that chicken for me. I'm famished. While you're working, you can tell me everything that happened from the instant you left Trinity with that theater troupe to the moment you landed at the Morgans.”

Victoria launched into her tale before she even rose from her seat. Martha listened to every word. Time and time again, when Victoria was in a position where she could have been hurt or victimized, good fortune had intervened.

No. Luck had nothing to do with it. Only the good Lord and a host of His angels could have been responsible. Some overworked angels, Martha conceded, and prayed they might have earned some extra measure of eternal reward for doing their job so well.

As dawn broke and argentine light filtered into her bedchamber, Martha was awake, but still abed. Her thoughts traveled back to a small cabin on Double Trouble Creek, and she prayed that Nancy was finding some sense of peace and acceptance after the loss of her son, Peter.

Closer to home, Thomas would soon be on his way east to begin forging a different path in his life journey. If all went well later this morning, Victoria would be set to travel back to New York City to follow her own dreams, leaving Martha behind, still content with being here. In Trinity. Staying true to the course she had chosen so many years ago.

She lifted herself up and leaned on her elbow to gaze at her sleeping daughter. To her surprise, hazel eyes stared back at her. “I thought you'd still be asleep,” she whispered.

Victoria grinned. “I've been awake awhile. Watching you. Why . . . why are we whispering?” she asked.

Martha pointed to the cage where Bird was still asleep. Victoria grinned again, then Martha patted her mattress. “When
you were very little, you used to sneak into our bed once in a while during the night. We'd never even know you were here until morning.”

Victoria grinned. “Actually, I used to sneak into your bed most every night. You or Father only caught me when I didn't wake up early enough to get back into my own bed.” She paused and toyed with the corner of her blanket. “Do you still miss him?” she asked, perhaps echoing her own sentiments.

Martha lay back down, then turned on her side so she could still face her daughter. “It's easier now than at first, but I still think of your father. Very often,” she admitted. “Time heals our hurts. Faith sustains us. But the heart always remembers. You were only seven when he died. So innocent. You hardly knew what was happening.”

Victoria snuggled against her pillow. “I try to think about Father, but I don't remember him very clearly. Except that he was very, very tall.”

Martha chuckled. “You were very little then. Your father was no taller than most men, but he was very gentle and a man of few words.” Bittersweet memories surfaced, and she embraced them. “He always said his actions spoke well enough for him, and I suppose they did. He worked very hard every day to provide for all of us. He attended meeting every Sunday and helped his neighbors. He never complained, even after my grandmother passed on and I assumed all of her duties.”

“Aunt Lydia used to tell me not to question God's plan for us, but I did. I didn't want my father to die.”

Martha felt her chest tighten. She and Victoria had not really spoken about John's passing for many years, and it troubled Martha to think her daughter harbored any guilt associated in any way with his passing. “Aunt Lydia meant well, but she was wrong. It's only natural to question God when He takes someone we love, especially when he's so young, but it's our faith that gives us the strength to eventually accept His will
and to look for the blessings He always showers upon us when troubles come our way.”

“Blessings?” Victoria's eyes widened with disbelief. “What blessings could there be when a family is broken and they lose their home?”

“We were blessed more than most,” Martha argued. “We still had each other. We had Uncle James and Aunt Lydia to help us, along with countless friends and neighbors, and I had my work to provide for us. Otherwise, I'm not sure what we would have done.”

Victoria curled her knees up to her chest. “Oliver and I used to wonder. Did you ever think to marry again?”

Martha heard the echo of Thomas's proposal yesterday until it faded, only to be replaced by the softer echo of another proposal she had tucked deeper in her memory bank. She sighed. “There weren't too many men willing to marry a widow with two children, especially when she's called from home so often. There was one man who offered,” she admitted.

Victoria blinked several times. “Truly? Who?”

“His name was Jeremiah Pound. You wouldn't remember him, I'm sure. He was a trapper by trade and stopped in Trinity only two or three times a year for supplies. Until your father died. As I recall, Mr. Pound followed us home from the cemetery after the service for your father, knocked on the door, and proposed. I hadn't even had time to note your father's passing in the family Bible.”

“He didn't!”

“He surely did. I sent that man packing right quick.” She chuckled. “I guess he was tired of living in shanties and thought he could get himself a good farm and that the poor, grieving widow would be forever grateful to have him rescue her and her children from certain ruin.”

Victoria chuckled, too. “He didn't know you at all, did he?”

“As I recall, he had a rather queer expression on his face when
I told him I expected to provide for myself and my children. I don't blame him for trying, though. Most widows are hard-pressed to survive on their own. I suppose . . . that's partly why I'm going to let you go back to New York, assuming we all agree on the conditions. So someday, should the need arise, you'll be able to provide for yourself and not be forced into accepting someone like Jeremiah Pound. So you can wait for the right man, a good man.”

“Did you . . . do you think that might happen for you, even now?”

Martha sighed. Thomas's image flashed in her mind's eye, and her heart began to thud in her chest. “No, child. Not anymore,” she whispered. “Not so much anymore.”