The Touch (24 page)

Bang, bang, went his hammer; Alexander Kinross resolved that nothing was going to beat him, from an eclamptic wife who didn’t love him, to a possible tribe of daughters and no sons. His life had a purpose of its own, just as he was driven to achieve it, and one of the major aspects of that purpose was to make sure that the name he had chosen for himself never died.

SIR EDWARD WYLER and his wife arrived just after Christmas and were put in the North Tower, a suite of rooms that had Lady Wyler swooning with joy. Not only had she been afforded the chance to leave Sydney at its summer worst, but a considerate God had landed her in the lap of a luxury that Sydney could not provide: Sydney servants were a cheeky, aggressive lot who came and went as they pleased, whereas Kinross House ran on wonderfully nice and attentive Chinese servants who were not a scrap servile. They comported themselves like well-paid people who liked their work.

For Elizabeth the festive season was simply a continuation of bed-bound incarceration; she was so heavy and lethargic that even Ruby’s banter was losing its power to charm.

Though he flashed her a smile, Sir Edward paid scant attention to his patient when he entered with Jade, Pearl and Silken Flower, the girls carrying dishes, bottles, jugs, jars. He took off his frock coat, donned a clean white apron, rolled up his shirtsleeves to reveal brawny forearms, and washed his hands thoroughly. Only when his appurtenances were arranged to his satisfaction did he draw up a chair to sit beside Elizabeth.

“How are you, my dear?” he asked.

“Not quite as well as I was before Christmas,” Elizabeth said, liking her accoucheur as much as she trusted him. “I have a very bad headache, pains in the stomach, I’m sometimes sick, and I have black spots before my eyes.”

“I must see how your baby is doing first, then we can talk at greater length,” he said, proceeding to the end of the bed and gesturing to Jade and Pearl to untuck the covers. “I’m a Lister man,” he said chattily as the gentle examination went on, “so you must forgive the reek of carbolic. It will be here until well after delivery.”

Finished, he sat down again. “The head is engaged, and I think your water may break at any time.” His voice changed, became serious. “Now, Elizabeth, I have to explain what I might have to do in case, when the time comes, you’re not able to follow me. You heard me tell your husband that, should you go into convulsions, there is a chance that you will not come out of them. It is generally left to the husband alone to take all the decisions at that point, but in my experience husbands are rarely up to the task unless I can assure them that the wife wishes me to do what should be done.” He cleared his throat. “There have been a few recent publications that advocate the administration of magnesium sulfate if eclampsia begins, though I must warn you that this treatment is not proven.”

“What is magnesium sulfate?” she asked.

“A relatively harmless salt.”

“Administration? What does that mean? I drink it?”

“No, you’ll be beyond swallowing any fluid. The salt is given by parenteral injection—that is, through a syringe attached to a hollow, sharp needle that is pushed into the abdominal cavity. There, the magnesium sulfate mixes with the body’s own fluids and passes quickly into the bloodstream. One day I believe these hollow needles will be slender enough to insert directly into a vein,” he added wistfully. “Naturally I will tell your husband about this, but first I must know how you feel about it. The life and the baby at stake are yours. I note too that you’re in a mental decline approaching neurasthenia. Are you willing to let me administer magnesium sulfate injections if I need to?”

“Yes,” said Elizabeth without hesitation.

“Excellent! Then we will wait and see what happens.” He took her hand, squeezed it tenderly. “Be of good cheer, Elizabeth. Your babe seems strong. So must you be. Now, if you’re up to it, I will introduce my wife to you. She acts as my midwife.”

“Is that how you met her?” Elizabeth asked.

“Of course. Doctors while young have to work so hard at their profession that they rarely have a chance to meet young ladies who are not nurses or midwives. I am very fortunate,” said Sir Edward sincerely. “My wife is a wonderful companion as well as a highly skilled midwife.”

ALEXANDER LEFT it until the following day to see Elizabeth, Sir Edward having spoken to him at some length and advised him to wait until Elizabeth awoke from a laudanum-induced sleep.

The room had changed out of all recognition, he saw at once. Surplus furniture had been removed, what remained was draped in clean white sheets, a crisp white screen stood across one corner, Jade and Pearl wore white overall aprons, and a faint mist of carbolic hung in the air.

What a coward I am, he thought, approaching the bed. I have avoided her as much as possible for ten whole weeks. Her skin was yellowish, the whites of the eyes turned to him were red with ruptured vessels, and, even though she lay on her left side, he could see the distended belly beneath the light coverlet.

“Sir Edward has told you,” she said, licking crusted lips.

“About his hypothetical treatment? Yes.”

“I want him to go ahead with it, Alexander, if it becomes necessary. Oh, I am so tired!”

“You’re full of laudanum, so that’s to be expected.”

“No, no, I don’t mean tired in that way!” she said fretfully. “I am tired! Tired of lying in bed, of lying on my left side, of drinking gallons of water, of feeling sick and miserable all day, every day! It is a torture! Why did this have to happen to me? It doesn’t run in Drummond or Murray.”

“It doesn’t run in families, Sir Edward told me, so you mustn’t blame inheritance for your malady,” Alexander said with an impassive face. “Your babe is healthy and strong, Sir Edward says, but what he wants to see is an improvement in your spirits.”

Tears gathered, ran down her face. “I have offended God.”

“Oh, claptrap, Elizabeth!” he snapped before he could stop himself. “Sir Edward blames a long sea voyage in some discomfort, a radical change of climate and eating different food for this illness. Why the hell blame God? That’s illogical!”

“I don’t blame God, I blame myself for not being true to God.”

“Well,” he said, teeth bared, “here are some gladsome tidings for you. I’ve donated a good piece of town land on which I’m building a Presbysterian kirk. So you can spend the rest of your life pandering to John Knox’s idea of a god, all right?”

Her jaw dropped. “Alexander! Why?”

“Because that pest Ruby Costevan never lets up on me!”

“Dear Ruby,” said Elizabeth with a tremulous smile.

“Has it ever occurred to you that, if it’s God plagues you, maybe He’s irked by the friendship you’ve developed with Ruby?”

That provoked a laugh. “Don’t be silly,” she said.

He swung sideways on the chair and stared out the window, which looked south across the gardens to the forest, his hands balled into fists. He knew he shouldn’t talk harshly to her, but—“I don’t begin to understand you,” he said to the scenery, “nor understand what you want from a husband. However, I’ve come to accept the limitations of this marriage, just as apparently you’ve come to accept the presence of my mistress. I can even see why you’ve accepted her—she relieves you of the burden of physical love any more often than is necessary. And look at you, as sick as a poisoned pup because you did your marital duty! It must be a vindication to you, proof that disporting yourself in bed is sinful. Jesus, Elizabeth, you should have been born a Catholic! Then you could have gone into a convent and been safe. Why do you bring so much misery on yourself? If you learned to enjoy your life, there’d be no eclampsia, that’s what I think.”

She listened to this without pain, knowing that his bitter diatribe arose out of an anguish not in her power to assuage.

“Oh, Alexander, we are doomed!” she cried. “I can’t love you, and you are beginning to hate me!”

“I’ve good reason. You reject every overture I make.”

“Be that as it may,” she said steadily, “I have told Sir Edward that I want to undergo his injections if he feels they are necessary. Do you agree?”

“Yes, of course I agree,” he said, turning to look at her.

“Though,” she went on, “in a way it would solve all of our troubles if I died. Even if the baby died too. Then you could find a more congenial wife.”

“Alexander Kinross,” he said, “does not surrender. You are my wife, and I will do everything I can to make sure that you live to remain my wife.”

“Even if our child doesn’t live, or I can’t have more?”

“Yes.”

ELIZABETH WENT into labor on New Year’s Eve. Her condition had deteriorated to a remorseless headache, dizziness, vomiting, and pain in the area of her upper abdomen, but grew no worse as she went through the early stages of her confinement. Then when her eyes began to roll and her face to twitch, Sir Edward took the syringe from his wife, plunged it rapidly through Elizabeth’s abdomen wall, retracted its contents a little to make sure he was not inside bowel, and injected five grams of magnesium sulfate. The convulsion proceeded from face to arms and hands, then to a stiffening of her whole body, followed by massive jerks. Her mouth was jacked open with a wooden gag, her limbs tied down to prevent injury. But she came out of it, face blue-black, breathing stertorously. A second injection was administered before a second convulsion came on, while the baby, now Lady Wyler’s responsibility, continued to fight its way through a birth canal without assistance from its mother. Elizabeth, though not yet lapsed into coma, was hardly conscious of the labor pains.

Ruby and Constance waited downstairs in the drawing room, while Alexander shut himself in his library.

“It’s so quiet up there,” said Constance, shivering. “No screams, no howls.”

“Perhaps Sir Edward’s put her under chloroform,” said Ruby.

“Not from what Lady Wyler says. If Elizabeth is convulsing, she’ll have enough trouble continuing to breathe without making it harder for her to breathe by using chloroform.” Constance reached out to take Ruby’s hands. “No, I think the silence says that our darling girl is having fits.”

“Jesus, why did it have to happen to her?”

“I don’t know,” Constance whispered.

Ruby looked at the grandfather clock. “It’s past midnight. The child will be born on New Year’s Day.”

“Then let us hope that 1876 is a lucky year for Elizabeth.”

Mrs. Summers came in bearing a tray of tea and sandwiches, her face so blank that neither Ruby nor Constance could read it.

“Thank you, Maggie,” Ruby said, lighting one cheroot off the stub of another. “You’ve heard nothing?”

“No, madam, nothing.”

“Don’t approve of me, do you?”

“No, madam.”

“That’s too bad, but remember one thing, Maggie—my eye is on you all the time, so behave yourself.”

Head in the air, Mrs. Summers marched out.

“Well, you have created some difficulties, Ruby,” Constance said wryly. “Isn’t it wonderful how wealth can alter a woman’s social status?”

“That’s true. Being a director of Apocalypse Enterprises certainly beats sucking someone’s dickie under a table for a five-quid tip,” said Ruby, blowing smoke.

“Ruby!”

“Yes, all right, I’ll behave,” Ruby said, scowling, “but only because that poor little sweetheart upstairs might be in extremis, for all we know. I can’t help myself, I like to shock.”

ONE PART of Alexander desperately wanted to be up there in Elizabeth’s room, but a bigger part of him accepted the fact that men did not witness this woman’s business unless they happened to be doctors. Sir Edward had promised to keep him informed, and did so through Jade, who skittled up and down the stairs every half an hour, eyes round with terror and suffering. So he knew that the convulsions had started, but that there was some space between them, and that Sir Edward hoped to deliver the baby soon.

Was it true, what Elizabeth had said? That he was beginning to hate her? If hate was indeed in what he felt, then it had crept in, existed because he couldn’t bear to think that he, Alexander Kinross, was incapable of solving the problem his wife represented.

Fifteen, I left home at fifteen, and in all the years since I conquered everything I embarked upon. Soon I will be thirty-three, and I have done more than almost all other men can do by their seventieth year. My will is iron, my power is profound, I can dictate terms to most of those fools in Sydney because they have pinned their hopes on politics and live high without enough income to sustain that. I am the major shareholder in the most productive gold mine in the history of the world, I have interests in coal, iron, land, I own a town and a railroad. Yet I cannot make a seventeen-year-old girl see reason, or win her liking, let alone her heart. When I give her jewels, she looks sick. When I touch her, she freezes. When I try to have a conversation with her, she answers my questions passively and offers me nothing to think about except her aloof disinterest. The only friends she wants are women—she seized upon Ruby like a greedy child, and that’s a fine kettle of fish.

And so went his thoughts, round and round, until Sir Edward appeared in the library doorway shortly after four in the morning. He wore no coat and his sleeves were still rolled up, but there was no bloody apron, and he was smiling.

“Congratulations, Alexander,” he said, coming forward with hand extended. “You are the father of a healthy eight-pound girl.”

A girl…Well, he had expected that. “Elizabeth?” he asked.

“The eclampsia has settled, though it will be another week before I can pronounce her out of danger. The convulsions can begin again at any time, though my personal feeling is that the magnesium sulfate did the trick,” said Sir Edward.

“May I come up?”

“I’m here to escort you.”

The room still reeked of carbolic, not a pleasant smell, but not suggestive of blood or decay. Elizabeth was lying on her back in the bed, washed and freshly clothed, her belly flat again. Alexander approached warily, nothing in his life having prepared him for this confrontation. Her eyes were open, her skin greyed with exhaustion, the corners of her mouth split and oozing.