Thurston House Page 15

  He was in the process of devising an elaborate system that would allow him to live in San Francisco for most of the time, as he had promised her father, but communications between Thurston House and the mines would have to be perfected. He had already promised her that from February until June they would stay in the city that year, and after that she had agreed that they would move to Napa for the summer. It was a compromise that he wanted to make work, but there were other compromises he would have liked to work out too. For the moment, Hannah and Camille were not getting along, and on his second night home from the mines, Jeremiah wondered which woman he would find waiting for him when he got home. It seemed unlikely that they would both survive the encounter.

  Camille thought Hannah slovenly and forward, much too familiar by half, and she had dared to call Camille “girl,” instead of Mrs. Thurston. Worse than that she had eventually called her a brat, and a spoiled one at that, and Hannah told Jeremiah in a total uproar that the little vixen had actually thrown something at her. She held the offending object aloft, as though to prove her point. Camille had apparently thrown a small hatbox at her, and the old housekeeper had effectively dodged it.

  “She’s so old, Camille, that it really doesn’t seem fair to turn her out.” His wife had demanded the old woman’s head on a platter by morning. “I just can’t do it.” He couldn’t think of anything worse.

  “Then I will.” She had never sounded more determined or more Southern. But suddenly he realized that he had to take a stand before things got totally out of hand between them.

  “No, you won’t. Hannah stays. You’ll have to get used to her, Camille. She’s part of how I’m used to living in Napa.”

  “That was before you married me.”

  “Yes, it was. And I can’t change everything overnight. I refurbished this house just for you. It was a mess before that, and I’ll hire more servants if you need them, but Hannah stays.”

  “And if I leave and go back to San Francisco?” She looked at him haughtily and he pulled her down on his lap without further ado.

  “Then I’ll bring you back here, and spank you.” She smiled in spite of herself and he kissed her. “There, that’s better, that’s the woman I love, smiling and sweet, and not throwing hatboxes at old women.”

  “She called me a vixen!” Camille looked angry again, but she also looked very lovely, and he felt a strong urge to take her.

  “Apparently you were a vixen if you threw that thing at her. Behave yourself, Camille. These are good country folk up here, they’re simple people and I know you’re terribly bored here, but if you’re good to them, they’ll be true to you forever.” He was thinking of Mary Ellen’s long years of loyalty to him as he said it, and wondered if she’d had her baby.

  She looked petulant again as she got up and walked around the room. “I like it better in the city. And I want to give a ball.” She was like an anxious child, and she wanted her birthday now, no matter what!

  “All in good time, little one. Be patient. I have to do some work here first. You wouldn’t want to be in the city without me, would you?” She shook her head but she didn’t look pleased and he kissed her again, making her forget anyplace but his lips, and a moment later he had her in bed beside him, and the issue of Hannah was long forgotten. Until the next morning, when she attempted to revive it, but he wouldn’t let her. He told her to go for a long healthy walk, and he’d come home to see her at lunchtime. That prospect didn’t appease her a great deal, but there was nothing much she could do about it. He left the house a few moments later and she was left alone with Hannah, who said barely two words to her all day until Jeremiah came home, and then she seemed to have plenty of conversation for him, questions about the mine, gossip about people in town whom Camille didn’t know. It bored her just to listen. In fact, the whole damn Napa Valley bored her. She wanted to go back to San Francisco, and she told him so again after lunch when he saddled up Big Joe again and got ready to go back to the mine. But this time he shook his head and spoke frankly to her.

  “We’re here until the end of the month. Get used to it, Camille. This is the other side of our life. We live here too, not just at Thurston House. We have a life here too. I told you that. I’m a miner.”

  “No you’re not. You’re the richest man in California. Now let’s go back to San Francisco, and live like it.” What she said annoyed him and he tried repeatedly to reason with her, to no avail.

  “I had hoped you would like the Napa Valley, Camille. It’s important to me.”

  “Well, it’s ugly and boring and stupid. And I hate that old woman, and she hates me.”

  “Then read a book. I’ll take you in to the library in Napa on Saturday.” It would mean missing his Saturday morning session with Danny, but Camille was more important just now. He wanted her to settle down to his country life in Napa. He couldn’t be in San Francisco all the time, and he wanted her with him.

  But as things turned out, he spent Saturday morning with neither Camille nor Danny. On Friday afternoon there was a flood at one of the mines, which happened every winter, and they had already lost seven men and fought like dogs to save thirty others. Jeremiah was right down there with the rescue teams, covered with mud, and fighting desperately to bring the men out of pockets where they clung, barely able to breathe, like bats in caves, waiting to be rescued. It was a tense and terrible time as Hannah explained to Camille when she heard the news and Jeremiah didn’t come home. She knew he wouldn’t be back until the last of the men were found, dead or alive, and he would go to see the widows before he came home to his own wife. Camille was subdued when she heard about it, and when he rode slowly in on Big Joe at noon the next day, she knew how grim it had been from the look on his face.

  “We lost fourteen men” were his first words to her, and she felt her eyes fill with tears as though she understood the pain of those women.

  “I’m sorry.” She looked up at him with eyes full of tears, tears for how much he cared as much as for the women who were widowed.

  They had lost Danny’s father among the men, and Jeremiah particularly felt his loss. He had told the boy himself, holding him in his arms as he sobbed. And he would be a pallbearer at the funeral on Monday. It was difficult to explain these things to her. Though they were the realities of his life, she was so young and so new to it all. To her, the only thing real was the beauty of the house he had built her. But there was much, much more than that. And now she was learning.

  Hannah went to run him a hot bath, and Camille went to pour him a cup of the hot broth Hannah had been making. She had none of those skills herself, nor any inclination to learn them. But she poured him the soup now, as Hannah stood alone with him upstairs in the bathroom. She looked at him for a long moment, and then shook her head.

  “I know this isn’t a good time to tell you …” She hesitated for only a fraction of a second. “Mary Ellen’s been in labor for more than two days. I found out yesterday morning, but I never got a chance to tell you. And I heard at the market this morning, she’s still laboring.” They both knew what that meant. She could die. Countless others had before her. “I don’t know if you want to do anything about it.” There was no reproach in her voice. It was a matter-of-fact statement. “But I thought I should tell you.”

  “Thank you, Hannah.” He spoke softly as Camille entered the room with the cup of soup, and looked from one to the other. She instantly sensed that Hannah had been telling him a secret, something about her, she assumed incorrectly.

  “What was she telling you?” she asked him the minute the old woman left the room.

  “Some local gossip. One of my men needs some help. I’m going to go out as soon as I get cleaned up.”

  “But you need some rest.” She looked shocked; he was so tired he was numb. He had worked all night in the freezing wet mud, but for the men they had saved, it was worth it.

  “I’ll rest later, Camille. Can you bring me some more soup? And a cup of coffee?” She did, and fou
nd him sitting in the bathtub. He drained both cups and stood up. He still had the powerful, solid body of his youth. His years of working in the mines as a young man had stood him in good stead. He was still a beautifully built man even at forty-four, and she looked at him now with admiration.

  “You’re beautiful, Jeremiah.”

  He smiled at her. “So are you, little one.” But he was quick to slip into his clothes and get ready to leave, and as she watched him, she had an uneasy feeling.

  “Why are you going now?”

  “I have to. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  “Where are you going?” It was the first time she had quizzed him this way and he wondered why.

  “To Calistoga.” He met her eyes without wavering, but inside he felt a tremor. He was going to assist at the birth of his child, or at least be there if Mary Ellen died, if she hadn’t already.

  “Can I come?”

  “No. Not this time, Camille.”

  “But I want to.” She sounded petulant again, and he pushed her aside.

  “I don’t have time for that now. We’ll talk about it later.” And before she could say another word, he was gone again, on Big Joe, this time moving at considerable speed across the hills, and she wondered just where he was going.

  14

  The big white horse lumbered down the road and up the valley with Jeremiah pressing him onward. All he could think of were the men they had lost the night before, and once or twice he felt himself nodding off to sleep, but Big Joe seemed to know where they were going. The little white house was silent as Jeremiah tied Big Joe to a tree, and he went around to the front, knocked, and let himself in. There was no sound at first, and he suddenly wondered if Mary Ellen had gone to her mother’s house to give birth, and then from above he heard a terrible moaning. He stopped, wondering if she was alone, and then walked softly up the stairs, not quite sure what to do, or why he had come, except that he knew he had to be there. It was his child she was struggling with, and all along he had been afraid it would kill her.

  He stood outside her bedroom for a long moment until the groans ceased, and then all he heard was a soft wail and a man’s voice speaking softly. It was an awkward situation for Jeremiah, and he felt fatigue in every ounce of his body. Standing there, he felt foolish for having come, but he knocked anyway. Maybe if nothing else, he could go in search of the doctor, he decided. But it was the doctor who opened the door to him, his sleeves rolled up, his eyes haggard, with blood smeared all over the front of his shirt, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m sorry … I was wondering if …” He felt more than awkward now. He felt wicked to have left this woman alone to deliver his baby. He looked at the doctor and asked bluntly, “How is she?” He didn’t introduce himself, but there was no need to. The doctor knew who he was. Everyone in the county knew Jeremiah Thurston. He closed the door softly behind him, and came out into the hall to speak to Jeremiah.

  “She’s not good. She’s been laboring since Wednesday night, and we just can’t get that baby out. She’s trying like a dog, and she’s just about wore out.” Jeremiah nodded, afraid to ask if she might die. He already knew the answer. “Do you want to come in?” There was no judgment in his eyes, and maybe it would make a difference to the woman. It couldn’t do any harm, and she was in so much pain, and had been for so long, that she probably wouldn’t care who saw her now, and it was his baby.

  Jeremiah hesitated in the hallway. It was unheard of to attend a woman’s childbirth, but the doctor didn’t seem shocked at the suggestion. “She wouldn’t mind?”

  He looked at Jeremiah honestly. “She may not even know who you are. She’s pretty far gone.” And then he hesitated and seemed to be looking deep in Jeremiah’s eyes. “Can you take it? Ever seen anything like it before?”

  Jeremiah shook his head. “Only livestock.”

  The older man nodded. It would do. Without saying another word, he opened the door and walked into the room, with Jeremiah just behind him. There was a sweet, heavy scent in the room, that of bodies and rosewater and damp sheets, and there were no windows open. She lay on her bed, covered with two blankets, and from her waist down she was surrounded by blood-soaked sheets. It looked as though someone had been murdered in her bed, and the huge belly lay undaunted by her hard work of the past three days. Her legs hung like those of a rag doll and her entire body trembled, and then suddenly, as he watched her, feeling guilt and sorrow wash over him, she was wracked by what looked to him like a convulsion. She gave a soft, jagged moan, which rose slowly to a scream as she thrashed about in the bed, rolling her eyes, and clutching at the air. She spoke incoherently and the doctor went quickly to her. It was easy to see that she was barely conscious, and a huge gush of blood shot from between her legs as she screamed. The doctor plunged his hands into her womb, but there was no progress as he pulled them out again and wiped them on a blood-soaked towel. She whimpered horribly then as she lay there, and Jeremiah slowly approached the bed and looked down at the ravaged face. Had he not known who she was, he wouldn’t have known her.

  The doctor spoke softly to Jeremiah, knowing she couldn’t hear him. She seemed to doze now between contractions. “She’s lost too damn much blood. Something’s sprung loose in there, you can see it by that gush of blood she just had, but I can’t stop it, and the baby’s turned the wrong way. All it’s doing is pushing its shoulder out. We won’t get anywhere that way.” He looked aggrieved as he said it, and the question was plain in Jeremiah’s eyes. “We could lose them both”—he glanced at the exhausted woman on the bed—“her for sure if we don’t get it out soon. She ain’t got much more left in her.”

  “And the baby?” It was his child after all, but all of his concern was for Mary Ellen now. It was as though he had never left her, and Camille had never existed.

  “If I could turn it around. I might get it out, but I can’t do it alone.” He stared at Jeremiah. “Can you hold her?” He nodded, afraid to cause her more pain, and she was awake now, screaming with the beginning of another contraction, and as she locked up, she seemed to see Jeremiah, but it was obvious that she thought she was dreaming.

  “It’s all right.” He smiled gently down at her, and touched her face as he knelt on the floor beside her. “I’m here. You’re going to be fine.” But not for a moment did he believe it, and he had already seen so much death in the past twenty-four hours, he didn’t want to see more now, but he feared that he would as he watched her writhe and convulse, and more blood flowed from her.

  “I can’t … I can’t anymore.…” She was gasping for air, and instinctively he took her shoulders and held her, and then suddenly her head lolled back against his arm. She had fainted, and her complexion was a pale gray. The doctor took her pulse then and looked at Jeremiah.

  “I’m going to try and turn it and pull it out the next time. You hold her. Don’t let her move.”

  Jeremiah followed his orders, speaking softly all the while to Mary Ellen, but her screams were so acute that she couldn’t hear him and she fainted again before the doctor had accomplished what he wanted. Jeremiah felt a sweat break out on his brow, and he was stunned when he glanced at his watch and realized that he had already been there for four hours. “She can’t take much more, Doctor.”

  “I know.” He nodded, and waited for the next contraction, preparing an evil-looking tool which he was going to use to pull out the baby once he turned it. And then suddenly they both watched her convulse and wake up again, this time with wild eyes as Jeremiah held her mercilessly against the bed and the doctor reached into her as far as he could, grappling with the baby. Her screams were a sound Jeremiah knew he would never forget, and it took four more attempts before the doctor had turned the baby to his satisfaction, and another five with the wicked tool he plunged between her legs, as she howled in Jeremiah’s arms. It was a sound that was no longer even human, and then suddenly the doctor gave a ferocious grunt as the sweat poured from Jeremiah’s brow, and he was sudd
enly aware of a change in Mary Ellen’s body, she sank into his arms almost as though she had passed through them and she was a pale grayish green, her breathing so soft and irregular that he wasn’t even sure she was still breathing. But as he turned frantically to the doctor, he saw what had happened. The child had finally sprung from her limbs, and lay dead between her legs, and she was hemorrhaging badly. It was a painful scene to take in all at once, and the doctor silently cut the cord and wrapped the baby in a clean sheet, as he quickly attempted to stanch Mary Ellen’s bleeding. Jeremiah felt a quick surge of defeat to realize that his firstborn had been stillborn, but all he could really think of was its mother, clearly dying in his arms, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The doctor made several desperate attempts, and then covered her with blankets and came to the head of the bed to pat Jeremiah’s shoulder.

  “I’m sorry about the baby.”

  “So am I.” His voice was hoarse. He had seen too much that night and the night before, and he was still deathly afraid for Mary Ellen. “Will she be all right?” He looked pleadingly at the doctor, who looked uncertain.

  “There’s nothing more I can do. I’ll stay here with her, but I can’t promise you anything.” Jeremiah nodded and kept his vigil by her bedside, and it was well into the night before she stirred again, groaning softly and turning her head from side to side, but she didn’t open her eyes until morning.