Danielle Steel - A Good Woman

As promised, Annabelle and Josiah stopped off to say good-bye to her mother on the way out of town. The Hispano-Suiza, driven by Thomas, was taking them into the city, to meet their train that afternoon. They were going to Chicago for the first leg of the trip and from there would change trains to continue their journey west to Wyoming, to a ranch Josiah had been to once and loved. They would ride horses, and go fishing and hiking amid the incredible scenery of the Grand Tetons. Josiah had told her it was more beautiful than the Alps in Switzerland-and they didn’t have to take a ship to get there. They would be staying for almost three weeks. Then they would come home to New York to start looking for a new home big enough for them and the children they hoped to have. Consuelo was hoping that, like Hortie, Annabelle would come home pregnant from their honeymoon.

Consuelo searched her daughter’s face the next morning, looking for changes, and the tenderness of a woman loved that hadn’t been there before, but what she saw was the beaming child she had loved all her life. Nothing had changed. Consuelo was pleased to see that she had adjusted well. There was no recalcitrance, or look of frightened amazement that one saw sometimes on brides’ faces after the wedding night. Annabelle was as happy as ever, and still treated Josiah more like an old friend than a new love. Before saying goodbye to her mother they had stopped at Josiah’s house to say good-bye to Henry too.

Consuelo was having lunch with Josiah’s father and stepmother when the new couple stopped by. Everyone was in good spirits and talking of the delights and beauty of the night before. Her mother hugged her tightly again, she and Josiah thanked his father for the rehearsal dinner, and they left in the Hispano-Suiza moments later.

She would have liked to stop and say good-bye to Hortie too, but her mother said that James had sent a message that she was in labor. She had made it through the wedding, and gone into labor during the night. Her mother and the doctor were with her, and James was having lunch with friends. Annabelle hoped it would go well for her. She knew Hortie was nervous about the size of the baby, and how difficult it might be. One of their friends, who had made her debut at the same time they did, had died in childbirth only months before. It had been sobering for all of them. It happened, and sometimes couldn’t be avoided, and often there were infections afterward, which almost always killed the mother. So Annabelle said a quiet prayer for Hortie as they left, wondering if her own mother was right, and it would be a boy. It was an exciting thought, which made her wonder too if she would return from their honeymoon pregnant, with a baby conceived in the wilds of Wyoming.

She was grateful that Josiah had been kind and respectful of her the night before. Adding the newness of sex to such an overwhelming day would have been too much, although she would have been willing if he’d insisted. But she had to admit, she was glad he hadn’t. He was the perfect, kind, understanding husband, and as he had promised in the beginning, still her very best friend. She looked at him adoringly as they drove into the city, and they chatted some more about their wedding, and he described Wyoming to her again. He had promised to teach her how to fish. To Annabelle, it seemed like the perfect honeymoon. And Josiah agreed when she said it to him.

They got to New York at five o’clock, in perfect time for their train at six, and settled into the largest first-class compartment on the train. Annabelle clapped her hands in delight when she saw it.

“This is so much fun! I love it!” she giggled as he laughed happily at her.

“You are such a silly girl, and I love you.” He put his arms around her and kissed her as he drew her close to him.

They were spending the next day in Chicago, before getting on another train and heading west that night. He had promised to show her the city during their brief stopover, and had taken a suite at the Palmer House Hotel, so they could rest comfortably between trains. He had thought of everything. He wanted Annabelle to be happy. She deserved it after all she had lost, and all they’d suffered, and he vowed to himself as the train left Grand Central Station that he would never let her down. He meant every word of it. It was a solemn promise to him.

By six o’clock that afternoon, as Josiah and Annabelle’s train left the station, Hortie’s baby had not yet been born. It had been an arduous and agonizing labor. The baby was large, and she was small. She had been screaming and writhing for hours. James had come home after lunch, and found her screams so piercing and disconcerting that he had poured himself a stiff drink and gone out again to dine with friends. He hated to think of Hortie going through that, but there was nothing he could do. It was what women did. He was sure that the doctor, her mother, and two nurses were doing all they could.

He was drunk when he came home at two o’clock that morning, and stunned to hear the baby still hadn’t come. He was too inebriated to discern the look of terror on his mother-in-law’s face. Hortie was so weak by then that her screams had diminished, much to his relief, and a piteous, animal moaning sound drifted throughout the house. He put a pillow over his head, and went to sleep. A sharp rapping on the guest-room door, where he was sleeping, as far away as possible from the bedroom where his wife was delivering, finally woke him up at five A.M. It was his mother-in-law telling him that his son had been born, and weighed just under ten pounds. The baby had made mincemeat of her daughter, but she didn’t mention that to James. If he’d been more sober, he might have figured it out for himself. He thanked her for the news, and went back to sleep, promising to see Hortie and the baby in the morning when he woke. He couldn’t have seen her then anyway, the doctor was sewing her up, after the tears the birth had caused.

Hortie had been in hard labor for twenty-six hours, with a ten-pound boy. She was still sobbing miserably as the doctor made careful stitches, and they finally gave her chloroform. It had been a difficult birth, and she could easily have died. They still had to worry about infection, so she wasn’t out of the woods yet. But the baby was fine. Hortie was a lot less so. Her initiation into motherhood had been a trial by fire of the worst kind. Her mother would whisper about it to her friends for months to come. But all that would ever be said publicly was that the baby had arrived, and mother and child were fine. The rest could only be said among women, behind closed doors, keeping the agony of childbirth, and its appalling risks, carefully hidden from the ears of men.

When Consuelo heard about it from Hortie’s mother the next day, she was sorry that Hortie had had such a rough time. Robert had been easy for Consuelo, but Annabelle had been more challenging, as she was born breech, feet first, and miraculously they’d both survived. She just hoped that Annabelle herself would have an easier delivery than Hortie’s. They were doing everything possible so infection wouldn’t set in now. After such a difficult birth, it was often hard to avoid, although no one knew why.

Consuelo said she would come to visit her in a few days, but her mother admitted that Hortie wasn’t up to it yet, and might not be for a while. They were planning to keep her in bed for a month. She said that James had seen Hortie and the baby for a few minutes, and they had pinked up her cheeks and combed her hair, but she just cried. He was over the moon about his son. It made Consuelo think of Arthur, who had always been so kind to her after their children’s births. For a young man, he had been unusually compassionate and understanding. And she had a feeling Josiah would be too. But James was barely more than a boy himself, and had no idea what delivering a baby entailed. He had said at the wedding that he hoped they had another one soon, and Hortie had laughed and rolled her eyes. Consuelo felt sorry for her, knowing what she had just been through. She sent over a basket of fruit and a huge bouquet of flowers for her that afternoon, and prayed that she’d recover soon. It was all that one could do. She was in good hands. And Consuelo knew only too well that after this birth, Hortie would no longer be the carefree girl she had once been. She had paid her dues.

As it turned out, Hortie made it out of bed in three weeks instead of a month. The baby was thriving, they had a wet nurse for him, and they had bound Hortie’s breasts to stop her milk. She was still a little wobbly on her feet, but looking well. She was young and healthy, and she had been lucky to escape infection, and was no longer at risk. Consuelo had been to visit her several times. James was bursting with pride over his enormous son, whom they had named Charles. The baby got fatter every day. And three weeks after his birth, they drove Hortie back to New York in an ambulance, to continue her recovery in town. She was happy to go home. Consuelo left Newport on the same day.

It was lonely for her once she got back to New York. The house was deadly quiet without Annabelle, who was always so full of light and life and fun, always checking on her mother, and offering to do things with her. The full weight of her solitude and the loneliness of her future hit Consuelo like a bomb when she got home. It was hard being there alone. And she was grateful that the newlyweds were due back from their honeymoon in two days. She had run into Henry Orson on the street and he seemed lonely too. Josiah and Annabelle brought so much light and joy to those around them, that without them, everyone felt deprived. Consuelo, Hortie, and Henry could hardly wait for them to come back.