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“Oh,” I said, mildly relieved.
“Mind ye,” she said, in a lower voice, “sometimes they do.”
Even Mrs. Martins seemed a trifle worried as the pains went on, with no appreciable progress. Je
“Could the child be… backward?” I asked, in a low voice, shy about suggesting such a thing to an experienced midwife. Mrs. Martins seemed not at all offended by the suggestion, though; the lines between her brows merely deepened as she looked at the straining woman.
When the next pain eased, Mrs. Martins flung back the sheet and nightgown, and went rapidly to work, pressing here and there on the huge mound with quick, skilled fingers. It took several tries, as the probing seemed to incite the pains, and examination was impossible during the relentlessly powerful contractions.
At last she drew back, thinking, tapping one foot abstractedly as she watched Je
As though this had been a signal, Mrs. Martins started forward with decision, beckoning to me.
“Lean her back a bit, lass,” Mrs. Martins instructed me, not at all disconcerted by Je
At the next relaxation, Mrs. Martins plunged into action. Grasping the child through the momentarily flaccid walls of the womb, she heaved, trying to turn it. Je
Mrs. Martins tried again. And again. And again. Unable to keep from pushing, Je
Then it worked. There was a sudden strange fluid shifting, and the amorphous bulk of the child turned under Mrs. Martins’s hands. All at once, the shape of Je
“Now push.” She did, and Mrs. Martins dropped to her knees beside the bed. Apparently she saw some sign of progress, for she rose and hastily snatched a small bottle from the table where she had put it when she came in. She poured a small amount of what looked like oil on her fingertips, and began to rub it gently between Je
Je
During the next contraction, Mrs. Martins put her hand on top of Je
“Push with me on the next one,” the midwife said. “It’s almost here.”
I put my hands above Mrs. Martins’s on Je
A little later, I straightened from wiping Je
“I’m all right,” Je
“Go tell Ian,” she said. “He’ll be worrit.”
To my cynical eyes, it didn’t look it. The scene in the study, where Ian and Jamie had taken refuge, strongly resembled a premature celebratory debauch. An empty decanter stood on the sideboard, accompanied by several bottles, and a strong alcoholic fume hung over the room like a cloud.
The proud father appeared to have passed out, head resting on the laird’s desk. The laird himself was still conscious, but bleary-eyed, leaning back against the paneling and blinking like an owl.
Outraged, I stamped over to the desk and gripped Ian by the shoulder, shaking him roughly and ignoring Jamie, who pushed himself upright, saying, “Sassenach, wait…”
Ian was not quite unconscious. His head came up reluctantly, and he looked at me with a set, rigid face, eyes bleak and pleading holes. I realized suddenly that he thought I had come to tell him that Je
I relaxed my grip and patted him gently instead.
“She’s all right,” I said, softly. “You have a daughter.”
He laid his head down on his arms again, and I left him, his thin shoulders shaking as Jamie patted his back.
The survivors now revived and cleaned up, the Murray-Fraser families gathered in Je
“Hello, wee Maggie,” he whispered, touching the tiny button of a nose with one fingertip.
His new daughter, unimpressed by the introduction, closed her eyes in concentration, stiffened, and urinated on her father’s shirt.
During the brief bustle of hilarity and repair occasioned by this lapse of good ma
“My mama!” he declared, burrowing into Je
“Well, who else?” she asked reasonably. “Here, laddie.” She hugged him, and kissed the top of his head, and he relaxed, reassured, and snuggled against her. She gently pushed his head down, stroking his hair.
“Lay your head then, man,” she said. “Past your bedtime. Lay your head.” Comforted by her presence, he put a thumb in his mouth and fell asleep.
Given a turn to hold the baby, Jamie proved remarkably competent, cupping the small fuzzy skull in the palm of one hand like a te
At last we made our way to our own room, which seemed silent and empty in contrast to the warm family scene we had just left, Ian kneeling by his wife’s bed, hand resting on small Jamie as Je
Jamie closed the door quietly behind him. Without speaking, he came behind me and undid the fastenings of my gown. His hands reached around me and I lay back gratefully against his chest. Then he bent his head to kiss me and I turned, putting my own arms around his neck. I felt not only very tired, but very tender, and not a little sad.
“Perhaps it’s as well,” Jamie said slowly, as though to himself.
“What’s as well?”
“That you’re barren.” He couldn’t see my face, buried in his chest, but he must have felt me stiffen.
“Aye, I knew that long ago. Geillis Duncan told me, soon after we wed.” He stroked my back gently. “I regretted it a bit at first, but then I began to think it was as well; living as we must, it would be verra difficult if you were to get with child. And now” – he shivered slightly – “now I think I am glad of it; I wouldna want ye to suffer that way.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” I said, after a long while, thinking of the rounded, fuzzy head and tiny fingers.