Talk Sweetly to Me

“Yell if you must,” Rose said. “You’re letting the world know the baby is coming.”

Stephen didn’t know when he became the one to hold Mrs. Wells’s hand. He didn’t even know when the room began to lighten from the burnished gold illumination cast by the lamp to the pale gray of dawn. The hours blurred together.

“There you are,” Rose said. “The feet are coming. Oh, Patricia. They’re the most darling feet.”

Mrs. Wells made a noise that might, under other circumstances have been a laugh.

“You’re almost there,” Stephen said. “You have it, Mrs. Wells.”

She gritted her teeth again and let out another cry.

“Patricia, he’s a boy.”

“There you are,” Stephen said. “All your friends will be jealous—they had to birth their babies all the way before they knew the sex. Here you are, beating them out.”

Mrs. Wells did laugh at that. “Yes,” she said with a shake of her head. “Surely they will all be jealous of my thirty-some hours of labor.”

Another push; her hands dug into his arm, hard—but nothing. When her contraction subsided, she gritted her teeth.

“Next one,” he told her.

But it wasn’t—not that one, nor the one after that. Out the window, the sun had come out. The snow had stopped falling; a little light played on tree branches laden with a heavy white blanket.

Another push came, and it, too, was futile. Mrs. Well’s face glistened with sweat; her teeth gritted in determination.

“Rose.” Stephen gestured. She looked up.

“You need to lend your sister a hand on the next push.”

“What—how—should I pull?” She looked dubious.

“No. Have Mrs. Josephs take your place. Come here.”

She stood.

“Set your hand here.” He gestured to her abdomen. “Feel—you should be able to find the baby’s head. A nice round lump. Yes?”

She nodded.

“Good. Then as soon as her next contraction comes, push. Start off gently; push harder and harder as she does, too.”

“But—”

Stephen took hold of her free hand. “You can do it, Rose.”

It came in the next moment. Mrs. Wells gritted her teeth and let out a moan. Rose squared her jaw and pushed. And then—just a moment later—they heard a low wail.

“Oh.” Mrs. Wells’s voice was hoarse and ragged. “Oh, thank God.”

“He looks healthy.” Mrs. Jacobs sat at the edge of the bed. “Not that I’m an expert in babies—but he’s moving and breathing and crying…”

“Let me have him.”

Mrs. Jacobs stood. She wrapped a white cotton towel around dark, glistening chestnut skin. A tiny hand pulled at the air; a foot kicked out. A minuscule face scrunched in protest.

Stephen was not a baby sort of person. They’d always seemed strange, clumsy things to dote over—human beings that were not yet old enough to be interesting.

But this baby might have been the most beautiful thing Stephen had ever seen. Every toe seemed perfectly formed. The whole room seemed bathed with light.

“Excellent work,” he heard himself say. It seemed inadequate to the occasion.

Mrs. Wells took her child, holding him to her. Her eyes were shining. In fact, the entire world seemed to shimmer, and Stephen found himself surreptitiously wiping his own eyes.

Rose and her sister were holding each other, speaking in barely coherent sentences, and Stephen realized he was extraneous.

Scarcely a friend. Definitely not family. He’d only been the man who was close enough to help when no one else was around. He hadn’t slept; his presence in a woman’s bedchamber was entirely improper, and…and…

He stayed long enough to make certain that the cord was cut, the after birth properly expelled.

He wished he could stay longer, wished that he belonged here. But this wasn’t the time to demand attention—not now, when the sisters were basking in victory after a hard-fought war. This moment was about everyone but himself.

He smiled at the two of them and then slowly, quietly slipped out of the room.

MRS. JACOBS HAD LEFT to draw a bath for her sister, who was doing her best to stay awake with little Isaac in her arms, when Rose realized that Stephen was no longer in the room. She absented herself swiftly, ran to the stairwell—and caught sight of him in the entry below, staring bemusedly at the door in the entry.

“Stephen,” she called.

He turned around, tilting his head up. He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt. His shirt had long since lost any hint of crispness; it was unbuttoned past his throat, showing a triangle of pale skin and dark, wiry hairs.

“I’ll be on my way shortly,” he said with a small smile. “It’s just that I’ve realized it’s broad daylight—and it will be extraordinarily shocking if I’m seen walking out of your door. Particularly looking like this.” His hand swept down.

She followed his gesture. His sleeves were rolled to his elbow, showing a shocking, delicious amount of skin. His trousers were wrinkled—which only made them mold to his thighs all the more. Without a coat, the linen of his shirt clung to his shoulders—and if she remembered the gossip correctly, hadn’t he done some rowing at Cambridge? He looked like he had.

And she could see precisely what he meant. No shoes; no coat. It would be shocking indeed.

“Oh, dear.” Rose found herself drifting down the stairs toward him. “Oh, dear. I see what you mean. If you go out like that, you’ll start a veritable riot.”

He blinked once…and then ever so slowly, he began to smile.

“You can’t leave without letting me thank you.”

“Ah, Rose. There’s no need for that.”

She descended the staircase. “There’s every need. After what I told you yesterday—”

A sharp rap sounded on the door. Rose frowned—and then realized that Mrs. Josephs was assisting her sister upstairs and Mr. Josephs had not yet returned. She was the only one who could answer the door, and Stephen was standing right here, in a shocking state of undress. Not that she was doing much better; her gown was stained. It wasn’t just wrinkled; it looked as if it had spent the last year wadded up in the back of the wardrobe.

“Go to the back room,” she said to Stephen. “Quickly.”

He winked at her and disappeared.

Rose smoothed her hands over her gown, which did nothing at all. The cause was hopeless, and so she gave up on it and opened the door anyway.