Chapter 41: Chapter Forty-One

Just before lunch the next day, Mrs. Williams brought her three sons into the store to be fitted for the trousers Jacob had promised. The two older boys complied with Luo Jun’s instructions to hold still while he measured them, but Jacob had to keep his hands firmly on the eight-year-old’s shoulders to hold him still. Jacob was spinning a funny story about a minister and a bear to entertain the lad when the doorbell jangled. He looked over his shoulder and saw Frank striding toward him. The young man’s jaw was set, his face grim.

“Excuse me,” Jacob said to Mrs. Williams and the boys. His pulse pounding in his ears, he rushed to Frank and gripped his shoulders. “What is it? Is it Benji?”

Frank shook his head. “It’s Eleanor, Uncle Jacob. She’s awful sick.”

Jacob dropped his hands from Frank’s shoulders and took a step backward. “Eleanor? But she can’t be. There was no suppuration whatsoever when I left, and Andrew knew how to treat the incision.”

Frank pursed his lips and shook his head again. “She’s sick, Uncle Jacob. She’s got a bad fever and—” he dropped his voice and leaned in close to Jacob, “she’s been bleeding.”

Jacob wrapped his arms around his body to stop their trembling. He couldn’t panic, not now.

“Mr. Lewis?” Mrs. Williams called from the other side of the store. “Is everything all right?”

Jacob swallowed hard and turned around, forcing a smile onto his face. “It would seem my nephew Andrew has sliced open his hand again and needs someone to sew him up,” he said. Luo Jun’s eyebrows shot up, and Jacob stared at him, silently begging the tailor to read his mind.

“Good heavens,” Mrs. Williams said. “The poor dear. And with a new baby to help care for. Go take care of him, Mr. Lewis. And if you’re not back by suppertime, I’ll fetch Grace from your governess. She can stay with us again.”

Luo Jun excused himself and shot into the back of the store. He returned seconds later with Jacob’s black leather bag in his hands. Thank God for him.

“Is it the baby?” Luo Jun asked softly when he thrust the bag into Jacob’s hands.

Jacob shook his head. “Eleanor,” he whispered back. “Sounds bad.”

Luo Jun’s hand flew to his mouth, but he dropped it quickly. “I’ll send for Mr. Lewis to help here. My best wishes for Eleanor, and all of your family.”

Jacob squeezed his hand, shouted an apology to Mrs. Williams, and dashed out of the store, Frank right behind him.

******

Eleanor lay asleep in bed, pale, trembling, and sparkling with sweat. Andrew sat in a chair next to her, his hands wrapped around one of hers. Benji slept in a cradle on the floor next to him. Jacob barely nodded to Andrew and rushed to Eleanor’s side. A finger of ice shot down his spine when he placed his hand on her forehead and found it burning.

“How long has she been like this?” Jacob asked Andrew.

The young man looked at him through puffy, red-rimmed eyes. He, too, was pale, and Jacob wondered how many days the poor boy had gone without sleeping.

“She started feeling poorly about two days ago.” He let go of Eleanor’s hand and rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “She was in pain, but we figured that was from the surgery, so I just kept giving her the laudanum like you told me to. But then she started bleeding off and on. More than Clara told us to expect. She came down feverish last night. And now, well…” He gestured to his wife in the bed.

“Has she been able to nurse the baby?”

“Not much,” Andrew said. “I’ve been giving him some cow’s milk, but it doesn’t seem to agree with him.” He cleared his throat hard and dropped his gaze to the floor. Frank, who had followed Jacob into the bedroom, laid a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“I’m gonna go fetch a wet nurse,” Frank said. “Don’t you worry, Older Brother. I’ll be back before you can say Jack Robinson.” He patted Andrew’s shoulder twice and darted out of the room.

Jacob leaned over Eleanor and whispered her name. Her eyes fluttered open. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but all that came out was a soft groan. She licked her lips and tried again, her voice a thin whisper.

“Jacob.”

Jacob stroked her hair. “It’s all right, Eleanor. We’ll figure this out.” She nodded and closed her eyes. Jacob turned to Andrew.

“I need to examine her. With your permission?”

Andrew nodded, and Jacob pulled down the covers and unbuttoned Eleanor’s nightgown over her belly. He pulled back the bandage and examined her incision. He frowned. The incision looked fine. Better than fine, really. A bit pink around the sutures, but otherwise healing well with no suppuration. He glanced lower and saw blood staining the sheets. Not a lot of blood, but it didn’t smell like blood should. It was sour, not metallic. He covered Eleanor back up and reached for her wrist to take her pulse, his heart already sinking. As he suspected, Eleanor’s heart rate was far too fast. His eyes burning, he turned back to Andrew.

“I think it’s childbed fever,” he said. “I hate to ask you to leave your wife, but would you be so good as to ride for Clara? I need her expertise.”

Andrew leapt from his seat, kissed Eleanor’s forehead and promised to be back soon, and dashed out the door.

Jacob dropped heavily into the chair Andrew had abandoned. He took Eleanor’s hand in both of his, trying to warm her cold, clammy skin. He recognized the signs of sepsis all too well. How many young men had he watched lose their lives to it during the war? Far too many to ever count.

But how had Eleanor contracted it? He and Lyddie and Clara had all dipped their hands in the carbolic acid solution before performing the cesarean section. Had he missed a step after the surgery? He wracked his brain, trying to match his actions with the steps outlined by Dr. Lister. Only a few days had passed, and the memory was already fuzzy, overshadowed by his joy over Benji’s successful birth.

“I must have done something wrong,” he said softly. “But what?”

From his cradle next to the chair, Benji let out a little bleat. Jacob leaned over and scooped him up. He bounced the baby gently in his arms, trying to soothe him.

“Don’t worry, bub,” Jacob said. “Your Uncle Frank is bringing you some lunch.”

Eleanor’s head turned toward the sound of her crying baby, and she opened her eyes. “Benji?” she whispered.

Jacob held the baby near his mother’s face. “He’s all right, Eleanor. Frank is bringing a wet nurse.”

A tear slid down her cheek. “I should be feeding him.”

“You will, as soon as you’re feeling better. Until then, we’ll make sure he eats.”

Eleanor nodded and closed her eyes again.

The minutes ticked by. Jacob stuck a finger in Benji’s mouth to soothe him and silently begged Frank and Andrew to hurry up. God, this was foolish. Living on a ranch an hour’s ride from anywhere. He should have brought Eleanor and the baby to his house in town so he could keep closer watch over her recovery. He never should have let her out of his sight.

He would have gone on berating himself had he not heard the front door bang open. Thank God. He didn’t care if it was Frank or Andrew back first, so long as he had help with at least one of his current charges. He stood, little Benji still in his arms.

“Papa?” Lyddie’s voice rang out, and Jacob nearly dropped the baby. He hurried out of the bedroom and met Lyddie on her way up the hall, Frank right behind her.

“What are you doing here?” He looked over her shoulder at Frank. “I thought you were fetching a wet nurse.”

“He did.” Lyddie took Benji from Jacob’s arms. “Declan still likes to nurse before he goes down for a nap or to sleep at night.” She stared intently at Jacob. “Is it bad?”

Jacob couldn’t meet her eyes. “She’s gone septic.”

Lyddie let out a long breath and closed her eyes for a moment. She looked back up at Jacob. “Take care of her. I’ll take care of this one.” She turned toward the door of a spare bedroom, already unbuttoning the top of her shirtwaist.

Jacob allowed himself a moment to marvel at his daughter. She looked more like him, but her strength, her tenacity, every one of her best qualities came from Hannah.

The wound his wife had left in his heart when she died suddenly ached afresh. Hannah always knew exactly what to do and say. She would have known how to comfort Eleanor and Andrew. Instead, the young couple was stuck with him.

“Uncle Jacob?” Frank said. “Anything I can do?”

Jacob blinked. “No, son. You should go on home and get some rest. I imagine you’re worn out after riding pell-mell all over the county all day.”

Frank stared at him, for an instant doing an uncanny impression of Will’s penetrating gaze. “What do I tell Ma and Pa? They think I just stopped in here this morning to check on everyone and that I’ve been moving cattle to winter pastures the rest of the day.”

Jacob took Frank’s elbow and steered him down the hall and to the living room, out of earshot of the master bedroom in case Eleanor was awake.

“She’s got childbed fever,” he said. “I don’t have much experience with it, so I’ve sent your brother to fetch the midwife. I’m hoping she’s got something up her sleeve.”

Pain flashed across Frank’s face, but he took a deep breath and held himself together. “I’ll tell them. Maybe Ma will know something. Don’t be surprised if she shows up here.”

Jacob nodded, and Frank tore out the front door, slamming it behind him.

When Lyddie finished nursing Benji, she brought the now-sleeping baby into the bedroom and kept watch over Eleanor from a seat on the opposite side of the bed from Jacob. Every so often, he wiped her brow with a cool, damp rag he took from a bowl on the night table. Neither of them spoke until they heard the front door creak open.

“Uncle Jacob?” Andrew’s voice called. “I’ve got the midwife.”

Lyddie raised a hand to indicate Jacob should stay in his seat and took Benji with her out of the bedroom. He heard Andrew’s exclamation of surprise and his and Lyddie’s voices as three sets of footsteps made their way up the hall.

“How is she?” Andrew said when he stepped into the room.

“Unchanged,” Jacob said. He turned to Clara. “Thank you for coming. Lyddie, would you please take Andrew and see about getting him some supper?”

Lyddie took Andrew’s elbow and steered him out of the room.

When the door closed behind them, Clara approached the bed and performed her own examination of Eleanor.

“You’re right, it’s childbed fever,” she said, her voice grim.

“But how?” Jacob said. “We did everything right. We cleansed our hands, my instruments, the incision. How did this happen?”

Clara shrugged, but her voice was gentle. “Sometimes it just happens, Dr. Lewis. You should know that as well as I do.”

Jacob shook his head. “I must have done something wrong.”

Clara’s voice lost its gentleness. “That’s neither here nor there right now. Right now, we have a sick woman in that bed who needs our attention. So you can either help me, or you can go feel sorry for yourself in another room.”

Her harsh tone caught him like a hand across the face, and he worked his jaw. “I suppose I could go to the kitchen and see if there’s any broth,” he muttered.

Clara handed him a small sachet. “Make this tea, too.”

Jacob sniffed it. “Ergot?”

Clara nodded.

“Very good. Once we get this in her, I’ll make some sassafras tea for her fever. It worked for Claire when she had influenza.”

He left the room and met Andrew on his way down the hall. His nephew gripped his arm.

“Eleanor’s going to make it through this, Uncle Jacob,” he said. Jacob winced under his grip. “She will. She’s strong.”

“She is,” Jacob said, “but, Andrew, when someone goes septic—”

“I know, it’s bad,” Andrew said. “Lyddie told me. But Eleanor can make it.”

Jacob studied his nephew’s hazel eyes, burning with certainty. He remembered himself as a much younger man, holding out hope that Hannah would survive her kidney failure, though as a doctor he knew the odds. What would be the greater sin: Letting Andrew hope a while longer or telling him the odds?

He chose neither.

“Go sit with your wife,” he said. “She needs you right now.”

Andrew disappeared into the bedroom, and Jacob hung his head.

“I’m such a damn coward,” he said.