Chapter 10

They all looked a little rough around the edges on New Year’s Day. A great deal of champagne had been poured the night before, especially since Josiah was home. They had all felt very festive. And they were quiet at dinner that night, still recovering. Everyone wanted to talk to Josiah, and tell him what they were doing. They were careful not to ask him any questions about the war. But Sybil noticed that he seemed more mature than when he left. His portrait was complete by then, hanging in the front hall, and was a perfect likeness.

Bettina said very little, and she excused herself at the end of dinner and said she didn’t feel well. Gwyneth went upstairs to check on her, and nodded at Sybil before she left the dining room, and whispered to her that it had started. They had just called the midwife. She was coming right over, and was bringing the nurse with her.

“You don’t think she should go to the hospital, or have a doctor come here?” Sybil asked, worried.

“Why?” Gwyneth smiled at her. “She’s not ill, and there have been no complications.”

“Will they give her anything for the pain?” Sybil asked, dreading the experience for her without it.

“Some laudanum drops, if she needs them, but she probably won’t. I never did,” Gwyneth said bravely. But the baby wasn’t as small as it had been a few weeks earlier. It had grown exponentially, and her belly looked twice the size it had a month before. It was no longer such a small baby.

Gwyneth glanced at Sybil with a warm look in her eyes. “Do you want to come?”

“Would Bettina want that?” Sybil hesitated. She didn’t want to intrude—she wasn’t a relative, after all.

“She’d be grateful to have you with us,” Gwyneth said sensibly. “You’ve had babies too. It will help her get through it.” Sybil nodded then, and told Blake what she was doing. And then the group disbanded and Blake left with their children. Sybil followed Gwyneth up the grand staircase to the floor above theirs, and found herself in an enormous bedroom she didn’t remember seeing before, and then she realized it had been Bettina’s bedroom in the past, and still was.

Phillips let the midwife in half an hour later, and escorted her to Bettina’s room. Bettina was in bed, in a freshly pressed nightgown, when the midwife came in, the nurse was folding sheets and towels, and getting things ready for the birth.

Bettina was glad to see Sybil with her mother, and smiled at her. There were beads of sweat on her brow, and a moment later she was panting and couldn’t talk. Everyone in the room was calm. Gwyneth sat down on a chair, and a little while later the midwife and the nurse checked the baby’s progress. Bettina gritted her teeth in stoic silence, as Sybil winced for her. She could see how much pain she was in, and couldn’t imagine how she would get through it without the benefit of modern medications, but no one in the room looked concerned. The midwife listened to the baby’s heartbeat regularly with a stethoscope she kept around her neck, and a little while later, they pulled back the covers, slipped sheets under her that they had brought with them, and covered her with another sheet after they took off her nightgown. They were getting ready, and Bettina looked dogged as she beckoned to her mother and Sybil. They each stood on a side of the bed and held her hands, and her mother smoothed back her hair and wiped her brow with a cloth dipped in lavender water.

“Mama, this is awful,” she said in a raw voice and clenched her jaw so she wouldn’t scream. Sybil had never seen anything so brave in her life, and couldn’t bear the thought that it could have all been so different, but this was what they expected and how they did it at the time. All of Gwyneth’s babies had been born at home, in the bedroom Sybil and Blake now slept in. She had no idea where Bert and Gwyneth’s room was now, or if they had one. She had never asked.

“It won’t be long,” the midwife said after she looked between Bettina’s legs, then pulled them back and she and the nurse each held one and told her to push.

“I can’t,” Bettina said. “It hurts too much.” And then she couldn’t keep the baby from coming and she had to push it out, as all four women encouraged her while Sybil and her mother held her hands. She worked hard for half an hour, and finally the baby tore through her, and nothing could stop it or slow it down. With one long shattering cry, the baby she hadn’t wanted and that had made her so ill lay on the bed between her legs and gave a soft wail, and looked up at all of them, as Sybil felt tears roll down her cheeks. She had never seen a woman as courageous as Bettina.

It was a girl. The midwife picked the baby up and cleaned her, cut the cord, and handed her to the nurse. She did some repair work on Bettina, and gave her some drops to make her sleep, and then they cleaned her up and put her daughter in her arms. Bettina was already a little groggy but no longer in pain. The infant stared at her mother. The room was quiet and peaceful. It was so different from what Sybil remembered from when her own children were born. There had been frenzied activity, people and noise, and incredible joy. The baby made small snuffling sounds, and Bettina had been silent for most of it. She leaned down and kissed the top of the baby’s head as she held her. And then the midwife put her to Bettina’s breast, and covered them both with a light blanket. They made it all seem so simple and natural. Gwyneth was smiling down at her first grandchild, and kissed her daughter and told her what a good job she’d done. A few minutes later, Bettina drifted off to sleep from the drops. And as she watched her, Sybil was sorry that Bettina’s husband wasn’t there, and that there hadn’t been great love or joy in the room. She deserved so much more. But there was a sense of peace, as the baby drifted off to sleep too.

“What are you going to call her?” the midwife asked Bettina when her eyes fluttered open again.

“Lili. Lili Butterfield,” she said clearly, and drifted off again. She had decided not to give the baby her father’s name, since his family didn’t want either of them, and Bettina realized now how little she had known him. She preferred to give her child her own name, and Gwyneth nodded her approval. Sybil realized how alone Bettina had been at that moment, when the baby was born, even with four women in the room to help her. The baby’s father should have been somewhere in the house, pacing and waiting for news. But Bettina looked content as she fell into a deep sleep. A little while later, Gwyneth disappeared to her own room to tell Bert, and Sybil went downstairs to the room where Bettina had been born, and found Blake was sound asleep. Sybil got into her nightgown and slipped into bed beside him, and was surprised to see the sun coming up. The night had gone quickly, as they watched Lili come into the world, the baby still felt like a miracle to Sybil, even without a father to love her. Life would somehow provide what she needed. Lili’s journey had begun.