JOY DOUBLED
Chrissie and Alina went into labor on the same day. It happened suddenly, one June morning. The days were lengthening, the air with true warmth in it, carrying the scent of flowers.
Chrissie stood to put her sewing on the table, having spent the last weeks confined to her bedchamber upstairs. As she bent down to put the sewing on the wooden surface, she felt it.
Fluid, flowing down her thighs. Her womb clenched, suddenly, and she gasped, holding her hand there as the pain stabbed through her.
“Blaine?” she called out. “Alina?”
Ambeal found her, her hand going to her mouth. “Oh, milady!” she said, at once terrified and rejoicing. “It's come. Quickly, now, let's get you into bed and call Mrs. Tavish...”
“No,” Chrissie said, gasping as another pain lashed out at her. “Alina...bring my cousin?”
Ambeal nodded and hurried off, returning a moment later with a strange look.
“Your cousin's been called down with birth pains,” she said.
Chrissie stared. “Her baby is coming too?”
“Yes,” Ambeal said. “Same day. By! We're in for a day.”
They were. Chrissie did not experience much of it, however. Another contraction slammed into her and she gasped, this one even more painful than those pains that had come before it. Hissing in a breath, she sat up in bed and clawed at the chair beside it.
“Fetch someone?”
Ambeal nodded and hurried from the room.
Amabel herself stepped in as midwife, assisting Mrs. Tavish and the cook, both of whom had skills in midwifery. Amabel spent her afternoon, and later on, as the day set and the night fell on the castle, her evening, rushing from the turret to the bedchamber, going between Chrissie and Alina, carrying cloths, water, and salt from one room to the other, her flushed face and bright eyes a comfort to Chrissie.
“How...is...Alina?” she asked, hissing, as another contraction bit into her and she gasped, straining, and clawed onto the cook and Ambeal, who held her upright.
“Oh, Alina's fine,” Amabel said with a smile, scraping stray hair off her own forehead with a distracted hand. “The one worrying me is Blaine.”
“Blaine?” Chrissie felt a sudden stab of alarm. She gripped Ambeal's hand so hard the girl tensed, and Chrissie, feeling bad, tried to relax her grip. “Amabel? What's wrong with him? Please...”
Amabel laughed. “Oh, Chrissie! I didn't mean to worry you. He's well. He's only wild with distraction. He would have come barging in here to check we were caring for you properly. Duncan's down there keeping him company. The pair of them are more nervous than if the castle was besieged. You ought to see them...” she chuckled, covering her mouth with her hand.
Chrissie wanted to laugh, but the pain caught her then and for a while she was not conscious. All she could feel was the pressing, gripping, slamming, grating urgency as her child, big and strong, struggled to get into the world.
As she felt her body almost rip itself apart, the contractions tearing at her womb, she screamed and saw in the eye of her thoughts a small boy, a button-nosed, dark-haired, wise-eyed boy who instantly snatched at her soul.
Screaming, gasping, holding Ambeal's and Mrs. Hollis', the cook, hands as if they would break, her child was born.
She lay back, almost too weak to open her eyes, as Amabel came in, radiant with happiness.
“You have a son,” Amabel's voice said to her, reaching down into the deep half-consciousness where she lay. She sounded richly contented.
I know, Chrissie wanted to whisper. “I can...see?” she asked, sitting up on the pillows. Beside her, Mrs. Hollis was busy collecting linen off the bed for washing, and Ambeal was busy in the corner, washing something.
“Yes,” Amabel said gently. “Of course. Here he is.”
Chrissie looked down at the babe in her arms. He looked up at her, wrinkled face reddened with the hot water in which he had just been bathed. His eyes were creased and closed, one hand resting just outside the swaddling. She stared at him, feeling her chest melt with emotions so complex she could not have ever thought she would feel them.
She sighed. His head was covered with a dark down, and his little face was scrunched and perfect, his nose a button, just as she had seen. His brow was heavy and it had something of Blaine in it. She felt her heart beat faster and, when she unwrapped him, counting his toes, she knew.
His second toes were bent over, a strange deformity she had only seen before in one place. Blaine. This was her husband's son, after all.
He will surprise you.
Chrissie, feeling as if her heart had just soared into the heavens, knew that he certainly had.
“His name is Conn,” she said. “Conn Francis McNeil”
Then, closing her eyes, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
Later, the darkness had filled the room, banished with the golden glow of candles everywhere. Chrissie woke, lifting tired eyelids, and straining for memory. She suddenly recalled why she was so exhausted, each muscle aching.
Conn.
“Conn...” she murmured.
“Chrissie.”
She blinked and turned right. Blaine was there. Blaine, hunched and gray with lack of sleep, his face weary and suddenly aged with worry. Blaine, who reached out and took her hands, holding her hand between his own. Blaine, who kissed her fingers.
“My dearest. Are you safe?”
Chrissie smiled. “Yes,” she said. “Have you seen our son?”
“I have,” Blaine said cautiously. “He was asleep, though, and I did not want to wake you. Or him. So I haven't... not really.”
“We should look,” Chrissie said. Blaine held out a hand as if to try and keep her in bed, but she sat up and slid her feet into the slippers she always left at the edge of the bed. Blaine stood and held her steady as she donned them, face and posture rigid with care. She patted his hand.
Her whole body ached and she felt as if she had fallen down all the stairs in the castle. She went slowly, arm linked through Blaine's as together they made the seemingly long walk across their chamber to the crib where it stood across from the fire.
“Here is our son,” Chrissie whispered.
Blaine looked down at him. Chrissie saw so many emotions cross his face: gentleness, wonder, regret. When his face settled into a look of wistfulness that tore her heart, he whispered, “He's wonderful.”
Chrissie swallowed hard. “He is our son, Blaine.” She reached down and, very tenderly, not wanting to wake the sleeping child, rolled his blanket aside. “Look,” she said, pointing to his feet.
Blaine looked, a puzzled frown on his face. He looked at the toes, then back at her. He counted them. He looked at Chrissie, questions written in his eyes. He looked back at the toes. Then he suddenly understood. He stepped back and sat down in the chair, heavily. He stared at her. Then he covered his face with his hands.
“Oh, Chrissie,” he whispered. “They're like mine, aren't they? They are. I thought...I thought...” he swallowed hard and Chrissie saw as he felt the relief and he broke down. He sobbed. “I would have loved him anyway, Chrissie,” he said to her sincerely as she came and sat down lightly on the bed opposite, taking his hands. “I would have! I swear it. He is your son, and that would be enough for me. But to see...to know...” he swallowed hard. “I...I can't believe it.”
He gave her a shaky smile and Chrissie felt her heart melt. She leaned forward and kissed his lips and the salt of their tears mingled on their mouths, warm, clear, and cleansing.
Later, when he lay beside her in their bed, his hands resting on her chest, her head on his shoulder, he whispered into her hair.
“Alina is well, too. She was very weak. I think she is still sleeping. But she is recovering fast.”
“How is she?” Chrissie asked quickly, rolling over and half-sitting, weight propped on one elbow as she looked earnestly into his eyes. She felt wretched! In her own relatedness and fatigue she had momentarily forgotten Alina and her perils. “Is she well? Is the babe well? How is she?”
“She is well,” Blaine chuckled. He kissed her hair. “So is the babe. Do you want to go and see her now? I'm sure she would not mind.”
“Oh, yes!” Chrissie nodded fervently, and together they slipped out of bed, throwing a thick fur cape over her shoulders for warmth. So Alina had a daughter. That would please her, Chrissie thought. Perhaps the babe would grow to be a seer, like Alina herself. It seemed it ran in the family.
Out of the bed it was cold. They struggled down the corridor together, wincing in the chill air, heading to the turret room where Alina had given birth some hours before.
They slid open the door, wincing as it creaked. Inside, all was silent. Alina was in bed now, too, apparently asleep, her dark hair loose about her shoulders, pale face utterly reposeful in deep sleep. Amabel was sitting with her, fast asleep in a chair by the bed, head tipped back. So was Duncan: he sat at the end of the bed in a wooden chair, head slumped forward, breath wheezing in the easy rhythm of rest.
Chrissie and Blaine smiled at the three of them and tiptoed to the corner, where a cradle was standing at the fireside. Together they peered in.
A small face lay on the pillow, eyes closed. The hair was a faint suggestion of golden brown, like Duncan. The face itself was elfin, delicate and composed, just like Alina.
“She has a daughter,” Chrissie said, more a statement than inquiry. Blaine had earlier mentioned “her”. This child seemed feminine already with her graceful features.
“Yes,” Blaine breathed back.
“Have they named her yet?” Chrissie smiled, looking at the elfin face, and noticing how different it was to Conn already. He had a heavy brow and a compact face, where this babe had the delicacy of Alina, with a pouting mouth that gave her a strangely determined air.
“Not yet,” Blaine whispered. “At least, I don't think so. Duncan didn't tell me. I was too busy trying to claw the door down to get to where you were.”
Chrissie stared at him, grinning. They both laughed, and then tensed, afraid they had woken someone in the room. Duncan stirred in his sleep, then sighed and leaned back. Chrissie and Blaine tiptoed out of the turret room.
Back in bed together in their own chambers, they snuggled close. Chrissie sighed, feeling sleepy, contented, and happier than she could remember.
“I was so frightened,” Blaine confessed as he stroked her hand.
“Oh?” Chrissie said sleepily, his voice only half-reaching through her slumbering state.
“I think that...” Blaine swallowed hard. “I think we should not do this again.”
A small silence grew as Chrissie struggled to figure out what he meant.
“Do what?”
“Have another babe,” Blaine said slowly. “I don't think I could go through that again.”
Chrissie felt the laughter build up inside her. It bubbled from her lips, a wave of laughter so merry that she clasped her hand to her lips, afraid it would wake Conn who slumbered in his bed by the wall.
“Blaine,” she said, hiccupping as the laughter subsided slowly.
“What?” He asked, helplessly, his face stretched in a slightly bemused grin.
“I think we'll have to see what happens. But I do love how worried you were about me.” He reached up and gently touched his cheek.
“Of course I was,” he said, affronted. He kissed her hair and Chrissie kissed his lips and felt herself snatched into delicious drowsiness again.
I do not, she thought as she closed her eyes, still smiling, recall ever being quite so contented.
They slept.
The next morning, Chrissie went in to see Alina. She was deathly pale, but her face was suffused with a lightness that touched Chrissie's heart. She looked so, so happy.
“So?” Alina asked, brow raised. “Your surprise came into the world?”
Chrissie laughed, feeling the lightness of relief and joy flow through her. “Yes. Thank you, Alina. Thank you so much for knowing, long before I did.”
Alina smiled. “I am so glad for you. You are so happy.”
“I am!” Chrissie said, feeling as if she glowed with happiness. “Isn't it wonderful?”
“Well,” Alina said, smiling sourly. “I feel as if all the denizens of Hell have spent two weeks cutting me in half. My head hurts and I'm exhausted. But, yes, it's wonderful.”
Chrissie laughed, collapsing onto the bed beside her. It was a fair description, she thought with a smile. It was exactly how she felt. However, yes, it was wonderful.
“I have something for you,” Alina said gently. “I think you'll find it useful.”
She leaned over, reaching for something that lay next to the bedside table and Chrissie tensed, worried that she would hurt herself trying to reach it. She located it and lay back on the pillows, exhausted even by that small effort.
“I made it while we were both confined,” Alina said, holding out the gift. It was white linen, sewn with white silk thread and, here and there, the trace of white ribbon and, at the top hem, a single pearl.
Chrissie breathed out in wonder. It was a christening robe. Beautiful, worked to exquisite detail in French embroidery stitches, decorated with white ribbon and a single pearl at the throat of the gown.
“Oh, Alina!” she breathed, feeling tears flood her eyes, “it's beautiful! The old christening robe was...”
“Was lost in a fire. I know,” Alina smiled. Chrissie had been christened in the Connolly robe, which had been burned when part of the turret caught fire, many years before. Chrissie, blinking to hold back her tears, swallowed hard. Trust Alina to think of it.
“It's perfect,” she sniffed, imagining her son wearing the beautiful robe already.
“He needs a good one, and a good name,” Alina said quietly. “There's a great deal ahead of that young man.”
Chrissie swallowed. She was half-tempted to ask Alina more, but on the other hand was not sure she truly wished to know. It would all unfold as it was meant to, she knew, and perhaps it would be better if she did not know of her son's destiny. She would not wish to influence it.
“I have decided to call him Conn Francis,” Chrissie said softly.
Alina smiled. “Your mother would have been so proud.”
Chrissie felt her throat tighten on tears then, and squeezed Alina's hand.
“As would yours be now.”
Alina blinked rapidly. “I hope so. I do.” The two of them sat in the quiet of the room, the pale sunlight of winter marking a long path of light before them on the floor. They were happy.