Sometimes Hazel was so exhausted she found herself staring with her eyes open and unblinking while she stood at her worktable in the dungeon, not sleeping but not entirely conscious either.
“Easy there,” Jack said, catching Hazel as she swayed standing up one morning. He was in the dungeon with her, helping Hazel by brewing a fresh batch of wortflower-root tea the way he remembered his mother had done.
“It’s the smell of that,” Hazel murmured with a small smile after Jack had helped her settle into a chair. “That tea smells like loam and dung.”
“Ay, fortunately it only tastes a little bit worse than it smells,” Jack said. “Here, I’ll brew a pot of black for both of us.” Jack stood to leave when they heard a soft knock on the door.
Jack and Hazel looked at each other. Hazel was suddenly entirely awake.
Another soft knock. And then a moan of pain.
Hazel made to rise, but Jack lifted his hand. “I’ll get it.”
Jack unlatched the door and swung it open, and Hazel leaned forward to see who had arrived in the doorway: a young woman clutching her belly, doubled over in pain, her blond hair hanging lank around her face.
“Is this the place?” she said to her feet. “Please, is this the place where someone can help me?”
“Isabella?” Jack said. The girl lifted her head and revealed eyes wet with tears. “Isabella,” he repeated. He took in her pregnant belly.
She moaned.
Hazel walked up behind him. She saw the blood and fluid between the pregnant girl’s legs. “For heaven’s sake, Jack, step aside. There’s a woman giving birth in the doorway.”
Jack blinked rapidly and backed into the dungeon. His mouth hadn’t closed fully since he had first seen Isabella—here—and pregnant.
Hazel assessed the scene quickly. “Dear Lord. I’m afraid there’s no time to get you up to the main house,” she said. “Here, sit down quick. Jack, run up to Hawthornden and fetch Iona. Tell her to bring me a basin of water.”
Jack nodded and with only one more quick glance at Isabella, he ran outside.
“Was that … Jack Currer?” Isabella asked as Hazel gently guided her into the wooden chair.
Hazel was distracted with the mental checklist of everything she would need to do to deliver a baby. “What? Jack Currer. Yes. Do you know him?” Hazel’s eyes widened. “Is he the, uh—？”
Isabella kept her hand on her belly. “The father? No. He enlisted. His regiment moved down to Yorkshire. I was supposed to join him, but—” She gestured down to her stomach. “We were supposed to get married too.”
“It’ll be two of you joining him in no time at all,” Hazel said. “Family together soon enough.”
“He wasn’t always a soldier. He was a dancer at the theater with me. Jack worked there too. In the rafters. He was always kind to me.”
Hazel smiled. “He is kind.”
“But then the theater closed with the fever and now my Thomas is away and I just don’t know how I’m going to get through this.” Isabella’s hands shook, and another convulsion took hold of her. “It hurts so bad! They didn’t tell me it would hurt this bad.” A halo of sweat had appeared along Isabella’s hairline. “I just knew I couldn’t go down to the poorhouse hospital, with the things I’ve heard, women crying and lying in their own sick. I just didn’t know what I was supposed to do.”
Hazel tried to make her voice sound as confident as possible. “Isabella. I need you to listen to me. My name is Hazel Sinnett. This baby is coming, and you and I, we’re going to get through this together.” Hazel lit the rest of the candles in the laboratory. “Where is Iona with the water?” she muttered.
On cue, Iona burst through the door, bearing a basin. Jack trailed behind with several rags, looking slightly queasy.
“Oh, marvelous. Iona, set the bucket there, and help me. Jack, help me too. We need to get her onto the table.”
The three of them gently guided Isabella until she was lying flat on Hazel’s workbench. “Uh, Iona, if you could—my copy of Beecham’s, please?”
Isabella’s panicked eyes went from Hazel to Jack to Hazel again. “A book? What’s the book for?”
“Nothing! Nothing,” Hazel said, frantically flipping through the pages. “Just checking one thing. Yes. Yes, fine. Here.” Hazel pulled dried valerian from one of her jars. “Chew on this. To help the pain. Deep breaths, that’s very important. You’ve got to keep breathing. Lie down this way, with your legs up this way. Remember: keep breathing.”