The Jane Austen Society(28)

Dr. Gray wrapped Adeline in her housecoat and carried her down the narrow staircase as carefully and as quickly as he dared. By the time they reached the bottom landing the ambulance was pulling up at the end of the garden path. The ambulance driver and the attendant jumped down from the vehicle and rushed up to meet them with the stretcher.

As the ambulance raced in the night to Alton, Dr. Gray stayed by her side, holding a damp towel to her forehead with one hand while holding her ice-cold hand in his other. He could do nothing else for her.

Dr. Howard Westlake, the surgeon and a longtime colleague of Dr. Gray’s, was not hopeful and called for additional blood supplies to be rushed over from the Winchester hospital’s new blood depot eighteen miles away, in case transfusion became necessary. Both he and Dr. Gray had learned the hard way over the years to plan ahead whenever local villagers ran into serious trouble, given the distance from the better-prepared urban Hampshire hospital. Dr. Gray asked for a quick second of private consultation as Adeline was prepped for surgery.

“I think it’s placenta abruption,” Dr. Gray said in a half whisper. “All the signs are there. The bleeding, the uterine tenderness, the fetal heart rate.”

Dr. Westlake was watching him carefully. “Did you think of trying to deliver the baby right then and there?”

Dr. Gray shook his head. “The fetus is in too much distress. And besides, they are both in danger, as you know. They needed to be here in the hospital, just in case.”

He paused to look through the long narrow window to the operating theatre and could just make out Adeline’s long brown hair fanned out behind her head, now obscured by the anaesthesia mask.

“Howard, you agree with me, that she should be the primary patient, right? All the literature says that—”

“Benjamin, we’ve talked about this plenty before—you know how I feel. You know you have nothing to worry about there.”

Dr. Gray nodded but looked so stricken, the surgeon wasn’t sure his words were sinking in.

“Go home and get some rest, Ben, alright? It’s going to be a long night, and no matter what happens, Mrs. Grover is going to need you on the morrow. We’ll call when it’s over.”

But Dr. Gray stayed all night at the hospital, unable to sleep. He knew he could make sleep come soon enough, when he wanted it to. Right now he wanted to stand sentinel at the gates of hell and keep Adeline from falling through. She was so young, with so many years ahead of her. This did not have to be the end, for her, no matter what happened—he would do his absolute best to see to that. And with that notion, something inarticulate and grasping stirred inside him, the very essence of life.





CHAPTER NINE

Chawton, Hampshire

November 1945

It had been over a month since the loss of Adeline’s daughter, and Dr. Gray had been summoned to her bedside yet again.

He knew that the degree of her loss was incalculable. It was measured both in reality and in the extinguishing of all the motherly hopes and dreams that had carried her through the earlier waves of grief over Samuel’s death. By holding on to the idea of the baby in order to survive that pain, she had invested all she had left, only to now be left with nothing. From all his years of practice, Dr. Gray knew only one thing for sure: that some of us are given too much to bear, and this burden is made worse by the hidden nature of that toll, a toll that others cannot even begin to guess at.

She had grabbed at his arm that very day, pulling hard on the sleeve of the suit jacket he always wore, as if to keep her back from some invisible brink.

“I just want the pain to end. You have to help me.”

“I know, Adeline, I know. But it will ease, somewhat, with time, I promise you.”

“Don’t lie to me—you of all people know it won’t.” She turned her face away from him and let his arm drop hard, almost hostilely. “How can it, when I’ve lost everything—everyone—that I’ve ever loved? What would that say about me, if I could just go on?”

He stared down at the back of her head. “No one will ever judge you for trying to be happy again.”

“I don’t care what others think,” she said harshly. “I gave everything I had to Samuel and then to our baby, every last bit of me. I did it knowing how much I could get hurt—I took my chance and I was wrong.” She gave a strange, bitter laugh.

“You speak as if you could have held back somehow, from life.”

She turned back to look at him.

“Can’t I? Don’t you? You certainly act like you do.”

He shifted his weight a bit under her gaze. “We’re not talking about me, Adeline.”

“Maybe we should be.”

“Adeline, you have every right to be angry and upset. But I don’t think it’s appropriate to direct it at me, as your doctor and, I hope, your friend—do you?”

She turned her head away from him again. “Appropriate. Fine. I’m sorry. Just give me something, please, anything to help me sleep. Please, just for a bit. Just this once.”

He reached into his black bag and took out the tiny vial he had filled back in his office, knowing she would ask for it again, knowing he would not be able to say no. He prayed she wouldn’t ask him for anything more.

He placed the vial down on the bedside table without a word, then left the darkened bedroom just as silently.