Love & War (Alex & Eliza #2)(24)

Peggy still looked frazzled, and the truth was, while their mother had given birth quite a number of times already, the three older girls were still shielded from the messy reality of the endeavor. It was only now that they were allowed to be by their mother’s side. The rigors of childbirth, Mrs. Schuyler and Dot believed, were best kept away from the girls’ “delicate” constitutions while they were growing up.

Eliza sent Peggy on her way, then hurried upstairs to her mother’s room. At first, she panicked because the bed was not just empty but missing, but then she remembered they’d moved Mrs. Schuyler to the front chamber when the hot weather set in. She hurried forward and knocked once before letting herself in.

Since Catherine had never allowed her daughters to assist in one of her deliveries before, Eliza wasn’t sure what she expected. But she certainly didn’t anticipate peals of laughter coming from the bed.

“Oh, I know!” Catherine Schuyler said merrily. “Philip Jr. really was incorrigible. I tell you I could feel him holding on with his little fists, just refusing to come out. Boys really are the worst! Eliza!” she added in a gay voice. “Do please close the door! This isn’t a barn stall.”

Eliza paled, but then her mother giggled again. She eased the door closed, then slipped to the side of the room.

“That was such a long lying-in,” Dot said, cackling. “I’m not sure who it was harder on—you or General Schuyler. He must have lost half a stone in perspiration!”

“I’ll tell you who it was harder on: my beautiful hallway carpet. The general paced so long he practically wore away the flowers in the weave. And that carpet imported all the way from Persia!”

Her mother laughed once more, a relaxed belly chortle the likes of which Eliza had never heard pass her mother’s lips. Only then did she notice the brandy decanter and glass on the bedside table. Eliza had filled it herself last night. Now at least a third of the bottle was gone—a feat all the more impressive given the tiny size of the cordial glass beside the table.

“Uh-oh!” her mother said now. “Eliza has spied the evidence of our mischief! Oh well, might as well have another.”

Dot refilled the small cordial eagerly.

“Dot,” Eliza said as the midwife handed the glass to Mrs. Schuyler. “Do you really think my mother ought to be indulging in spirits at this exact moment?”

In answer, Dot only looked at Mrs. Schuyler, who made a pouting face. A moment later, both women giggled wickedly. Eliza realized it wasn’t just her mother who had been indulging. She didn’t know if it made her feel better that her mother had drunk less than she’d thought, or that the woman who was to deliver her of her child was somewhat intoxicated as well.

“Now, now, Miss Eliza, don’t you fret,” Dot said. “The brandy relaxes your mother, which eases the experience. And she and I have done this more times than I can count.”

“I can count,” Mrs. Schuyler said. “We have done this eleven times before. Eleven! And I can promise you that THIS IS THE LAST!”

“At any rate,” Dot said, “we have done this so often that we could play a game of skat at this point, and still get the job done.”

“Oh!” Mrs. Schuyler said, handing her (empty) glass back to Dot. “One moment, please.” Her face twisted into a grimace of pain then. Not agonizing pain, but as if she had stubbed her toe or was experiencing a heavy bout of indigestion.

Eliza had of course heard about the pains of childbirth and knew they could be quite severe, but the whole concept of labor still remained a little vague to her. So, it alarmed her to see her mother in such a state. “Dot, what’s happening? Do something!”

By the time she’d asked the question, however, her mother’s face had relaxed, and she was nodding at Dot to refill her glass.

“What, Miss Eliza, have you no idea how this works? There’s nothing wrong, it’s just a contraction.”

“A contraction?” Eliza parroted, having no idea what the word meant. All she could think of was the linguistic meaning of the term.

Just then there was a knock at the door, and Angelica slipped in. She looked noticeably flushed and, despite the heat, wore a long, light blue shawl around her shoulders. She carried a tray on which sat a pot of chocolate and a pair of glasses, which she handed to a grateful Dot.

“I am so sorry I wasn’t here sooner, Mama. I was visiting at the Van Alens, and Cary”—Lew’s brother—“came to fetch me. If you can believe it, I have just ridden three miles in a man’s saddle! I galloped right past old Mrs. Vandermeer, who looked as if she might faint!”

Eliza had a flash, then, to a year and a half ago, when she too had ridden in a man’s saddle—with Alex sitting behind her. He had rescued her from a coach with a broken axle and, in order to fit her astride his horse, had had to rip her skirt and petticoats so they didn’t drown them both in fabric. She told her mother all about it. It had been one of the most romantic moments of their courtship, although, as with almost everything else that happened to them as they were falling in love, it had ended in a fiasco based on a silly misunderstanding.

Oh well, she thought, remembering the feel of Alex’s body behind her own. All’s well that ends well.

She wondered where he was at the moment, and if he was thinking of her, then braced herself for her mother’s inevitable scolding at the anecdote she had just shared. Mrs. Schuyler was inflexibly strict when it came to her daughters’ decorum in public.