“I know. I know. If I could do it for you, I would. I swear to you.” He clutched her hand in both of his, willing some of his own strength to pass into her. Her grip was growing feeble, tightening only when the midwife made a particularly vigorous movement.
And then Lucy’s hand went slack.
Gregory stopped breathing. He looked over at the midwife in horror. She was still standing at the base of the bed, her face a mask of grim determination as she worked. Then she stopped, her eyes narrowing as she took a step back. She didn’t say anything.
Hyacinth stood frozen, the towels still stacked up in her arms. “What . . . what . . .” But her voice wasn’t even a whisper, lacking the strength to complete her thought.
The midwife reached a hand out, touching the bloodied bed near Lucy. “I think . . . that’s all,” she said.
Gregory looked down at his wife, who lay terrifyingly still. Then he turned back to the midwife. He could see her chest rise and fall, taking in all the great gulps of air she hadn’t allowed herself while she was working on Lucy.
“What do you mean,” he asked, barely able to force the words across his lips, “ ‘that’s all’?”
“The bleeding’s done.”
Gregory turned slowly back to Lucy. The bleeding was done. What did that mean? Didn’t all bleeding stop . . . eventually?
Why was the midwife just standing there? Shouldn’t she be doing something? Shouldn’t he be doing something? Or was Lucy—
He turned back to the midwife, his anguish palpable.
“She’s not dead,” the midwife said quickly. “At least I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” he echoed, his voice rising in volume.
The midwife staggered forward. She was covered with blood, and she looked exhausted, but Gregory didn’t give a sodding damn if she was ready to drop. “Help her,” he demanded.
The midwife took Lucy’s wrist and felt for a pulse. She gave him a quick nod when she found one, but then she said, “I’ve done everything I can.”
“No,” Gregory said, because he refused to believe that this was it. There was always something one could do. “No,” he said again. “No!”
“Gregory,” Hyacinth said, touching his arm.
He shook her off. “Do something,” he said, taking a menacing step toward the midwife. “You have to do something.”
“She’s lost a great deal of blood,” the midwife said, sagging back against the wall. “We can only wait. I have no way of knowing which way she’ll go. Some women recover. Others . . .” Her voice trailed off. It might have been because she didn’t want to say it. Or it might have been the expression on Gregory’s face.
Gregory swallowed. He didn’t have much of a temper; he’d always been a reasonable man. But the urge to lash out, to scream or beat the walls, to find some way to gather up all that blood and push it back into her . . .
He could barely breathe against the force of it.
Hyacinth moved quietly to his side. Her hand found his, and without thinking he entwined his fingers in hers. He waited for her to say something like: She’s going to be fine. Or: All will be well, just have faith.
But she didn’t. This was Hyacinth, and she never lied. But she was here. Thank God she was here.
She squeezed his hand, and he knew she would stay however long he needed her.
He blinked at the midwife, trying to find his voice. “What if—” No. “What when,” he said haltingly. “What do we do when she wakes up?”
The midwife looked at Hyacinth first, which for some reason irritated him. “She’ll be very weak,” she said.
“But she’ll be all right?” he asked, practically jumping on top of her words.
The midwife looked at him with an awful expression. It was something bordering on pity. With sorrow. And resignation. “It’s hard to say,” she finally said.
Gregory searched her face, desperate for something that wasn’t a platitude or half answer. “What the devil does that mean?”
The midwife looked somewhere that wasn’t quite his eyes. “There could be an infection. It happens frequently in cases like this.”