Because of Rebecca

chapter Eighteen

In the early morning light, Josephine rocked Lucas and thought about when she’d held Mariah like this many years ago. It had been difficult at the time having given up the child as her own at birth, but she’d been grateful to her brother and sister-in-law for taking her to Europe during the pregnancy so no one at home knew of the transgression. She leaned her head against the back of the rocker, closed her eyes and sighed. She hadn’t allowed herself to even think about that time, even after Mariah’s death. She’d stayed away from Lucas as much as possible even though she wanted to hold him, to heal her wounded heart.

With Rebecca gone these last few days, she’d finally allowed herself to feel something for the child, her rightful grandchild. She’d never imagined the love she could feel for him in so little time, but now that she did, she didn’t know if she could give him up so easily when Rebecca returned. Would it be selfish to want to take him as her own?

Yes. She feared it would. Rebecca loved him, and she couldn’t hurt her niece by taking him from her.

“Goodness, Miss Josephine.” Charlotte stumbled into the dimly lit room. “I was worried when I didn’t find the babe in his bed. Have you been here with him all night?”

“Only since about two. I woke and heard him stirring. I believe it’s his teeth again.”

“Would you like me to take him now so you can go back to bed?” she asked.

“I’m fine, and he’s no trouble at all.” Josephine smiled.

Charlotte slowly nodded. “I-if you’re sure?”

“I am.”

“I’ll go order up breakfast.”

“No need. I’m not hungry. Only coffee.”

“As you wish.” She curtsied and left.

Josephine rocked back and forth and hummed softly as her mind drifted to the London townhouse where she’d given birth to Mariah. It had been a cold overcast day. The doctor had arrived shortly before midnight and didn’t leave her side until nearly seven the following night. It had been a long and difficult birth, but Mariah had been perfect.

Two weeks later once she was back on her feet, they left London and traveled to France for four months before going to Italy. By then Mariah was getting all fat and sassy.

“That’s when you sent me away, Samuel. You and Emily sent me away so your little family didn’t have to deal with me.”

“Did you say something, miss?” Charlotte asked, coming back into the suite with the coffee service. She closed the door behind her and carried a tray over to the small table.

Josephine didn’t respond. She rocked in silence as warm tears rolled down her face, remembering how she’d sailed back to the United States alone.

“Would you like your coffee black?”

Josephine closed her eyes and continued to rock. She’d lost her first love and her child and what did she have to show for it? Nothing. She was well past her prime. In all rights she was on the shelf and had no prospects.

“Miss Josephine?” Charlotte’s call jarred her back to reality.

“Black. I’ll take it black.”

“Yes ma’am.” The girl fixed the coffee and brought it to her, but there was nowhere to set it. “Perhaps I should put the child to bed now? And you can have your coffee in peace?”

“Forget the coffee.” Josephine shifted the sleeping child in her arms so she could easily get out of the rocker. “I’ll put him down.”

“Bu-but-”

“Don’t stammer, Charlotte. I am capable of doing some things for myself.”

“Certainly. Have you been cryin’, ma’am?”

She swiped away the moisture with the back of her hand. “Nothing to fret about. Is that clear? I think I will lie down for a while.”

With a worried look, Charlotte set the coffee cup back on the tray and curtsied. She collected it and scurried out of sight.

Josephine carried Lucas into her room, put him on the bed and lay down beside him. She hummed a soft tune, watched him sleep until her own eyes grew heavy, and she too drifted off to sleep.

Tiny hands, patting her cheeks and wet, slobbery drool dripping on her face woke her a few hours later.

“Ma-ma.”

She opened her eyes and smiled. “Mama isn’t here now. She’ll be back soon.” She sat up and he crawled to her.

“Ma-ma.”

He’d been calling her that off and on since Rebecca left and each time it made her heart ache. Mariah had never called her that, nor had she ever wanted it back then, but now, if she could only have had that memory.

“Ma-ma.” He reached his hands up to her.

“Mama isn’t here, Lucas. She’s on a trip, but hopefully she’ll be back today or tomorrow.”

“Ma-ma.” He smacked his lips together this time and she picked him up. He laid his head on her shoulder and patted her.

“I bet you’re hungry. Let’s go get you something to eat.” She carried him into the sitting room, but stopped suddenly in the doorway. Ancil sat at the small table where they ate their meals, having coffee while listening to an animated Charlotte. The maid hushed and looked at her with a worried expression.

What had the girl been telling him?

“Let me take him from you, Miss Josephine.” Charlotte rushed to her side and took Lucas. “I’m sure he needs changing. Like you need to change and fix your hair or you’ll be late for Mass.”

Josephine’s spine stiffened at the mention of church, but she and Ancil always went to the daily Mass. Why should today be any different? “Ancil, I didn’t realize you were here. You should have had Charlotte wake me.”

“I hadn’t been here long. She was telling me how you were up most of the night with him,” he explained. “If he’s having trouble sleeping I can give you something to rub on his gums that might help.”

She smiled. “I must look frightful. Let me go change.”

“Is everything all right with you, Josephine?” He stood and walked to her. “Charlotte said you were crying earlier.”

“Can’t a woman cry?” she asked.

“A woman yes, but Josephine Davis? It isn’t like you and it frightened the poor girl.”

She took a deep breath. “Let me go change. I don’t want to keep you from Mass. Perhaps we can get some lunch later? I’d like to talk to you if you have the time.”

He nodded.

Once inside her room, she closed the door and hurried through her toiletry, splashing water on her face and fixing her hair before putting on a fresh dress.

When she returned Charlotte sat at the table holding Lucas while he drank his bottle.

“Doctor Gordon and I are leaving now.”

“Will you be gone long, miss?” Charlotte didn’t look up when she spoke.

Josephine glanced at Ancil. “An hour or so?”

He nodded. “Maybe longer.”

They walked through the hotel in silence, but once they were outside Ancil asked, “Are you sure you feel up to going to Mass today? You look troubled. Maybe it would do you more good to talk than hear a sermon.”

“I am troubled.”

“Perhaps we should get something to eat? If you care to come to my place, I can fix us something. It won’t be fancy, just some bacon and eggs, but at least you can speak in private.”

She nodded. “I don’t know if I can tell you. You may not want to speak to me again once I do.”

Ancil took her arm in his and patted her hand. “I doubt there is anything you can say that would make me feel that way.”

She took a jagged breath and prayed he was right. They walked the distance in companionable silence. She drank in the fresh air and tried to relax, but her mind wouldn’t let her.

When they finally reached his place, they went into the kitchen and he began preparing the food while she waited. “Are you certain I can’t help?”

“Yes.” He cracked some eggs in a bowl and whisked them while the bacon fried. “So what has you so melancholy?”

“I’m a hypocrite.”

He stared at her for a moment. “Can you explain?”

“I use my work with the church as a disguise to keep others from suspecting the truth about me. I’m a wretched sinner.”

“We all are, Josephine, but what makes you feel you are so bad?” He opened the cabinet and took down two cups. “Do you want coffee or tea?”

“Coffee.” She placed her hands on the table in front of her and stared at them. “I disgraced my family when I was a young girl. I had a child out of marriage. And that child died giving birth to Lucas.”

He sat the cups down on the counter and stared at her. “L-Lucas isn’t Rebecca’s?”

She shook her head. “My brother and his wife took me to Europe to hide my pregnancy and to save me from ruin. They took Mariah as their own, raised her, but left her in my care when they died.”

“Does Rebecca know?”

“No. She was too young to remember all that went on back then. As far as she knows, Mariah was her sister, not her cousin.”

He reached for the coffee pot and poured them both a cup, bringing hers to the table. “Mariah is your daughter, but she died after giving birth to Lucas?”

“Y—yes. She asked Rebecca to take him as her own before she died. At least that is what Rebecca told me. I-I wasn’t in the room for the birth. I-I was in the parlor praying for forgiveness and mercy. I gave up my child and when she was in my care, I allowed her to be seduced by a gambler who took her innocence. I wasn’t fit to be a mother when I had her, and I wasn’t fit when she needed me most.”

The smell of burning bacon drew Ancil’s attention back to the stove. He turned and removed the frying pan from the stovetop and transferred the bacon to plates. “You’ve carried this burden so long, what has changed to make you reveal it now?”

She smiled and tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “Lucas. I avoided touching him from the time he was born, but with Rebecca gone these last few days, I’ve been taking care of him. He calls me Mama.”

Tears began to flow from her eyes. “Mama. The sweetest word ever spoken. I know he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. He’s only learning to talk, but hearing him say it... it... it worked its magic on me. It made me feel things I never allowed myself to feel when I gave birth to Mariah. I was scared and too worried about society’s convention back then, but I loved her father so. We would have been married if he hadn’t taken ill and died. I know Charles would have loved her and been proud of her.”

She brushed away the tears, but new ones fell. “I was grateful to my brother and his wife for loving me enough to save my reputation, but I wasn’t as kind to Mariah. She was not even seventeen, Ancil. She was so young and naïve.”

He dipped a portion of the grease from the pan and placed it back on the stovetop to heat. “We all were at that age.”

Josephine nodded and took a sip of her coffee. “I blamed her for her naiveté, but maybe if I hadn’t taken her to New Orleans that winter this wouldn’t have happened. I blamed her for believing that gambler married her during the party she’d slipped off to attend with him. I was livid when I found her on that riverboat in his bed the next morning. Of course, he wasn’t there. He’d left moments before I arrived to get them breakfast.”

He poured the eggs in the pan and stirred them. “I’m listening. Go on.”

Josephine swallowed and remembered the pleased look on Mariah’s face that morning. “She proudly showed me the piece of paper proclaiming her Mrs. Stuart Delaney, but I had my doubts. I hadn’t trusted the man from the moment we met. I forbade her to see him again, but she had a will of her own, and she’d slipped away in the middle of the night to be with him. In my anger, I forced her to get dressed and I dragged her from the boat despite her protests. When we got back to the hotel, I had our things packed quickly and we left on the next train.”

She sobbed, covering her face with her hands. He placed the eggs on their plates and carried them over to the table. When he set them down, she looked at him again and he handed her his handkerchief. She dried her eyes and took another jagged breath.

“Mariah cried for days. It didn’t matter what I said, nothing consoled her. She wrote letter after letter to New Orleans in search of her supposed husband but they were all returned to her unopened. In an attempt to put our minds at ease, I even made inquiry through a friend into the priest who signed the marriage certificate. As I had feared, he did not exist. There was, however, a man by that name known as a gambler and a close friend of Stuart Delaney’s. Mariah took the news badly. She stayed in her room for days. I hadn’t wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t allow her to spend the rest of her life searching for a man who never loved her.” Josephine sighed and shook her head. “Everything had finally settled down when we discovered she was with child. Thankfully Rebecca had finished her schooling and was home at that point.”

He reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, brushing a kiss across her knuckles. “I’m sorry you had to carry this burden for so long, but you cannot blame yourself for Mariah’s death. There are many dangerous complications in childbirth. How did the doctor say she died?”

“She hemorrhaged. The doctor was unable to stop the bleeding.”

He nodded. “Yes. I’ve had deliveries end that way. They are never pleasant, but we do the best we can.”

Josephine pulled her hand away and picked up her fork. She moved the eggs around on her plate, but her stomach rebelled. “I suppose I’ll have to tell Rebecca now.”

“Not unless you absolutely want. Does she need to know the truth? Will it make a difference?”

“Yes. She does. I don’t want to deny Lucas anymore. He’s my grandchild, Ancil. He’s my Mariah’s baby.”

The tears formed in her eyes again and her vision blurred. She blinked and the tears spilled forth onto her cheeks. Ancil pulled her into his arms and held her while she cried.

When her tears finally subsided and the last sign of them had been wiped away, he kissed her and pulled her into his arms again. After the kiss ended, he held her tenderly for a moment more.

“Ancil?”

“You are a very important woman to me, Josephine. I don’t want you to worry about the past. I want you to think about the future. Nothing you have said changes the way I feel about you. Is that clear?”

“Feel about me?” Her heart skipped a beat and she swallowed.

“Yes. I feel deeply for you.”

She smiled and her eyes began to water again, but she blinked the unshed tears away. “Oh Ancil.”

“A doctor’s life is lonely and tiresome. I can be called away for days at a time to care for the sick and even during the night. I couldn’t think of asking someone to join this life with me unless I was sure they understood what they were agreeing to share.”

She nodded.

“You’ve made a difference in my life since we met. Because of my profession I never allowed myself to believe I could have a family. But I believe you understand the required dedication because of your work with the church. You say it was a disguise, but I believe you do it with your heart. I’ve watched you. Your dedication is real. It may have started out as a way to redeem yourself¸ but I believe it is more now.”

In spite of her resolve not to cry, the tears came again, but this time they weren’t of pain, but of joy. She dried them away as fast as she could with his already damp handkerchief. “I-I don’t know what to say, Ancil. I never dreamed anyone would want me in their life after what I’ve done.”

He smiled. “I’m not asking for an answer right now. I want you to think about it. I want you to be sure. But if you think you could build a life with a doctor I will be ready to hear your answer.”

“Not just any doctor, but you, Ancil Gordon. That is who I’d be agreeing to build a life with.” She hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. Perhaps she did have something to show for her life after all.