Dr. Taylor’s plea pulled Charlotte into the corridor. She stepped both rapidly and timidly down its length to the open doorway. She peered in and put her hand over her mouth to stifle a gasp. Chills prickled her skin. Dr. Taylor held a wild-haired, half-dressed woman in a wrestling hold against the far wall of the room. In one hand, raised above her head, the woman held a lance like those Charlotte had seen on the tray earlier. Dr. Taylor held her wrist to keep the lance at bay and with the other hand held the woman still as she struggled to free herself. The woman, Charlotte realized, was cursing in French.
Dr. Taylor must have heard her footsteps, because he said, without being able to turn around enough to see her, “The opium sponge on the corridor table. Quick!”
Charlotte turned and found the sponge in a bowl. She picked it up carefully and quickly stepped back into the room, dripping water and who knew what else and swallowing back her fear of recrimination. Dr. Taylor pressed the woman’s body with his shoulder and awkwardly stuck out his hand behind himself to receive the sponge.
Charlotte walked closer and laid it in his waiting palm. At that moment she stepped into his peripheral vision and he glanced up at her, and his eyes sparked with—what? Anger? Astonishment? Mortification? She wasn’t sure. Charlotte glanced quickly at the woman, and even through the dark hair strewn across her face, there was no missing the fury in her expression.
The woman began yelling at her, lip curled in disdain, obsidian eyes flashing. Charlotte’s familiarity with the French language did not extend to whatever vile words the woman was spewing—words that were cut off when Dr. Taylor pressed the sponge against her nose and mouth. Charlotte backed away slowly, watching the woman struggle in vain to turn her face away. Just as Charlotte reached the door, the woman slumped against Dr. Taylor, clearly sedated. He picked her up and laid her on the room’s lone bed. Only then did Charlotte realize that the woman was with child.
Dr. Taylor looked over at Charlotte in the doorway. “You are not supposed to be up here, you know.”
She nodded. “I know.”
She stood there a few seconds longer. He offered no explanation and neither did she.
He covered the woman with a blanket, grumbling as he did so, “Blast that Preston. I have told him never to try that with her. Arrogant fool ...”
In repose, the woman’s face relaxed into lovely lines and features somehow familiar. Recognition flitted within reach and away again.
“There, she will rest quietly now.” Rising, he led Charlotte from the room, locking the door behind them.
“I suppose you wonder why I don’t have him discharged. What with things like this and those other charges you brought to my attention.”
“I was not ...”
“I cannot release him, though I likely should. He knows too much. And now, so do you. I don’t suppose I have any right to ask you to keep silent about what you have seen this day.”
“What ... have I seen?” she asked softly.
He looked at her, then away. He sighed deeply. “A woman who suffers from puerperal insanity.”
“What is that?”
“A type of melancholy mania. In her case it commenced with conception. More typically it develops after birth.”
“I have never heard of it. Do many suffer from it?”
“More and more it seems. And I have yet to figure out why.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair, then seemed to notice Charlotte’s hand pressing against her own chest. “Do not fret, Charlotte. I am sure you will be fine. Mania runs in her family, I discovered, but not in yours, as I remember quite well.”
“How can one be sure?”
“There are many early symptoms. Inability to attend to any subject, indifference to one’s surroundings, fear, melancholy, suicidal thoughts... .”
“Good heavens.”
“Yes, good heavens indeed. One might wonder what God is doing up there in those heavens of His when so many could use Him down here.”
She stood there watching as he walked away toward the main stairs. Then she made her own retreat down the servants’ staircase, pressing a hand to her newly aching back and shaking her head as she relived the details of the startling encounter. So shaken was she that it wasn’t until she reached her own room that she fully realized that the wild-haired French woman was the bride in the wedding portrait—Dr. Taylor’s wife.
The next morning Charlotte arose from bed and immediately groaned, thrusting her hand into the small of her back. The pain she’d first felt the previous night was now visiting her tenfold. Had she injured herself climbing the stairs? She paced her room, hoping to warm her muscles and ease the ache.
A new belt of painful cramping seized her underbelly. Charlotte stopped her pacing and leaned over the bed, supporting herself with her hands, panting. This was no mere backache. This was something altogether new. Altogether frightening. When the constriction abated, she walked gingerly to the door and opened it. Looking down the passage, she saw Gibbs walking across the entry hall.
“Miss Gibbs!” Charlotte called.
“Yes?” The woman paused, and then quickly strode toward her. Taking one look at her face, Gibbs said, “Your pains have begun?”
Charlotte nodded.
