Late July, 1895 — Greengrass Home
The baby's breathing changed frequently, and no matter which of the labored patterns she adopted, it worried Ford. When her breath was rapid and shallow in the moment just after her crying subsided he thought her struggling for air. If she settled into long, slow breaths while drifting towards sleep he fretted about lethargy. Worst of all was that sometimes she seemed to stop breathing and Ford would hold his breathe too, tense his body and think is this it?
After the past few weeks, the baby's death seemed a terrible inevitability. It was hard to imagine there was an alternative; impossible to see how she might come through the other side of this and become a normal, healthy child. Ford wasn't sure if it would be easier if he was there when it happened or not. Not that that was a particularly meaningful distinction, easier, when it was applied to the prospect of the hardest thing in the world. She had done nothing so far in her short life to make herself endearing, no smile or playful coo, no bright eyes tracking his movements, but already Ford loved this tiny creature so much it hurt. He found any excuse to be in the room with her, even though most often that meant being in Jemima's bedroom, a space he had more or less foresworn since December. There was a window of time after a birth where it was normal, Ford had been told, for the baby to stay just at the bedside of a mother or wetnurse, sleeping in something that for all the world resembled a human version of a birds nest, until they were strong enough and calm enough to move to the nursery. In this case it seemed entirely likely that she would never make it to the nursery he'd worked so hard on; the midwife and day nurse had both advised them to expect a longer stretch of time before she started to gain strength, given her early arrival. Jemima, for her part, had never objected to the intrusions. Maybe she genuinely wanted him there, after the trauma of the birth and with all the uncertainty around the future, or maybe she was simply too tired to protest. In any case, they had reached the point where he no longer paused to knock when he heard the soft cry from inside.
Jemima wasn't in the room when he entered it. She appeared three minutes later, when Ford had just finished replacing the baby's cloth diaper (quite a feat, not because the task itself was difficult but because there was a veritable labyrinth of folding required to get the small piece of fabric to fit snugly on such a tiny body) and was cradling her carefully, watching (as he always did) the movements of her breathing for any sign of distress.
"I think I can get her back to sleep," he told Jemima. "If you wanted to lie down. I don't think she's hungry."
After the past few weeks, the baby's death seemed a terrible inevitability. It was hard to imagine there was an alternative; impossible to see how she might come through the other side of this and become a normal, healthy child. Ford wasn't sure if it would be easier if he was there when it happened or not. Not that that was a particularly meaningful distinction, easier, when it was applied to the prospect of the hardest thing in the world. She had done nothing so far in her short life to make herself endearing, no smile or playful coo, no bright eyes tracking his movements, but already Ford loved this tiny creature so much it hurt. He found any excuse to be in the room with her, even though most often that meant being in Jemima's bedroom, a space he had more or less foresworn since December. There was a window of time after a birth where it was normal, Ford had been told, for the baby to stay just at the bedside of a mother or wetnurse, sleeping in something that for all the world resembled a human version of a birds nest, until they were strong enough and calm enough to move to the nursery. In this case it seemed entirely likely that she would never make it to the nursery he'd worked so hard on; the midwife and day nurse had both advised them to expect a longer stretch of time before she started to gain strength, given her early arrival. Jemima, for her part, had never objected to the intrusions. Maybe she genuinely wanted him there, after the trauma of the birth and with all the uncertainty around the future, or maybe she was simply too tired to protest. In any case, they had reached the point where he no longer paused to knock when he heard the soft cry from inside.
Jemima wasn't in the room when he entered it. She appeared three minutes later, when Ford had just finished replacing the baby's cloth diaper (quite a feat, not because the task itself was difficult but because there was a veritable labyrinth of folding required to get the small piece of fabric to fit snugly on such a tiny body) and was cradling her carefully, watching (as he always did) the movements of her breathing for any sign of distress.
"I think I can get her back to sleep," he told Jemima. "If you wanted to lie down. I don't think she's hungry."
Set by Lady!
