A Good Woman

Chapter 9

By the time the social season in New York got fully under way in November, Hortie was back on her feet, and Josiah and Annabelle were invited everywhere. They frequently ran into Hortie and James at parties, and Hortie was in good spirits again. The baby was nearly three months old, and Annabelle and Josiah had been married for as long.

Overnight, Annabelle and Josiah had become the most desirable, popular couple in New York. They looked fabulous together, and still had the same easy, lighthearted relationship. They teased each other constantly and were playful, and had long serious discussions on political and intellectual issues, often with Henry when he came to dinner. They talked about books, the ideas they shared, and conversations with Henry were always lively. Sometimes the three of them played cards and laughed a lot.

Josiah and Annabelle dined with her mother at least twice a week and sometimes more often. Annabelle tried to spend as much time as possible with her in the daytime, since she knew how lonely her mother was now, although Consuelo never complained about it. She was dignified and loving. Consuelo didn’t press Annabelle about starting a family, but wished she would. And she couldn’t help noticing that Annabelle spoke to her husband as she had her brother Robert. There was a part of Annabelle that simply hadn’t grown up yet, in spite of all that had happened, but Josiah seemed enchanted by it, and treated her like a child.

As promised, Henry had introduced her to his doctor friend on Ellis Island, and Annabelle had begun working there as a volunteer. She worked long, grueling hours, often with sick children. And her mother was right, although Annabelle never admitted it to her, that many of them were seriously ill when they arrived, and contagion was rampant. But the work was fascinating and she loved it. Annabelle thanked Henry for it every time she saw him. Josiah was very proud of how hard his wife worked, although she rarely shared the details of it with him. But he knew how dedicated she was to the hospital, the immigrants, and the work.

She went to Ellis Island three times a week, was there for exhausting but rewarding days, and often came home late. Annabelle worked in the hospital complex on the south side of the U-shaped island. Sometimes they sent her to the Great Room in the Great Hall. A fire had destroyed it sixteen years before, and the area where she worked had been rebuilt three years after the fire. In the Great Room, immigrants were held in large caged areas, where they were interviewed to make sure that their papers and questionnaires were in order. Most of the immigrants were sturdy laborers, many with wives and young children, or alone. Some had brides waiting for them whom they’d never met or scarcely knew. Annabelle often helped with the interview process, and about two percent of them were sent back, in tears and despair, to the countries where they came from. And in terror of deportation, many people lied in answer to the interviewers’ questions. Feeling desperately sorry for them, Annabelle had jotted down vague, or incorrect, answers more than once. She didn’t have the heart to make them eligible for deportation.

Fifty thousand people arrived at Ellis Island every month, and if Consuelo had seen them, she would have been even more terrified for Annabelle than she was. Many of the people who arrived there had suffered terrible hardships, some were ill, and had to be sent to the hospital complex. The lucky ones left Ellis Island in a matter of hours, but those whose papers were not in order, or were sick, could be quarantined or detained for months or even years. They had to have twenty-five dollars in their possession, and anyone whose entry was in question was sent to the dormitories, if not released. The sick ones went to the 275-bed hospital where Annabelle was normally assigned, doing the work she loved so much.

The doctors and nurses were understaffed and mostly overworked, which meant that they assigned tasks to volunteers that Annabelle would never have gotten to undertake otherwise. She helped deliver babies, cared for the children who were sick, assisted in eye exams for trachoma, which many of the immigrants were afflicted with. Some of them tried to hide their symptoms for fear of being deported. And there were quarantine wards for measles, scarlet fever, and diphtheria, which Annabelle could not enter. But she handled almost everything else, and the doctors she worked with were frequently impressed by her instinctive sense for diagnosis. For an untrained person, she had an impressive amount of knowledge from the reading she’d done, and an innate ability for anything medical, and she had a gentle way with her patients. The patients loved and trusted Annabelle completely, and she sometimes saw hundreds of patients in a single day, on her own for minor complaints or assisting the doctors and nurses on more serious cases. There were three full buildings set up for contagious diseases, and many of the patients there would not be leaving Ellis Island ever.

The tuberculosis ward was one of the saddest in the hospital, and Consuelo would have been frantic to know that Annabelle volunteered there often. She never told her mother, or Josiah either, but the sickest patients were those who interested her most, and where she felt she learned the most about the management and treatment of desperately ill people.

She had been working in the TB ward all day and into the evening one night when she came home late and found Henry and Josiah talking in the kitchen. Josiah commented on how late she was, and she apologized, feeling guilty. She’d had a hard time tearing herself away from her patients in the children’s TB ward. It was ten o’clock when she got home and Henry and Josiah were cooking dinner and talking animatedly about the bank. Josiah gave her a big hug. She was bone tired, and still cold from the boat ride back. He told her to sit down at the kitchen table, handed her a mug of soup, and cooked dinner for her as well.

The conversation between them at the table was lively, as it always was between the three of them, and it revived her to think of something other than her sick patients. They loved batting new and old ideas around, argued about politics, questioned the social rules that had been accepted in their world for centuries, and generally had a good time. They were three bright people with lively minds, and were the best of friends. She had come to love Henry almost as much as Josiah did, and he was yet another brother to her, since she still missed her own so much.

She was too tired to join the conversation much that night, and Josiah and Henry were still in a heated debate about some political issue when Annabelle said goodnight and finally went to bed. She had a hot bath, put on a warm nightgown, and slipped gratefully between the sheets, thinking of the work she’d done on Ellis Island that day. And she was sound asleep long before Henry left and Josiah came to bed. She woke when he came in, and looked at him sleepily as he slipped between the sheets beside her, and she cuddled up to him. And within minutes, she was fully awake, having already had several hours’ rest.

“Sorry I was so tired,” she said sleepily, enjoying his warmth beside her in their bed. She loved sleeping with him, and cuddling. She loved everything about him, and always hoped he loved her as much. Sometimes she wasn’t sure. Relationships with men, and their foibles, were unfamiliar to her. A husband was very different from a father or a brother. The dynamics with a husband were far more subtle and confusing at times.

“Don’t be silly,” he whispered easily, “we talk too much. You had a long day. I understand.” She was selfless, and never hesitated to work hard for the good of others. She was an incredible human being with a good heart, and he truly loved her. There was no doubt in his mind about that.

There was an odd silence between them for a moment then, as Annabelle hesitated, and wanted to ask him something. She was always shy about bringing it up. “Do you suppose… could we maybe…start a family soon…,” she said in a whisper, and for a long moment he said nothing, but she felt him stiffen beside her. She had said it to him once before, and he hadn’t liked it then either. There were times, and subjects, about which Josiah did not like to be pushed. And this was one.

“We have lots of time, Annabelle. We’ve only been married for three months. People need to get used to each other. I’ve told you that before. Give it time, and don’t push.”

“I’m not. I’m just asking.” She wasn’t anxious to go through what Hortie had, but she wanted to have his child, and was willing to brave it for him, no matter how bad it was or might be.

“Don’t ask, and it will happen. We need to settle in.” He sounded very firm, and she didn’t want to argue with him, or make him mad. He was always very kind to her, but when she annoyed him, he backed away and got very cold with her, sometimes for several days. And she had no desire to cause a rift between them now.

“I’m sorry. I won’t mention it again,” she whispered, feeling chastised.

“Please don’t,” he said, turning away from her, his voice sounding suddenly cold. He was warm and loving on all subjects, but not this one. It was a sensitive point for him. And a few minutes later, without a word, he got up again. She lay waiting in bed for him for a long time, and then finally fell asleep before he came back. And in the morning, when she woke up, he was already up and dressed. It happened that way most of the time. It reinforced what he had said about not annoying him by pushing, and reminded her not to bring the subject up again.

The following week she went to visit Hortie, and found her in tears when she arrived. She was beside herself, and had figured out that she was pregnant again. The baby would be born eleven months after Charles, in July. James was delighted about it, and hoped it would be another boy. But with the memory of her first baby’s birth still so fresh in her mind, Hortie was terrified of going through it again, and she just lay on her bed and cried. Annabelle tried to console her, but didn’t know what to say. All she could think of to comfort her was that it probably wouldn’t be as bad the second time. Hortie wasn’t convinced.

“And I don’t want to look like a cow again!” she wailed. “James never came near me the whole time. My life is ruined, and maybe this time I’ll die!” she said miserably. “I almost did last time.”

“You won’t die,” Annabelle said, hoping it was true. “You have a good doctor, your mother will be there. They won’t let anything happen to you.” But they both knew that other women died in childbirth and just after, even with excellent care. “It can’t be worse than last time,” Annabelle reassured her, but Hortie was inconsolable. “I don’t even like babies,” she confessed. “I thought he’d be so cute, like a giant doll, and all he does is eat and poop and scream. Thank God I’m not nursing him. And why should I risk my life for that?”

“Because you’re married, and that’s what women do!” her mother said sternly, as she walked into the room, and gave her daughter a disapproving look. “You should be very grateful that you’re able to bear children and make your husband happy.” They all knew of women who were unable to conceive, and were left by their husbands for women who could. But listening to them, Annabelle was suddenly grateful that it was not an issue between her and Josiah, although she found Hortie’s baby a lot more appealing than his mother did. But in spite of that, Hortie was going to have two children by next July, within less than two years of her marriage. “You’re a very spoiled, selfish girl,” her mother scolded her and left the room again, with no sympathy whatsoever, although she’d been present at the agonizing experience Hortie had gone through. She said only that she’d been through worse herself, with equally big babies, several miscarriages, and two stillbirths, so Hortie had no reason whatsoever to complain.

“Is that all we’re good for? Just breeding?” Hortie said to her friend angrily, after her mother left the room. “And why is it so damn easy for men? All they do is play with you, and then you get all the misery and the work, you get fat and ugly and throw up for months, then you risk your life having a baby, and some women die. And what do men do about it? Nothing, they just do it to you again, and run out with their friends and have fun.” Annabelle knew, as Hortie did, that there were stories around town that James was playing a little too much, and seeing other women on the side. It reminded Annabelle that no one’s life or marriage was perfect. Josiah wanted to wait before starting a family, but she was sure he wasn’t cheating on her, he wasn’t that kind of man. In fact, the only perfect marriage she knew of was her parents’, and her father had died, and now her mother was a lonely widow at forty-four. Maybe life really wasn’t fair.

She listened to Hortie rail and whine for several hours, and then went home to Josiah, relieved that their life was simpler, although he was still cool to her that night. He hadn’t liked her comments of the night before. He went out to dinner with Henry that night at the Metropolitan Club, and said he had some business matters to discuss with him. Annabelle stayed home and pored over her medical books. The next day she was going to Ellis Island again. She was reading everything she could on infectious diseases, particularly tuberculosis. Even though exhausting and challenging, she loved everything about what she did there. And as often happened, she was sound asleep when Josiah came home that night. But when she woke up briefly in the night, he was holding her. She smiled as she went back to sleep. All was well in their world.