He could see that she was heavy with child, seven months pregnant by then, and she said she was a widow. She told him she would be grateful to rent it for as long as they wanted, till the end of the year perhaps. She was hoping to go back to school for the fall term, or January at the latest. In September, the baby would be five months old, and she could go back to medical school, if she could make some arrangement for the baby. She might even be able to travel back and forth from this house, if she could find a vehicle to get there. She left the name of her hotel, and the caretaker said he would contact her when he heard from the owners, one way or the other. She hoped he’d feel sorry for her, and press the owners to rent her the house.

And on the way back to Nice, she thought to herself that she could stay at the hotel if she had to, although it wasn’t an ideal set-up for a baby, but it was neat and clean. A house would have been better for her, but if she couldn’t find one, she could stay where she was.

For the next several weeks, she went walking every day in Nice. She walked on the beach, ate as decently as possible, and slept long hours. She found a local doctor through the hospital, and went to see him, telling him the same fabricated tale that she was a war widow. He was kind and sympathetic, and she told him she wanted to give birth at home. She didn’t want to run the risk of running into any of the doctors she knew at the hospital, through her medical school. She didn’t tell the doctor why, but he was willing to deliver her at home.

In March she came back from a walk one day, and found a message from Gaston, the caretaker of the house in Antibes. He asked her to come and see him, which she did. He had good news for her. The owners were sympathetic to her, and happy to rent her the house. They might even be willing to sell it to her eventually, although they hadn’t decided yet. As he had suspected, they said they had too many memories of their children there, and it would be too sad for them to return. For now, they were willing to rent it to her for six months and decide the rest later. He offered to show her around, and she was delighted by what she saw. There was a sunny master bedroom of cozy proportions, and two smaller bedrooms close to it. The three bedrooms shared a single bathroom, which didn’t bother her. The bathroom was old and tiled, and had an enormous bathtub, which appealed to her. And downstairs there was a living room and dining room, and a small glassed-in sunroom that gave onto a porch. It was the perfect size for her and a baby, and maybe a young girl to help take care of the baby later. For now, all she wanted was to be alone.

She penned a letter of agreement to the owners, and said she would have her bank handle the transfer of funds. Gaston was very pleased and congratulated her, he said it would be nice to have life in the house again, and his wife would be happy to come and clean for her and even help her with the baby when it was born. She thanked him and left and went to a bank in Nice that afternoon. She introduced herself to the manager, and had him send a wire to her bank at home, informing them where she was. All they needed to know was where to send her money, since she had closed her account in VillersCotterêts when she left. They had no idea why she was in Nice or what was about to happen to her there, and she couldn’t help wondering how many babies Hortie had had since she left. She still missed her old friend. However badly Hortie had betrayed her, she had done it out of weakness. It didn’t stop Annabelle from caring about her, although they would never be friends again. Even if she went back one day, too much had happened since.

Annabelle moved into the house above Cap d’Antibes on the fourth of April. The doctor said the baby would come soon, although he had no idea when. Annabelle was large by then, and she walked slowly in the hills every day, and went to the church she loved and admired the view. Florine, Gaston’s wife, was cleaning house for her, and cooked occasionally. And Annabelle spent her nights reading her old medical books. She still had mixed emotions about the child. It had been conceived in such violence and anguish, it was hard to imagine not remembering that each time she saw it. But destiny had given them to each other. She had thought of contacting the viscount’s family to advise them of it, but she owed them nothing, and if they were as wayward and dishonorable as their son, she wanted nothing to do with them. She and the baby would have each other, and needed no one else.

In the third week of April, Annabelle went for a long walk, stopped at the church as she always did, and sat down heavily on a bench to admire the view. She had lit a candle for her mother, and prayed for Josiah. She had heard nothing from him now in more than two years, and had no idea where he and Henry were, whether still in Mexico or back in New York. He had let her go, and kept no contact with her. He wanted her to be free to find a new life, but he could never have remotely imagined the twists and turns of fate she had endured.

She walked slowly back to the house in the dappled sunlight that afternoon, thinking about all of them, Josiah, Hortie, her mother, father, Robert. It was as though she felt them all near her, and when she got back to the house, she went to her bedroom and lay down. Florine had left, and Annabelle fell into a gentle sleep. Much to her surprise, it was after midnight when she woke. She had a cramp in her back that woke her, and suddenly she felt a stabbing pain low in her belly, and knew instantly what it was. There was no one to fetch the doctor for her, and she had no telephone, but she wasn’t frightened as she lay there. She was sure that it was a simple process and she could do it alone. But as the night deepened and the pains worsened, she wasn’t as sure. It seemed cruel beyond belief that she had suffered when she conceived the child, and now she would have to suffer again, for a child with no father, whom she didn’t want. All those years she had longed for Josiah’s baby, it had never occurred to her that a child would come into her life like this.

She writhed with each contraction, clutching at the sheets. She saw the sun come up at dawn, and was bleeding heavily by then. The pains were agonizing, and she was beginning to feel as though she were drowning and might die. It made her think of the horror stories Hortie had told her, and the terrible births she had endured. She was just beginning to panic when Florine appeared in her bedroom doorway. She had heard her from downstairs, and ran up the stairs. Annabelle was lying in bed looking wild-eyed, unable to speak with the pain that had gone on all night. She had been in labor for eight hours.

Florine walked quickly into the room, and gently lifted the covers from her, and spread old sheets under her that they had put aside for this purpose. She made gentle cooing sounds to Annabelle and told her things were going well. She looked and said she could see the baby’s head.

“I don’t care,” Annabelle said miserably. “I want it to come out…” She let out a scream then, as the baby seemed to move forward for an instant, and then back. Florine ran downstairs to find Gaston, and told him to bring the doctor quickly. But nothing she was seeing alarmed her, it was going well. And she knew from other births she’d seen that it could go on for a long time. The worst was yet to come, and the spot of the baby’s head she saw was no bigger than a small coin.

Annabelle lay in bed crying, as Florine bathed her forehead in lavender-scented cool cloths, and then finally Annabelle wouldn’t even let her do that. She wanted no one to touch her, and she was crying out in pain. It seemed a lifetime before the doctor came. He had been at another birth, with a woman having twins. He came to Annabelle at two in the afternoon, and nothing had progressed, although the pains were getting worse.

He looked very pleased when he checked her, after he washed his hands. “We’re doing very well,” he said, encouraging his patient, who was screaming with every pain. “I think we’re going to have a baby here by dinnertime.” She looked at him in utter panic, knowing she couldn’t stand another minute of the agony she was in. And finally, as she sobbed miserably, he asked Florine to prop her up on pillows and then brace her feet. Annabelle was fighting them every inch of the way and calling for her mother, and the doctor spoke to her sternly then and told her she must work. The top of the baby’s head was much bigger now, and again and again he told Annabelle to push. She finally fell back on her pillows, too exhausted to do it again, and with that he told her to push even harder than before and not stop. Her face turned beet red as suddenly the top of the baby’s head came through, with a tiny wrinkled face, as Annabelle screamed, and looked down at the child emerging from her womb.

She pushed with all her might, and finally there was a long thin wail in the room, and a tiny face with bright eyes looking at them, as Annabelle laughed and cried, and Florine exclaimed in excitement. The baby lay in a tangle of tiny arms and legs amid the cord, as the doctor cut it, and Florine wrapped the baby in a blanket and handed her to her mother. It was a girl.

“Oh…she’s so beautiful!…” Annabelle said with tears streaming down her cheeks. The tiny little being was perfect, with exquisite little features, graceful limbs, and tiny hands and feet. The doctor had been right, and it was just after six o’clock, which he said was very quick for a first child. Annabelle couldn’t stop looking at her, and talking to her as the doctor finished his work. Florine would clean Annabelle up later, and for now they covered her with a blanket. And with infinite tenderness, Annabelle put the baby to her breast, with perfect maternal instinct. The tiny angel in her arms was the only relative she had in the world, and had been worth every instant of pain, which seemed insignificant now.

“What are you going to call her?” the doctor asked her, smiling at them, sorry for her that she was a widow, but at least she had this child.

“Consuelo,” Annabelle said softly, “after my mother,” and then she gently bent down and kissed the top of her daughter’s head.





Chapter 19




The baby was perfect in every way. She was healthy, happy, easy for her mother to manage. She was like a little angel fallen to earth that had landed in her mother’s arms. Annabelle had never expected to love this baby so much. Any ties to the father who had spawned her vanished at the moment of her birth. She belonged to Annabelle and no one else.

Annabelle went to visit Dr. Graumont at the medical school in July, just after the Second Battle of the Marne began. The death toll had continued to mount shockingly since Annabelle had left Villers-Cotterêts. And once Consuelo was born, she realized that she couldn’t go back to the front. She didn’t want to take the baby with her, be away from her so much, or risk her exposure to illnesses or epidemics. Although she felt guilty for no longer helping the war effort, Annabelle knew her place was with her baby now. Florine had offered to keep her for Annabelle if she did go to the front, but she couldn’t bear to be away from the baby for an hour, let alone leave her for months with someone else. So she had decided to stay in Antibes, for the time being.

She still wanted to go to medical school, and hoped she could arrange to return. She had her story firmly in place when she went to see Dr. Graumont. She told him she had married a British officer shortly after she got to Villers-Cotterêts. They had kept it secret from his family until they could go to England to announce it, and before they could, he had been killed. And because no one knew of the marriage, she had decided to keep her own name, particularly as her family had no heirs now, so she didn’t want to give up the Worthington name, to honor them. It was a stretch, but he appeared to believe her, or was willing to accept whatever story she told. He said the baby was beautiful, and agreed to let her use a small cottage on the grounds for the baby and herself when she returned for the beginning of the next term in September. There were nine students at the medical college, and three new ones who were starting in September. Sadly, he told her that seven of her original classmates had died since they all left. He was relieved to find Annabelle healthy and hearty, and more beautiful since the birth. She looked even more womanly now, and had turned twenty-five that spring. She was clearly prepared to undertake her studies again, and undaunted that she would be thirty by the time she graduated and was fully a doctor. All she wanted now was to get started. The beginning of the term was only six weeks away.