Midwife On the Orient Express by Fiona McArthur

Author:Fiona McArthur [McArthur, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780648718116
Publisher: Fiona McArthur

The crying started just as Kelsie’s head sank deeper into the pillow.

The sea of darkness carried the soft weeping that came every few minutes like a tiny wave rising and falling.

Kelsie’s eyes opened again and she glanced at the luminous hands of her watch. The sound receded and stopped and she closed her eyes.

It came again. Three minutes since the last.

She knew about those tiny waves. Sat up and stared at the wall opposite.

The noise returned, intensified, and she tracked it to the wall behind her head – from the compartment that held the girl in the oversized coat.

Oh dear. She climbed out of bed and pulled on the blue silk robe and her soft Orient Express bedroom slippers and sighed. Though not sure of her reception when the girl had declined her help before, Kelsie couldn’t leave her to weep alone. Especially when she had her suspicions as to why a woman might be crying in a stop-start pattern like that.

Kelsie unlocked her compartment door and peered out into the corridor. Apart from the clatter of the wheels on the rails beneath them the corridor lay silent – until the girl began to weep again.

All of the hallway doors she could see were shut and she suspected that nobody else wanted to investigate. It had to be well after midnight, but the sound floated in tendrils down the corridor.

Again, Kelsie tapped gently on the door next to her. The crying stopped and there was a shuffling noise and then the door opened a crack.

‘Are you okay?’ Kelsie whispered through the crack, and the door opened a fraction more.

A shaky whisper came back, ‘No. I am afraid.’ Afraid wasn’t good, Kelsie thought, and hardened her resolve to intrude.

‘Can I come in? I’m alone.’

No answer for a long pause and then the door opened enough to allow entry and Kelsie slipped around the door and pulled it shut quietly behind her.

The girl climbed back into bed and curled into the foetal position as if she could keep away the pains. Kelsie couldn’t really do anything except stand over against the door or sit next to her on the rumpled bed.

The young woman wore a thin white nightgown and when Kelsie looked the size of the pregnant belly confirmed her suspicion that she was probably in labour.

‘Can I sit for a minute?’

The slim shoulders shrugged and the woman sniffed but she shifted her bottom further back into the bed so there was room for two. ‘I am Anna.’

‘Hello again, Anna.’ Kelsie peered into her face. ‘Do you think you are having the baby, Anna?’

Anna shook her head in the negative, rapidly, and then sighed and added reluctantly, ‘I don’t know.’

‘How long have the pains been coming?’

Huge dark eyes stared solemnly back as the girl pushed her thick long black ponytail off her neck. ‘Since we left Venice.’

‘Are they regular now?’ The girl blinked and didn’t answer. Kelsie tried again. ‘Do they come the same distance apart? Every few minutes.’

‘I think so.’ Her eyes screwed up and her hand flew to her belly.

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