I believe I’ve injured my shoulder.”
“Miss Murphy will help you slip one arm free, so I can examine your shoulder.” He turned away and washed his hands.
The young woman gave Maeve a disapproving glance.
Maeve gestured for her to sit upon the examining table. “What’s your name?”
She unfastened the back of the other woman’s rust-colored satin dress. The fabric was like nothing she’d ever felt, and the buttons were tiny carved ivory disks. Beneath it she wore a fine silk chemise.
Flynn dried his hands and joined them.
“I am Miss Ellnora Coulter. Having just finished school in London, I’m traveling to the States with my parents. My father has investments in Boston.”
Her English was proper with no hint of a brogue. Maeve glanced at Dr. Gallagher to gauge his reaction to the pretty young miss. He didn’t seem interested in anything but her shoulder as he moved close. “I don’t see any bruising. Help her back into her sleeve, Miss Murphy.”
Once her dress was in place, he probed the area with his fingertips. “Does this hurt?”
“Yes.”
“This?”
“Yes, indeed. It’s quite painful.”
Without a warning knock, the cabin door opened and Nora entered, stooping to accommodate her height. Her face was flushed, and she wore an expression of worry and concern Maeve had seen far too often. The surprising thing was that she cradled a bundled apron against her breast.
“Nora?” Maeve said, turning to meet her. “Whatever is…?”
“I was in the storage apartment, searching for a bag of salt, when I moved aside a sack and heard the oddest sound, like a mewling. I thought perhaps a kitten had been closed into the depot of provisions. Just look now what I discovered lying between the sacks of oatmeal, Maeve.”
Her sister lowered the apron to reveal what lay within its folds. Maeve stepped close, and her heart caught in her throat.
An infant, obviously no older than a few hours or possibly a day at most, lay with eyes pinched shut, fists at its face, turning its head this way and that with mouth wide open.
Maeve stared in astonishment.
Chapter Six
“A baby? Nora, you found a baby in a storage bin?”
“Not in a bin. Between bags of oatmeal, almost right out in the open and near the entrance to the apartment. Is the little grah mo chee all right?” After referring to the infant as sweetheart, she handed off the bundle to Maeve.
Maeve took the baby just as Dr. Gallagher joined them. Nora explained again where she’d found the child. “Someone had wrapped a flour sack around her and left her like that.”
He peeled the apron all the way back, revealing the pink infant’s froglike legs and several inches of umbilical cord still attached. Her skin still bore streaks of mucus and blood.
“She’s a newborn,” he said unnecessarily. He glanced at Maeve. She hadn’t seen him wear this look of discomfort before. “I haven’t had much experience with infants.” And he stepped away. “I’ll get a basin of warm water so you can bathe her, and then I’ll listen to her heart and lungs.”
“What about my shoulder?” Miss Coulter called from the examining table.
“Your shoulder will be fine,” Flynn told her. “I think it’s just a little bruising.”
“Perhaps you could call on me tomorrow to make sure I’ve improved.”
“Certainly,” he replied and saw her to the door.
Maeve exchanged a glance with her sister. “An unending stream of young ladies have sought medical attention since yesterday,” Maeve whispered. “The good doctor is obviously prime husband material.”
Nora only had eyes for the baby in Maeve’s arms. “Will she live, Maeve? She’s puny, is she not? You’ve seen a lot of babies born. What do you make of this one?”
“Let’s clean her up and look her over.” Maeve asked Nora to spread out towels on the examining table and proceeded to sponge the infant with clear warm water.
“All babies this young look puny,” she told her sister. “She’s average from what I can tell. She seems perfectly healthy and quite obviously hungry, the poor dear.”
Once the baby’s skin was clean and dry, Maeve made a diaper from the cotton bandages Flynn kept stacked nearby. Flynn opened a drawer on the other side of the room and offered a folded shirt.
Nora accepted the garment. She studied the intricate embroidery and monogram and asked a question with her expressive blue eyes.
“It’s just a shirt,” he said. “Cut it up to make her gowns. I have plenty more.”
Nora used his bandage scissors to cut off the collar, sleeves and buttons and crudely fashion a garment.
“She appears fine,” Maeve told her. “But we need to feed her.”
“Rice water?” Nora asked.
“No, milk is best.”
“It will have to be goat’s milk.” Flynn took a small tin container from inside a cabinet and headed for the door. “The sailors have a nanny aboard. I’ll be back with milk.”
Nora glanced about. “How will we feed it to her?”
Maeve handed her the now-squalling baby and searched in earnest for a feeding method. “We could soak towels…or gauze.”
She opened a cabinet and picked up a length of rubber tubing. “Better yet. We’ll use this.”
“That?” Nora asked, cuddling the infant.
“Aye. It’s pliable, see. We’ll puncture a couple of needle holes in it for the milk to come through and bend it like so. The baby will suck on it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Stick your finger in her mouth and see if she doesn’t latch onto anything.”
“I’ve just washed all the sailor’s breakfast dishes, so I expect my finger’s clean enough.” Nora offered the baby the tip of her index finger, and the crying stopped immediately. Nora got tears in her eyes. “The poor grah mo chee is so hungry.”
“We’ll have her fed in no time.” Maeve placed the tubing in a kettle of water. “I’m going on deck to boil this.”
Nora’s eyes widened. “And leave me here alone with her?”
“You’ll be fine,” Maeve assured her. “Just cuddle her, as you’re doing. She likes your warmth and the beat
