Adam tried to hide the flood of relief he felt at the word accidental. “Hemlock,” he muttered. “Of all the crazy things in this world . . .”
“I understand,” the doctor said. “It’s a rather unusual situation. But I found something else, too, and I thought you’d want to know about it—if you don’t already.” He cocked his head, studying Adam. “Your wife was pregnant.”
“Pregnant!” Adam stared at him. “But that’s impossible! We hadn’t . . . I mean, she—” He stopped. Of course it was possible.
“I take it you didn’t know, then,” the doctor said softly, pityingly. “Well, I’m sorry to be the one to tell you. It’s a sad thing to lose a wife and a child, both at the same time. But it happens, you know. Your neighbor, Mrs. Duncan, lost her husband and baby son on a single day and has managed to cope. You must be as brave as she.”
“How far—” Adam cleared his throat and tried again. “How far along was she?”
“It’s a little hard to be sure, but I’d say, oh, about nine or ten weeks.”
Adam pulled in his breath. “Nine or ten weeks?”
“Ten at the outside.” The old man picked up his coffee cup and took a drink, then set it down. His voice was measured. “According to Mrs. Crow, Mrs. Hunt wasn’t eager to have another child and was in the regular habit of taking wild carrot seeds. They’re a fairly reliable contraceptive, and many women depend on them. But nothing is a hundred percent. Mistakes happen all the time. I know,” he added wryly. “I deliver the results.”
Nine or ten weeks. Adam scarcely heard what the doctor was saying. He was flipping rapidly through a mental calendar. He and Delia hadn’t slept together for a couple of weeks before she left for Galveston. That was the middle of July, and she had been gone for seven weeks—no, eight, wasn’t it? It was now early October, which made it . . . thirteen weeks, he thought. Well, that made it certain, although he didn’t intend to let Dr. Grogan in on the secret. He wasn’t the father of Delia’s baby.
But the calendar in his mind raised another question. “Ten weeks,” he said. “I’m certainly no expert on women, Dr. Grogan. Delia and I . . . we didn’t talk much about such things. But in ten weeks, she would have missed two of her monthlies, wouldn’t she? Shouldn’t she have known—or at least suspected—that she was pregnant?” He paused, then spit out the rest of his question. “And if she knew, why in the hell was she bothering with a contraceptive?”
The doctor looked troubled. “That was my thought, too, Adam. In my experience, a married woman—especially a woman who doesn’t want another child—keeps her eye on the calendar. She might not notice when she misses one monthly, but missing the second gets her attention.” He pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket and studied the end of it critically. “I’ve given some thought to this in the past hour or two. I’m sorry to say that it’s my opinion that Mrs. Hunt took those seeds, not as a contraceptive, but as an abortifacient.”
Adam blinked. “Abort—”
“Yes. Abortifacient, or abortivant, if you prefer. An agent used to intentionally cause an abortion.” Grogan lit his cigar. “It appears that your wife realized she was pregnant and felt the need to end it. For the purpose, she used what she thought was wild carrot, but she could have used other herbs, as well. Tansy, rue, thyme, pennyroyal, cotton root, epazote. In these modern days, there are also quite a few so-called patent medicines that may serve the purpose, if a woman doesn’t have access to herbs. Lydia Pinkham’s, for instance. But also Portuguese Female Pills, Hardy’s Woman’s Friend, Pennyroyal Pills, and a dozen others.”
“Lydia Pinkham’s.” Adam tapped a finger on the table, remembering. “I’ve seen bottles of this in Delia’s medicine cupboard, but I thought it was just a sort of general tonic. You’re telling me that it’s . . . it’s used to cause abortions?” He shook his head, wondering. How many times had his wife conceived—and managed to end it—over the years since Caroline’s birth? And he’d been completely in the dark.
“Yes,” Grogan replied, a cloud of blue smoke wreathing his gray hair. “And the others, too. I’m sure you’ve seen the advertisements. They’re in every newspaper, and the medicines are remarkably popular. Some are more effective than others, of course. And some—like the Cherokee Pills for Females—include the specific direction that, for greater effectiveness, the pills should be taken together with an herbal tea, such as tansy, rue, or thyme. They seldom say explicitly that these are abortifacients—although I recently saw one that warned pregnant women against taking it, for a ‘miscarriage will certainly ensue.’” He smiled. “The message is clear, isn’t it? If you want to miscarry, take this pill.”
Adam stared at him, thinking that women shared a whole world of information from which—as a man—he was excluded. “These . . . medicines actually work? And the plants?”
“They can, when they’re taken early. That’s why they are so popular. Women talk among themselves, you know. They share information about what’s effective and what isn’t.” The doctor paused and looked at Adam, one eyebrow raised. When Adam did not reply, he went on. “In this case, I believe your wife intended to use wild carrot to abort her pregnancy, so she took quite a large dose. It would most likely have been effective, too. Unfortunately . . .” He pulled on his cigar. “She got hold of the wrong plant.”
Adam thought of Simpson. While the letter made it clear that he and Delia had been lovers, Simpson hadn’t mentioned the pregnancy in his letter, so he must not have known about it. Delia probably had no more wish to bear her lover’s child than her husband’s, so she had decided to
