Page 42 of On a Midnight Clear

“Oh , you poor dear.” Stella brushed past Frank and scooped up the tiny human with the scrunched , red face.

Frank eagerly stepped back to make room for her.

His competency relating to people in general was barely adequate, but relating to an infant?

His skill level would be graphed in the quadrant of negative integers.

The babe was so tiny, yet his plaintive cries tugged on Frank’s heartstrings with powerful force.

Arranging the child in the crook of her arm, Stella turned her back to the wind and cooed at the baby. “What are you doing out here, little one? Where’s your mama?”

An apt question. Frank looked to Muir, who couldn’t seem to pull his gaze from the infant. “Did you see anyone by the crèche, Muir? Anyone leaving in a hurry?”

“What?” Muir blinked and finally managed to shift his attention to Frank. “No. No one. The churchyard was empty by the time Isaac and I came outside.”

Goldstein joined the group, his breathing heavy and his cheeks red. “Who would abandon a child in such a manner? It’s criminal!”

“Someone desperate, I would guess.” Stella patted the baby’s backside and curled him (or her, gender clues were in short supply at the moment) close to her chest. The baby’s cries gradually subsided under Stella’s comforting care.

Muir stepped close and raised a trembling hand to stroke the babe’s bald head. “Someone who believed she had nowhere to turn.” His voice quavered, nearly breaking at the end.

Frank eyed his friend more closely. The stoic, grouchy professor had tears shining in his eyes, an unheard-of happenstance. No statistics could have predicted the turn this night had taken.

“We need to visit the brothel.”

Frank’s lungs seized at Stella’s flabbergasting declaration.

A round of coughs exploded from his chest, prompting Goldstein to pound on his back.

Isaac’s face registered as much stunned disbelief as Frank felt, an outcome that would have been comforting had it not also confirmed that he had, in fact, not misheard his beloved announce her intent to visit a house of ill repute.

Regaining control of his lungs, Frank leaned close to Stella and murmured, “Did you say ... brothel ?”

She nodded. Rather enthusiastically, too. A stone dropped into his stomach.

“Do you see this embroidered S on the corner of the blanket?” She held up some extra fabric that hung past the baby’s feet. “There’s only one place in town that bears this insignia. Sherod’s Sporting House in the Reservation.”

Frank decided not to ask how she knew that particular tidbit. It really didn’t matter. Her reputation was above reproach. Likely all local townsfolk were familiar with that emblem.

“The Reservation?” Goldstein asked. “As in Indians?”

“No. Some call it Two Street. It’s Waco’s red-light district. Down by the Brazos. Certain ... entertainment is legal in that area. Entertainment that could lead to the conception of a child.”

Prostitution. Good grief. How had a night that felt so holy deteriorated into something profane? Frank rubbed his temples, his head suddenly aching.

“The women who work there are forbidden to walk any street beyond the boundaries of that two-block area. In fact, if they wish to visit a shop in town, they must hire a horse-drawn cab to keep from being arrested for vagrancy.” Stella finally looked up from the baby in her arms and caught Frank’s eye, her expression equal parts determination and pleading.

“Whoever left this child here took a great risk. If she wanted to rid herself of an unwanted child, she could have tossed him into the river. But she came here. To a church. Laid her babe in a manger just as God did with his own Son. She must have had faith that someone would find her child. Someone who could give him a better life. A life filled with love, unstained by scandal and godlessness. Don’t you see, Frank?

God led her here. He led Mr. Muir and Mr. Goldstein to find the child.

God is still at work tonight, and my soul tells me that the Lord wants more than a safe haven for this babe. He wants to save the mother as well.”

Stella’s speech pierced Frank’s spirit. He’d recoiled from the notions of brothels and prostitutes, repulsed by the salacity of what they represented.

Such things were immoral and to be avoided at all cost. Not once had he thought of what the baby’s mother might have suffered.

Of what love might have prompted her to do.

It seemed illogical that such a sinner could be directed by faith.

Yet wasn’t Rahab the harlot commended in Hebrews as a woman of great faith?

Shame washed over him. Who was he to stand in judgment of someone when he didn’t know her story?

“We need to find the child’s mother,” Stella insisted. “Try to help her. If we can get her away from that life, offer her some kind of alternative . . .”

“I’ll sponsor her.”

Frank gaped at Randolph Muir, everything he’d thought he’d known about the man crumbling to dust.

Goldstein, however, didn’t look surprised in the least. He looked ... empathetic as he reached out to touch his colleague’s shoulder. “Are you sure, Randy? It wouldn’t be too much for Phyllis?”

Muir worked his jaw, his gaze unguarded as he turned to his friend.

“It might be just what she needs to finally set her grief aside.” He cleared his throat and straightened his posture, regaining some of his usual composure.

“I’d need to meet the mother first, of course.

But if she is not too hardened by her current situation and is willing to leave that lifestyle behind to start fresh, I’ll bring her and her babe back to Cambridge and turn her over to Phyllis.

If I know my wife, she’ll have the young woman educated and trained in a marketable trade by the time the babe is weaned and will likely insist on being the child’s honorary grandmother. ”

Frank had met Mrs. Muir a few times at faculty dinners, but she’d always been rather quiet and subdued.

Not exactly the type to take on a charitable cause with enthusiasm.

On the other hand, Frank had never suspected that stodgy Randolph Muir would volunteer to take a prostitute home with him either.

Stella shifted the babe to her shoulder and rubbed the small, rounded back. “You’re sure your wife won’t mind you bringing an unwed mother home with you?”

Randolph rubbed a hand over his beard. “I should have brought one home three years ago.” He gazed above their heads and exhaled a shaky breath.

“Our daughter, Geraldine, eloped with a young man we disapproved of. He promised to marry her but never did. What he did do was get her with child and abandon her to seek his fortune in the west. By the time we learned of her condition, it was too late. She believed we’d not welcome her home after she’d gone against our wishes and only wrote to us when her health declined to the point that she worried she’d not survive childbirth and wanted to secure a home for her babe.

My granddaughter.” Muir’s voice cracked, and he had to swallow a few times before he was steady enough to continue.

“By the time I found Geraldine, she was too weak to travel. She gave birth two days later. Neither she nor her daughter survived.” He gave a sniff and straightened his shoulders.

“If we find this babe’s mother, I’ll offer to take her home to her family.

If she has none, I’ll take her home to become part of mine.

I failed Geraldine three years ago. Perhaps this is my chance to set things right for another man’s daughter. ”

“I can’t think of a better way to honor Geraldine.” Stella leaned her cheek against the top of the baby’s head, and something shifted in Frank’s chest.

Would they someday cradle a child of their own like that?

A longing, fierce and deep, surged to life inside him.

He knew nothing of children. In fact, they rather terrified him.

But to have a child with Stella—as dreadful as he’d likely be at dealing with tiny creatures who defied logic and order at every turn—he couldn’t imagine any endeavor more fulfilling.

Not even studying in Germany with the finest mathematical minds of his generation.

As much as he wished to contribute to the advancement of scientific understanding for the whole of society, the chance to contribute to the advancement of an individual human would be even more remarkable. No calling could be more divine.

“Well, we’ve no time to waste, gentlemen.” Stella, babe in arms, strode across the churchyard toward the street. “Let’s be off.”

An invisible hand clutched his heart with a ferocious grip as a single thought pulsed through his brain.

Stella is not to go to Sherod’ s. Send her home another way.

Frank could not explain the phenomenon, but his soul vibrated with undeniable urgency.

“Stop!” He jogged up to Stella and circled around in front of her. “You can’t go to the brothel.”

She bristled. “If you think I care one whit about my reputation when a child’s life hangs in the balance, Frank Stentz, you don’t know me as well as I thought you did.”

Frank stood his ground. He had to. “I don’t know if it is your reputation that needs protecting or if it is your life or the life of the child, but the moment you marched past me, a warning sprang to life inside my spirit.

One that insisted I send you home another way.

I won’t ignore that, Stella. Not when every instinct I have tells me it came from above. ”

Her expression softened, then grew uncertain. She bit her lip as she glanced down and snuggled the child closer. “I hadn’t considered it might be dangerous for the baby.”

“Muir and I will go to Sherod’s. I promise we will do everything in our power to find the babe’s mother and get her away from there. We’ll bring her to your father’s house straightaway.”

“No. Bring her to Norman’s house.”

Frank’s brow scrunched. “The carpenter?”

“Yes. He lives two blocks down on Fifth. Small house. White picket fence. There’s no telling how long your search might take. If the babe gets hungry or needs a change, I’d have no way to care for him at my home.”

But Norman’s wife would be well supplied. Having her own infant, she could serve as a wet nurse and provide diapers and clean clothes should the need arise.

“Good thinking.” Frank turned to Goldstein. “Will you escort her there, Isaac?”

He dipped his head. “It would be my privilege.”

Reassured that Stella and the babe would be safe, Frank motioned to Muir and spoke five words he’d never imagined would pass through his lips.

“Let’s go to the brothel.”