A Carriage for the Midwife (12 page)

‘Good day to you, Mrs Bennett,’ began Edward. ‘I have returned Susan Lucket in the hope that you may be prepared to overlook her – er—’

The farmer’s wife cut in sharply. ‘I fear that my husband is set against the whole family after what happened this morning, Master Calthorpe and, his temper being hot, there’d be little to gain by talking until he be cooled somewhat.’

She then turned to Susan, and saw that she had been crying. The girl was also dusty and tired – and her stomach must be empty, thought Mrs Bennett; and at once her need of a sensible maidservant overrode all other considerations, including her husband.

‘My Sally be here, and she’ll stay until she’s delivered,’ she told Susan. ‘Young Percy’s out o’ his mind with worry, for she’s sadly swollen with the dropsy and weeps all the time. There’ll be no peace till the child’s born, that’s for sure.’

Susan immediately understood.

‘Oh, Mrs Bennett, I could help ye take care o’ her!’

‘That you can, Susan, none better. I hold naught against you on account o’ your relations, but the less the farmer sees o’ you, the better. We must make up a bed for Sally in Marianne’s room – young madam’ll have to go into the smaller one next to it. Stay upstairs till things have settled a bit, and I’ll get Bet to bring you up some bread and cold meat.’

Susan nodded, pulling off her bonnet and preparing to start work at once. She glanced gratefully at Edward, whose duty had been done. He bowed to Mrs Bennett and said he hoped for early news of the safe arrival of a grandchild. With a last loving look at Susan he took his leave, and went home to face his mother’s reproaches and his sisters’ cold contempt.

Lying on her attic mattress that night beside a snoring Bet, Susan relived the events of the day. She thought of Doll, now confined to the place she had always dreaded, and of the precarious lives of the boys. She thanked heaven that Polly at least was in a good place.

But it was Edward, her rescuer and champion, who returned again and again to her mind; so far above her, yet he treated her with the courtesy due to a real lady. She recalled his gentle touch, his encircling arm, his clean wholesomeness; and she remembered the way his eyes had lingered on her face.

But then a foul shadow had intervened to spoil their innocent happiness. The secret shame endured for so long had clouded Susan’s attitude towards men, and she shrank in dread from that gross coupling that took place between male and female. What she felt towards Edward Calthorpe was almost the same kind of distant devotion that she felt for her Lord and Saviour Who, Miss Glover said, should be loved above all others.

Yet one thing she knew for certain: whatever the future might hold, the memory of this glorious afternoon in Edward’s company would remain, to relive and rejoice over in her dreams. It could never be taken away from her.

AS SHE HELPED
her mistress to prepare the bedchamber where Mrs Twydell would give birth, Susan remembered that she had been taken on as maidservant at the time of this daughter’s wedding; now it was the turmoil of Sally’s approaching delivery that had saved her from dismissal. She felt a special sense of commitment towards the young matron, and looked forward eagerly to the birthing, though it soon became clear that she would have new and exacting duties in connection with it.

When Mr Twydell brought his wife home to her mother because he could no longer cope with her tears and peevishness, Mrs Bennett’s anxiety was offset by relief at having Sally under her own roof. Mrs Coulter, who had delivered all five of Sarah’s children, was now engaged to deliver the first grandchild, thought to be due in mid-June, though Sally’s size suggested that her pains could start at any time. At the end of a week there was no sign of travail, though poor Sally had a catalogue of discomforts and seemed to be swelling before their eyes. Marianne proved quite unsuitable as a nurse, and was dismissed in favour of Susan’s quiet and capable presence in the sickroom, where Sally moped with her feet raised on a pillow and her wedding ring hanging on a chain around her neck because her fingers had become as puffy as her face and ankles.

‘Oh, I’m that fatigued, Susan, in this heat,’ she moaned. ‘My gown’s too tight – my slippers won’t fit . . . Oh, pray fetch my mother. I feel a tightness round the child’s head. Oh, why am I suffering so? Something must be wrong, I know it!’

‘Courage, Sally,’ Mrs Bennett would entreat her several times a day. ‘This child will be born in due time, like any other.’

Sally responded with a loud belch of wind from her displaced stomach, and bewailed her bloated appearance.

‘Percy’s coming over this evening, and I can’t bear for him to see me like this! I was happy when I first began to show the child, but now my belly has grown so large that I can hardly sit on the chamber pot – careful, Susan, hold on to me or I shall wet on the floor. Oh God, I shall die before the child be born. I’m sure o’ it, this will end in death!’

Raspberry leaf infusions were ordered, and broths and jellies made from calves’ feet; but Sally resisted most of Susan’s coaxing, and pushed the dishes fretfully aside.

‘You must think me a thankless creature, but I feel so
ill
,’ she wept. Most of the time she stayed in her room, resting or padding around in an ungainly manner, very different from the proud young bride of four years ago. Susan soothed her as well as she could, bathing her blotchy face in cool well water and waving a big feather fan lent by Marianne.

When Widow Gibson called at the back door with a poultice made from boiling the root of the mother-wort, Mrs Coulter dismissed her impatiently, and suggested gentle out-of-door exercise, so in the cooler air of evening Sally was taken outside and walked along a short garden path, supported by her mother and Susan.

‘Help me! Hold on to me, I can’t move for the cramp in my leg – it’s
agony
!’ she cried after a few steps, and the three of them stood helplessly in the middle of the path. The farmer had to be summoned to carry his daughter indoors, and he vented his dissatisfaction on Mrs Coulter.

‘I don’t know why Sally makes such heavy weather o’t,’ he grumbled. ‘Her mother was never in such a case as this.’

‘Mrs Twydell has the dropsy, and that makes it harder for her,’ answered the midwife defensively.

‘Then get on wi’ what ye’re paid to do, woman, for Sally says it be nigh on ten months since—’ He broke off for the sake of propriety.

‘That midwife be now too old for such work as hers,’ he muttered to his wife.

The days dragged by to midsummer. When Sally started complaining of a blinding headache Mrs Coulter ordered her to lie flat on the bed with the curtains drawn; not a word was to be spoken above a whisper in the room. Mrs Bennett was at her wits’ end, and Susan realised it was essential that she at least should stay calm.

One afternoon Marianne peeped round the bedroom door.

‘Susan!’ she whispered with a meaning look. ‘Who d’ye suppose has just called on us?’

‘Hush, Miss Marianne, y’r sister ha’ just fallen into a doze. I’ll come out.’

In the passage she found Marianne full of girlish flutter.

‘’Twas Mr Edward Calthorpe, Susan, with an invitation to a midsummer party and picnic by the lake in Wychell Forest – well, it
was
to be midsummer, but they have to wait on Mr Henry Hansford, who’s still away at sea. There’ll be carriages and cold provisions and a tent to sit in—’

‘Ssh!’ Susan glanced toward the bedroom. ‘That be nothin’ to do wi’ me, Miss Marianne. I must go back to y’r sister.’

‘No, wait, Susan, that isn’t all,’ went on Marianne excitedly. ‘He asked specially for you, and gave me his compliments to pass on. Oh, my! Such a gentleman, and such polite manners!’

Susan stared. The name of Edward Calthorpe had the power to make her heart leap, even during this worrying time; and to think he had called and asked after her . . .

‘Don’t you want to hear his message, Susan? He said to tell you that he and Parson Smart rode over to the House of Industry last week and saw Mad D— I mean they saw your poor mother.’

Susan gasped. ‘Did he?’ She was quite unable to picture a meeting between Edward and Doll.

‘Yes, and he said to let you know that she seems to be settled well enough, though a bit wandering in her thoughts. Oh, Susan, I’m sure he’s in love with you!’

It was like having a deep secret shouted out for everybody to hear. Susan’s heart missed a beat, but she shook her head in quick denial.

‘Oh,
no
, Miss Marianne, he’s just good an’ kind – and now I must go back to Mrs Twydell.’

‘Oh, Susan, I would
so
like to go with the party to Wychell Forest! D’you think that my mother will let me?’

‘Hush, here comes Mrs Coulter,’ said Susan, as footsteps reached the top of the stairs and the midwife limped towards them, leaning on the apothecary’s arm and followed by Mrs Bennett. Susan accompanied them into Sally’s room and stayed while they appraised her; Mrs Bennett then went downstairs and the midwife conferred with Mr Turnbull outside the bedroom door. It was not completely closed, and Susan strained her ears to catch their muttered comments.

‘I be half-minded to put my forefinger in and tear the bag o’ waters with my nail,’ the woman confided. ‘In general I don’t hold with interference, but it might just start her off.’

‘But if the pains did not follow, she’d be leaking water and in a worse case.’ Turnbull sounded doubtful.

‘But it might relieve some pressure. My dread is that she may start throwing those fearful fits, as sometimes happens when there be so much dropsical swelling . . .’

The midwife lowered her voice and Susan could not heart the rest, though Turnbull groaned.

‘I am inclined to ask Dr Parnham to come over from Belhampton to see her,’ he said. ‘Twydell can afford his fees.’

‘Hm. These man-midwives are overzealous in their use o’ butchers’ tools,’ murmured the midwife. ‘They’re not willing to wait and give Nature a chance.’

‘But Dame Nature may betray us while we wait upon her, madam! Believe me, I do not doubt your skill, but what would you do if she started having fits?’

‘And what would the man-midwife do, Mr Turnbull, and her not even started in travail?’

Susan cupped her ear to catch his low reply. ‘And if we lose the child, or the mother, or both, madam, and her husband asks why I never sent for Parnham?’

‘We’d be harshly judged, I agree, Mr Turnbull,’ sighed the woman. ‘We have a choice of evils, and not for the first time.’ She sounded disconsolate, and Turnbull’s voice softened.

‘You are in pain, madam, and that makes you melancholy. Take heart, for you are much respected as a mistress of your craft.’

Susan then heard Mrs Coulter confiding her fears.

‘I may not practise my craft much longer, for the hip-gout grows worse and I must take a stick to get about. I can’t mount even the mildest o’ mares, and soon I’ll only be able to attend those who can send a gig or donkey-cart for me. Besides, the business o’ birthing troubles me more as time passes, and women in peril such as we have here – they cause me much grief, and doubt o’ my own judgement. I’m getting too old, Mr Turnbull.’

More muttering followed, and then the apothecary came to a decision.

‘Look, I will bring two ounces of castor oil, to be well mixed with freshly squeezed orange juice and given to Mrs Twydell at first light tomorrow. The violent emptying of the bowel may stir the womb into its duty.’

So the next morning Susan lightly held Sally’s nose between thumb and forefinger until the nauseous mixture had all gone down.

‘Now drink some water and breathe deeply, Mrs Twydell,’ begged Susan, praying that the oil would not be vomited back again. She opened a window to let in a breath of air, and Mrs Bennett sat down to read aloud from the
Hampshire Chronicle
in a vain effort to divert Sally’s mind.

She threw the newspaper aside when Sally called urgently for the commode-stool and sat weightily between her mother and Susan, groaning as her bowel churned. A gurgling eruption of wind and liquid matter filled the room with an overpowering smell.

‘That’s right, Mrs Twydell, you hold on to us and don’t mind a few farts,’ Susan said comfortably. ‘We all ha’ to let ’em go sometimes, even the Queen when she sits on the stool!’

Unpleasant as the purging was, it achieved the desired effect, for by midday Sally began to feel regular board-like tightenings of her abdomen, quarter-hourly at first, then every ten minutes. By six o’clock her mother was counting five minutes between them, and Sally was holding her breath with each seizure. Farmer Bennett willingly got out the three-seater, first to fetch Mrs Coulter and then to bring Mr Twydell over from Pulhurst.

Mrs Coulter’s preliminary examination of the neck of the womb confirmed that the head of the child was presenting but was still quite high up. As she withdrew her two fingers, there was a gush of cloudy fluid: the waters had broken.

‘The child’s head faces towards the mother’s front instead o’ the back,’ said Mrs Coulter, and Susan gathered that this was not welcome news.

‘It means that travail will be longer, especially as it’s her first,’ sighed the midwife. ‘Either the head will turn round before it comes forth, or it’ll come out facing upwards – but the first is more likely, and it takes more time.’

The whole household waited up until the early hours of Midsummer Day, but when there were no developments the farmer ordered them to their beds, leaving only his wife and Susan to take turns at sitting up with the midwife and her charge.

When Mrs Coulter laid her ear against the abdominal dome to hear the child’s heartbeat, Susan asked if she too might listen, and the thrill of hearing the rapid pit-a-pat-a-pit-a-pat-a was like the revelation of learning the alphabet. The sound was most clearly heard on the right side, and the midwife pronounced it to be strong and regular.

The pains continued throughout the night and the following day. Bread and meat were sent up to the bedchamber, and Susan gave Sally sips of water and fruit cordials between her pains. Mrs Coulter showed her how to rub Sally’s back with long downward strokes and a circular movement at the base of the spine. It helped to ease the discomfort to some extent, but Susan noticed the midwife wincing with her own constant pain from the diseased hip joint; her eyes were ringed with fatigue, and Susan persuaded her to take a nap in Marianne’s room while she took over the stroking of Sally’s back, pressing her palms into the lower curve and softly murmuring encouragement.