A Carriage for the Midwife (2 page)

‘Why, Sophy, I thought you would be indoors at this hour,’ said Mr Calthorpe with some surprise.

‘Good evening, Cousin,’ she answered quickly. ‘I’ve been visiting a young couple at Crabb’s cottages. The wife was brought to bed last night with a first child, and Mrs Coulter found it a hard birthing.’

Calthorpe made a noncommittal sound. ‘You are a good friend to the village, Sophia, but could it not have waited till tomorrow?’

‘I am going to visit my grandfather in London tomorrow.’

‘Oh, yes, of course, I had forgotten. You will miss the harvest supper, then?’

‘I doubt if it will miss
me
, Cousin.’

‘Hm. You know, Sophy, Gertrude and I truly appreciate you, especially all that you have done for the children. But there really isn’t any need for you to trouble yourself with the cottagers.’

‘It’s those who live south of the Beck that trouble me, Cousin,’ she replied, looking straight at him.

His brow darkened. ‘Does Mrs Coulter attend the women of that place? I would prefer the midwife to stay away from their dirt and disease.’

‘She doesn’t often attend in Lower Beversley, Cousin. There is a handywoman who does what’s necessary – she and Parson Smart between them do the physicking, and treat a few animals as well. It helps to eke out his shameful pittance from the rector.’

Calthorpe made no reply, and she went on eagerly, ‘Cousin Osmond, I wish to visit some poor children who were up here for the pig-killing. Edward says their name is Lucket, and—’

‘I have to forbid you to go near the Ash-Pits, Sophia. The Lucket man is a notorious drunkard, and I’d be obliged if you do not encourage Edward to associate with such as they. He is but a child, and need not concern himself with beggars. Mrs Calthorpe was displeased when she heard about it.’

‘In that case I will bid you good night, Cousin,’ Sophia answered coolly. ‘I have to rise early tomorrow to board the London stage at Belhampton.’

‘I will drive you over to meet it, Sophy.’

‘Thank you, but I’ve already arranged with Berry to take me in the gig. Goodnight, Cousin.’

She began walking towards the house, but he called after her. ‘Give my kind remembrances to my uncle – and enjoy your visit.’

She stopped and turned. ‘Thank you, Cousin. I’ll give my grandfather your regards.’ Her blue eyes gleamed as she added, ‘And a good account of your stewardship, Osmond.’

And away she went, a light-stepping figure disappearing into the dusk, leaving Calthorpe to sigh and shake his head. He well knew his cousin’s worth, but she was also an embarrassment, irritating Mrs Calthorpe with her grave observations on the plight of the poor of Beversley, and constantly pricking his own conscience; heaven knew that the poor troubled him also, but a man in his position could not easily overturn the established order. Even Christ had declared that the poor are always with us.

He sighed. He had come out with his two setters to take the air, and to escape from Gertrude’s endless talk about the harvest supper. For his part he wished for all the junketing to be over.

He called the dogs and continued on his solitary way.

‘Ol’ Goody Firkin be wrong, Poll, the Calthorpes don’t let poor folks starve! Look at all them tables, full o’ meat an’ pies an’ tarts fur everybody to eat!’

Susan’s eyes sparkled, searching the crowded Bever stable-yard for a sight of Master Edward. All the Luckets had come up for the harvest supper – her father, mother, Polly, Bartle, Will, Georgie and little cross-eyed Jack, who still suckled at the breast. As voices and laughter rose on the fine, warm air, Susan felt that she had wandered into a different world, a place where everybody was happy and could feast on as much delicious food as they wanted. Surely Heaven must be like this!

She saw Mr Calthorpe at the far end of the yard by the closed gate, standing with his wife beside him; on a nearby wagon sat the musicians, the shepherd with his flute, two fiddlers and a little Irish tinker with handbells. At a signal from Calthorpe to his bailiff, they began to play, and at the same time a great shout went up from the company, for the gates swung open and a huge decorated haycart rolled in with the Harvest Queen enthroned on a bed of corn sheaves, surrounded by her attendant maidens. She was dressed in a single white linen sheet, drawn up on one shoulder, leaving the other invitingly bare. Her admirers roared and stamped in appreciation as she smiled and waved her arms, almost dropping the sheet that only just covered her breasts.

Susan thought that she had never seen such a wonderful sight; even the food was forgotten as the Queen on her flowery bed progressed round the yard, drawn by two massive shire horses handled by the Bever coachman, who reined them in expertly.

The church choristers led the company in the harvest song, repeated over and over again to a familiar hymn tune that everybody knew.

The handbells rang out merrily above the melody, and although the rector muttered his disapproval of the use of church music for such pagan goings-on, nobody heard him but his elderly spinster sister, who nodded in agreement while privately enjoying the offending spectacle.

Susan caught sight of young Osmond Calthorpe swaggering around with Henry Hansford, gaping at the Harvest Queen with an appreciation he would not have shown to the plump dairymaid in her everyday kirtle and apron. And there on the far side of the yard she at last saw Edward, looking rather bewildered and surrounded by a rabble of grinning village children, who had formed a circle around some kind of entertainment.

Edward was indeed very uncomfortable. In searching for Susan he had ventured towards the noisy youngsters and saw to his dismay that they were laughing at the antics of Goody Firkin. She was capering to the music, throwing up her threadbare skirt and curtsying to the jeering onlookers.

‘Dance, Goody, dance! Show off yer beauty!’ they yelled as she skipped and twirled, a dangling kerchief tied round her almost bald pate, her rheumy eyes seeing a scene from long years ago when she had been young and a man had thought her beautiful.

Edward turned sharply when a little girl’s voice shrilled above the others.

‘Stop it,
stop it
, Oi tells ’ee, leave her alone, ye stinkin’ varmints! Go an’ gorge yeselves on roast pig, afore ye gets thrown out o’ the yard!’

Susan Lucket’s words were heeded. The mention of food, combined with the threat of losing the chance of eating it, did the trick, and with a few more derisive hoots the children made for the tables. Susan shook the old woman by the arm.

‘Stop makin’ a fool o’ yeself, Goody, an’ sit down, or they’ll give ’ee the beatin’ ’ee missed the other day. Wait here, and Oi’ll bring ’ee a dish o’ summat ’ee can eat.’

And turning round, Susan came face to face with Edward, who felt shamed by her spirited defence of Goody.

‘Susan! Let me fetch food for you and – er – Dame Firkin,’ he stammered, and was rewarded by her radiant smile.

‘Edward! Oh, Master Edward, Oi be that pleased to see ’ee again,’ she told him. ‘Poor ol’ Goody don’t mean no harm, though she be crazed, but the young ’uns make sport o’ her and drive her dafter still. Let’s go an’ get her a dish o’ roast.’

Edward willingly led her to a table where he picked up two plates and piled them with slices of meat.

‘Get some bread from that basket over there, Susan, to dip in the fat – there, see – and take her a mug of ale. I’ll keep this plate for you,’ he added with an air of authority.

When Goody was settled in a corner of the yard, picking at the meat with her fingers and sucking it through her toothless gums, Susan sat down on a bench with Edward and chatted happily as they ate.

‘Me dad be over there wi’ the reapers, see,’ she pointed with a crust of bread across the tables, ‘an me ma be sat yonder wi’ other mothers an’ babbies.’

He followed the direction of her finger, and saw a black-browed, bristly chinned man with features thickened and reddened by drink, though he was not yet thirty; and at another table sat a dun-faced woman who had been a rosy country girl a few years ago, but was now worn down by hardship and annual childbearing. She clutched a cross-eyed baby of about six months, who clung to her breast, and ate while it sucked, licking her fingers and taking little part in the talk of her women companions, most of whom had young children with them.

‘The babby’s called Jack, an’ me two little brothers Will an’ Georgie be close by, see, along o’ Bartle.’

‘And where’s Polly?’ asked Edward, smiling.

‘Standin’ over there, gawpin’ at the Harvest Queen!’

Edward looked long and hard at the Lucket family; it was his first real sight of poverty, and he was just beginning to realise how little he knew of the world beyond the Bever estate.

A pair of stout ladies were walking nearby, and they too were looking at the Harvest Queen.

‘Nearin’ three months, wouldn’t ’ee say, Madam Coulter?’

The Beversley midwife pursed her lips as the handywoman from Lower Beversley chuckled and continued, ‘It be allus the same at summer’s end, all that rompin’ in the hayfields, an’ her wi’ no sense. The farm hands’ll call each other out an’ break skulls sooner’n wed a gal they’ve shared behind a haystack!’

Mrs Coulter frowned and shook her black-bonneted head. A sailor’s widow, she was greatly respected in Beversley, and did not care to be treated as an equal by Widow Gibson from below the Beck. The handywoman tried a change of subject.

‘By the way, madam, there be a little body Oi
don’t
see here today – your friend Miss Sophia. Does
her ladyship
not like the bastard daughter o’ the house to be seen?’

Edward stiffened as he overheard this remark, and strained his ear to catch the midwife’s reply.

‘You must be more careful o’ your tongue, widow. Miss Glover is in London on a visit to Lord de Bever.’

‘Be that so? Then Oi hopes she enjoys herself, poor thing! She be neither one thing nor t’ other up at Bever House.’

A sudden commotion in the eaves of the stable loft broke into their exchange, and a small, dark, birdlike creature flew across the yard.

‘Oh, look at the airy-mouse!’ cried Susan, and called out:

Edward was amused at this address to the bat, but in the next moment Goody Firkin quavered a warning.

‘That be no bringer o’ luck, poor little maid! Winter comes on cruel an’ deep, wi’ bitter hunger for the poor. Eat yer fill, poor lamb – there’ll be nought fur yer little belly soon!’

Heads turned towards the old woman who stood with upraised arm, her sunken eyes blazing like some messenger of doom. In a low tone Mr Calthorpe ordered his bailiff to have her removed, for fear that she would frighten the superstitious villagers and ruin the evening.

But Goody Firkin was not to be so easily dismissed. As men’s hands were laid upon her bony frame she let out a shriek that froze the blood of her hearers.

‘Turn me off the old lordship’s land, will ’ee, upstart lawyer? Ye’ll live to repent in grief an’ shame by and by.
Grief an’ shame
, Oi tells ’ee!’

Her wails rose as she was hustled out of the stable-yard, and Calthorpe ordered the musicians to play something merry; but before two bars had been played a whole series of bats flew out from under the stable loft. The players faltered as the creatures rose in a dark cloud, filling the air with the humming of their wings and their high, eerie squeaks. They whirled round in a circle, and then, as if at a given signal, they headed southwards, diving and dipping over the Beck until they were lost to view.

‘’Twas the ol’ woman called ’em up,’ muttered some low voices. ‘’Er’d been burned at the stake in times past.’

But Susan spoke up clearly in defence of Goody and the bats. ‘’Tis not so! Poor Goody never hurt a fly, nor do the little airy-mice. They be but goin’ huntin’, like on any other night.’

The musicians started up again, but a raucous element had now overtaken the company, borne in on a tide of strong ale. The rector took his stately leave, followed by the Hansfords, the apothecary and the more prosperous farmers, and Mr Calthorpe ordered the yard to be cleared.

‘God pity the wives and little ones tonight,’ muttered Mrs Coulter, tying her bonnet strings. ‘Look at that great fool over there, he can’t stand upright.’

‘Ay, that be Bartlemy Lucket, an’ see, he ha’ pissed under the table,’ replied the handywoman. ‘An’ there’s his poor wife Dolly Potter that was, nursin’ her sixth – an’ there’ll be another afore that squinter be weaned, Oi’ll wager, lookin’ at her from the back!’

‘God help her,’ shuddered Mrs Coulter.

‘Ay, it be no uncommon sight fur Bartlemy to be led home by that poor child, to keep un out o’ the ditch, an’ pissin’ all up the lane.’

‘Hush, that’s enough, Widow – he should be horsewhipped!’

‘It be true, though. I seen little Sukey puttin’ un’s great spout away in un’s breeches to save the shame on’t.’

‘For heaven’s sake, woman, say no more. Come on, let’s go home together for safety, and get within doors.’

The boy and girl were still sitting on the bench in the deepening dusk, and Edward felt her shiver. He put his arm around her, and they huddled closer together.

‘Are your parents going home yet, Susan?’

‘Ay, there’s Ma leavin’ with the little ’uns, and Oi’ll ha’ to carry Georgie,’ said Susan reluctantly, for she wanted this wonderful evening to last as long as possible. She also hoped that her mother would not send her back to fetch her father, for she was tired, and the surfeit of food had made her sleepy.

A buxom woman in a blue cap and white apron bustled up to Edward, pointedly ignoring Susan.

‘Y’r mother says ye’re to come in at once, Master Edward. This be no place for a child!’

‘Good night, Susan, and I hope—’ But before he could say more Edward’s arm was gripped and he was pulled away none too gently. He had never felt so humiliated in all his nine years. What would Susan think of such a milksop?