A Carriage for the Midwife (23 page)

Was that a step in the passage outside? He listened. Berry must have been reprieved from Divine Service because of his young master’s needs – and indeed he was needed, for the decanter was again nearly empty.

‘Berry!’

There was no reply, no obedient footsteps.

‘Berry, are you skulking out there? Fetch me a—’

He stopped short with a gasp as a slim, dainty figure silently slipped round the door, which stood ajar.

‘Yes, Master Osmond? What be it ’ee wants fetchin’?’ asked a pert little voice.

‘
Polly!
’ He heaved himself up on the bolster. ‘Oh, Polly, is it really you? Shouldn’t you be at church with the others?’

‘Why, do ’ee want me to go back there?’ she asked with a delightfully saucy look, though her heart leaped at the sight of her master, so pitifully pale and thin.

‘Oh, Polly, you sweet little thing, are you real?’ He feasted his eyes on her hungrily, forgetting every other thought as she came to his bedside. ‘How did you escape my mother’s eye? Have a care, Berry may be around somewhere.’

‘Don’t ’ee worry, master, Berry an’ me ha’ come to a – an understandin’,’ she said, tapping the side of her nose. ‘Oi went to church wi’ the other maids, but Oi crept out o’ that little door in the transep’ afore the ol’ rector come in. Berry be below, keepin’ a watch fur ’ee an’ me.’

‘Is he, by God! I didn’t think he’d take such a risk.’

‘Ah, Berry be a good’un, an’ cares a lot fur ’ee, Master Osmond.’ She did not add that the man had heard him weeping in the night for his lost leg, and caught his broken words as he sighed for ‘Polly – my pretty little Poll.’ It had been one man’s pity for another that had led to Berry’s collusion with the maidservant, who now laughed merrily.

‘Dearest, sweetest Polly, an angel must have sent you to me,’ he murmured, overcome by such a wave of love and gratitude that his voice trembled. ‘Quick, a kiss – a kiss now, to prove that you’re real.’

She took hold of his outstretched hand, and he seized hers, kissing it fervently; and then he drew her to him and kissed her lips, lingering, tasting the sweetness. She smelled a sourness, a taint of sickness on his breath, but took no heed, so much did she long to please him.

‘Shall I draw the bed-curtains, Master Osmond?’ she whispered when at last he stopped to draw breath.

‘Ye-es, but you know I’m not yet well, Poll, and my leg that has gone still hurts as if ‘twere there. I must take care, Poll.’

He spoke awkwardly, apologetically, suddenly alarmed at being called upon to do a man’s work on a bed of pain in a sickroom. He knew that he needed shaving, that his skin was loose and flaccid like an old man’s where he had lost weight; and the unsightly stump was hardly an object to arouse a young woman’s passion. He was nervous – he, Osmond Calthorpe of all men, was afraid he lacked the prowess to take an eighteen-year-old maid.

But he reckoned without Polly’s love, which had never faltered and which she had saved for him, rejecting the advances of all other would-be sweethearts, and there had been many. She had nightly kneeled to pray for his safety: ‘Ye knows how dear he be to me, Lord, every last bit o’ him!’ She too had pondered over the disaster in the beech grove, and had learned from listening to the other maids talking of their amorous swains. She knew that what had gone wrong on that occasion was due to his overeagerness and her drink-clouded ignorance, and she was now ready to cope with the practicalities of lovemaking, though with her hero in his present state, she realised that success or failure depended on her – she whose only aim was to give him pleasure, for she had no wish to tease him now. She was completely sober and had taken care to relieve herself before coming to his room, where love made her bold.

She quickly untied her gown, letting it fall to the floor, revealing the plain cotton shift beneath; she pulled back the coverlet and got in beside Osmond as he lay on his back in his nightshirt. Their bodies touched, and both trembled a little. Polly sniffed the heady mixture of sweat, pine needles and red wine, and sensed his uncertainty and self-doubt; it touched her heart, rousing her to a tender desire for him more than a display of male mastery would have done.

‘I am not the man I was, Poll—’

‘Hush, my own dear love,’ she whispered, stopping his words with her lips against his. The long, clinging kiss that followed, both consoling and arousing at the same time, quite took Osmond’s breath away; he felt the blood surging through his veins in response to her delicious softness, and a flush spread across his sickroom pallor. Polly’s lips touched his nose, his eyes, his ears, his neck, and her breath quickened in unison with his own.

‘Polly, my sweetheart, my pretty little darling . . .’

She smiled confidently as she drew his head down to her breasts, pushing aside the cotton shift so that he could fasten his lips on each rosy nipple in turn. They hardened under his touch, just as his own vital member was slowly, very slowly, rising with the onrush of blood into its vessels.

‘Do you know how to assist this fellow to perform his proper duty?’ he asked her breathlessly, taking her hand down further under the covers until her fingers closed around the phallus.

‘Be this what ’ee means, Osmond? Do ’ee want me to touch him, my love?’

‘Yes, yes, Poll, I do. Can you kiss him? That’s even better.’

He closed his eyes and sighed out his mounting tension as her curly head lowered to obey. Loving him as she did, she showed a dexterity that was not due to experience but sprung from her fervent wish to please him: her instincts led her unerringly to do what most women need to be taught if such is required of them. Polly’s fingers lightly touched and tickled the two eminences behind the now proudly lifted spear of his passion.

‘Ah, Poll, that’s right, that’s it, that’s what’s needful, this,
this
is what I’ve been dreaming of. Oh, Polly, my little, little Polly, ’tis the very bliss of heaven . . .’

He groaned for pleasure, and at just the right moment, not too soon and not too late, Polly took her hands and lips away from his manhood and carefully arranged herself above him, a leg on either side, parting the fleshy curtains of her maiden’s cave with her fingers.

They sighed as she sank down upon his upright member.

But to their mutual dismay he could not enter. Her virginal hymen proved unexpectedly resistant to penetration, and after two failed attempts Osmond had to open up the way with an exploring forefinger.

‘Forgive me, Polly,’ he said thickly when she gave an involuntary cry and gritted her teeth as he tore through the delicate membrane. Willing though she was to admit him, the forced entry caused her such a sharp stab of pain that she thought she would faint. But again love came to her aid and stifled her protests as the blood flowed, staining the sheet. If it had been any other than her beloved Master Osmond doing this to her, she could not have borne it.

He found that he had been somewhat discouraged by the delay, and wanted further assistance from her to regain a full erection, now that he had made his way clear. So again Polly set to work with fingertips and lips, and he closed his eyes and sighed, not noticing her white face and drooping head.

‘Now, Polly, you may mount your steed again, and this time he will take his rightful place.’

His voice was faint and distant in her ears; no sooner had she resumed her position than he thrust upwards into her sore cavity and she clung helplessly to his heaving frame beneath her, listening to his mounting sighs and moans that reached a climax of release within half a minute. The stronghold was breached, the river flowed, and seconds later he collapsed in limp exhaustion, unable to bear her weight or the return of the phantom pain in the jerking stump. When she rolled off him sideways, he howled in agony.

‘In Christ’s name, Poll, have a care for that damned leg, for it hurts like hell!’

She was all penitence, and the tears she had managed to control during her own ordeal now sprung to her eyes for him.

‘Oooh, Oi be that sorry, Master Osmond. Forgive me, Oi wouldn’t hurt ’ee fur the world!’

He winced and clenched his teeth, his pleasure quite overtaken by a dismaying anticlimax of discomfort. The fact that Polly had not achieved the satisfaction he had enjoyed by reason of her efforts did not occur to either of them. He took a gulp of wine from the glass she handed him, and fell back on the bolster with a long sigh.

‘Don’t look so sorry, Poll – you’ve done me more good than all of Turnbull’s physic.’

‘Oi be that glad to hear ’ee say so, Master Osmond. Gi’ me another kiss, my love—’

A knock on the door caused them both to freeze into stillness, holding their breath until they heard Berry’s low voice.

‘It be but ten minutes to midday, Mr Osmond. They’ll be back from church any time arter twelve.’

Their time was up, and they had to part hastily. Polly got off the bed and pulled on her gown.

‘Where be me cap? Goodbye, dear Master Os—’

‘Make haste and go, Poll. Come again to me when you can.’

She slipped out of the door, and he lay back on the bed, falling asleep almost at once. He dreamed that his leg was restored to him, and that he was again inside Polly, riding her with proud abandon, thrusting again and again into her welcoming cave, while she laughed aloud with glee at his strength and power.

When he awoke the bed was soaked with urine, and Berry had to help him to sit out on a chair while Mrs Ferris changed the sheets. Jael’s black eyebrows rose slightly at the sight of the bloodstains, but she made no comment.

Back in bed, clean and refreshed, Osmond rejoiced. It was surely ironic, he reflected, that after such a long wait to take possession of Polly – it was just six years since she had first come to Bever House as a laundrymaid – it had taken the tragic loss of his leg to bring her to his bed.

Having given herself in love to Osmond at last, Polly lost the power she had retained for so long. She now had to obey his commands, close her mind to danger, to consequences and everything but her desire to make her master happy. Berry was forced into co-operation with the lovers, and had to leave the bedchamber when Polly crept in at midnight; he returned at dawn to make sure that she left before the household was stirring.

The maids who shared Polly’s room observed her nightly absences, but nothing was said in the hearing of Martin or his wife, who were answerable for the good behaviour of the servants.

Yet Polly’s nocturnal wanderings remained undiscovered as the weeks went by, and she and Osmond accepted their amazing good luck without any suspicion that they were being protected.

Only Berry knew of the brooding presence that watched over their comings and goings, and gave him his orders: and he often wondered when Jael Ferris slept, if ever.

THE BELHAMPTON HOUSE
of Industry had been built a quarter of a century earlier to shelter the destitute and provide them with useful occupation. The original intention had been good, but in practice the workhouse system had become a byword for penny-pinching charity, a last resort for the unwanted members of the community who could not help themselves. The aged man or woman with no family to offer support, the cripple, the idiot, the unmarried mother and her child, along with the unfortunates who could not earn a living for any reason – the blind, the born deaf and therefore dumb, the epileptic – all found a home of sorts within its walls. Apart from delivered mothers and orphans sufficiently grown to find work in the world outside, few ever left except in a plain unmarked coffin on a short journey to a pauper’s grave. And there were many such funerals, especially during the winter months.

One of the inmates in the spring of 1780 was Rose. She was not yet fifty but prematurely aged after a life of poverty and the loss of every child born to her. She had been brought to the House with an advanced canker of the left breast, and spent her diminishing days in bed, shunned by the other inmates because of the foul smell of the lesion, which had to be dressed every day.

The new nurse had been given the unpopular task of ‘seeing to Rose’, and the two women immediately discovered a fellow feeling to their mutual advantage; in fact Susan later said that Rose had helped her to weather those first few weeks under the rule of Mrs Jarvis, otherwise known as ‘Mother’, who was in charge of the mothers and babies. Mrs Jarvis was not at all happy to give up her position as midwife in the House, and declared war on the newcomer from the start.

This all provided diversion for Rose, who loved hearing workhouse gossip and eagerly awaited Susan’s daily visits.

‘How’s that poor young gal gettin’ on, her as was makin’ such a sighin’ an’ sobbin’ last night?’ she asked as Susan filled a basin with salted water and set out pads and bandages.

‘Hannah’s likely to give birth some time today,’ answered Susan, who had sat up during the night hours with the sixteen-year-old girl but had been banished when Mother Jarvis came in after breakfast.

‘Poor lamb! Be she in danger, do ’ee reckon?’

‘I don’t think so, Rose. She’s young an’ strong. Old Mother Jarvis be in great danger, though – o’ being strangled by my two bare hands afore today be done!’

Rose chuckled weakly, and Susan gingerly removed the malodorous dressings of yesterday. She marvelled at this woman’s stoic endurance, her capacity to share a conspiratorial joke, even in her dire condition. There was only a spreading greyish mass where her left breast had been, though she felt little pain from it; there was more discomfort from the hard lumps in her neck and armpits.

‘Bain’t as sweet as lavender, eh, gal?’ she said wryly as Susan dabbed and mopped, forcing herself not to gag over her task for Rose’s sake.

‘How be that one who the doctor put them tongs on, Susan, to pull the poor baby out? Last week, wân’t it?’

‘Mm. She’s feeling a bit better now, and the babe’s bein’ suckled by another.’

Susan frowned as she spoke. Dr Parnham’s birthing forceps were blamed for the high incidence of childbed fever and infant deaths in the House, and it was said that he used the workhouse mothers to practise his infamous methods. In Susan’s opinion it was Mrs Jarvis’s lack of basic cleanliness during and after birthings that was more likely to be the cause of infections; and when a mother died, the baby was almost certain to follow if no wet nurse was available.