A Carriage for the Midwife (36 page)

I have come for thee, Polly – my pretty little Polly!

My sweet Master Osmond – Oi know’d ’ee’d come fur me afore ’twas too late!

She was swept up into the arms of the handsome young officer who had chosen her above all the fine ladies competing for his favour. He was her own, her very own Osmond, whirling her into the dance once again. Fiddlers’ bows flashed back and forth as hand in hand he led her down the long line of dancers clapping and singing the refrain over and over again. She was as light as air in his arms, and when they danced off the edge of the world he held her closer so that she did not fall into the abyss.

And then ne released her, and she soared upwards into the night sky, up beyond the circling stars, higher and even higher, into the eternal sunrise that no mortal eye has seen.

The candle guttered low in its earthenware holder, almost burned out. Drowsiness had overcome the watchers whose heads nodded and lifted again as the shallow sighs turned to intermittent gasps; the wax-pale features had slackened into blankness. Henry felt the hand beneath his own grow colder, but sat unmoving at his post, a faithful substitute.

There was a tiny spasm, a choking sound in the throat, and then complete stillness.

Susan raised her head and called her sister’s name: ‘Polly!’

Roused by the sound and Susan’s movements towards the bed, the other watchers saw that their vigil was over.

Sophia rose and drew back the curtains, then blew out the flickering candle; the sun was not yet risen. She leaned over the bed and touched the cold forehead with her lips, then stood with folded hands.

‘Into Thy hands, O merciful Lord, we commend her spirit, with her innocent unborn babes. Receive them, we beseech Thee, into Thy loving care for evermore. Amen.’

Henry rose stiffly from his chair and stood with bowed head, repeating the Amen. Sophia beckoned to him to follow her downstairs to the parlour where she rekindled the fire and put water to boil.

Susan remained alone with her sister. She kneeled down beside the bed for a while, but no prayer rose to her lips. She stood up and drew the sheet over her sister’s face.

Standing at the window she watched the sky lighten above Great St Giles’ tower, behind which lay Bennetts’ paddock field and the track from Ash-Pit End. Another track led up from the village through the beech grove to Bever House.

‘Ye trod those two paths, my poor Poll,’ she whispered, ‘an’ look where they’ve led ye. Ye’ve more right than meself to the name o’ Calthorpe, but now ye lie dead an’ cold, like my Edward at the bottom o’ the sea.’

And she could not shed a tear, so benumbed was her heart.

‘Susan dear, you have neither eaten nor slept. At least take a little wine and hot water, and then come to bed and rest.’

Susan waved away the tray that Sophia had brought up.

‘Where be my brother Joby? Do he know that his sister’s dead?’

‘Dan Spooner has sent a man off on a strong horse to search for Job.’

The brief reply gave Susan her answer to both questions, and confirmed her suspicions.

‘I thought as much! They must ha’ turned him away from Bever House, so the poor lad went off to Belhampton himself, alone in the dark on an old horse.’

‘He’s a strong, sensible boy, Susan, and I do not think we need worry. He will be found, I’m sure.’

‘Found, yes, found dead. He’s more’n likely to be lyin’ out there on the common wi’ his throat cut an’ his horse taken by highway robbers. A fine night’s work, Sophy! My sister and my brother both dead ’cause o’ the Calthorpes –
ha
!’ Her mirthless laugh made Sophia shiver.

‘Hush, Susan, do not say what you do not know,’ she said, glancing towards the bed. ‘We want no bitter words in this room.’

‘Why not?
She
can’t hear.’

‘Oh, Susan, do not harden your heart. Let the Lord be the judge of wrong-doers.’ Again Sophia looked at the sheeted form on the bed. ‘Shall I ask for Mr Smart to call to make the arrangements for her – her burial?’

‘She’s not to be touched till I ha’ seen Mrs Coulter,’ said Susan sharply. ‘I know what I want done wi’ my sister’s body.’

She also knew that Miss Glover would be horrified by what she planned to do, but was fairly sure that the old midwife would understand.

‘Mrs Coulter spent the night resting at the Bennetts’ farmhouse, and I do not know when she will return,’ said Sophia patiently. ‘Mrs Marianne Smart has been happily delivered of a daughter.’

‘Oh, has she? And be the mother and child both well?’

‘They are, praise God,’ replied Sophia with a smile, thankful to hear the immediate concern of a midwife break through Susan’s otherwise bleak ungraciousness. ‘And now, dear friend, I insist that you rest. Your sister will be left where she lies now, until tomorrow.’

‘Nobody is to touch her.’

‘Nobody will, Susan, it will be as you wish. Come, there is a bed prepared for you.’

And Sophia, who had taken leave of her beloved Henry in the last hour, led Susan to her own room.

Lying there alone with the curtains drawn, Susan fell into a fitful doze, troubled by strange and frightening dreams. She thought she heard Polly’s unborn babies screaming to be released from the womb. She awoke with a cry, hearing the hoof-beats of a familiar mare outside. At once she rose from the bed.

‘I could have done nothing to save her, Trotula, but I should have been here. Why did Miss Glover not send for me earlier? I had half a mind to call yesterday afternoon, and cannot forgive myself that I did not.’

Parnham shook his head mournfully as he stood beside the dead girl. He had dressed in haste, and had not even put on his wig. Susan stood at his side, pale but strangely dry-eyed.

‘’Twas no fault o’ yourn, sir. My brother was sent up to Bever House to ask f’r ye to be fetched, but he was turned away, so rode across the common on his own in the pitch-dark.’

‘He’s a brave lad, is your brother. He got as far as the workhouse before the poor old nag collapsed and fell. The widow Croker says that he has but a few bruises, no broken bones.’

‘Ye saw him, sir?’

‘No, the widow came over to tell me his message at first light, and I came as fast as the mare could gallop. Job had said that your sister had had a fit—’

He broke off, overcome with pity for the white-faced, dry-eyed girl.

‘I remembered y’r lectures on the mother’s malady, sir, but I was surprised by the violence o’ the fit.’

She spoke as if discussing a stranger. He sighed heavily and put his arm around her shoulders as he framed his next question.

‘Miss Glover said something about your wishes regarding her body, my dear. Is she to be buried with the babies in her womb?’

She shook her head. ‘No, Dr Parnham. I want to see them afore they be buried wi’ her in the coffin.’

He showed no surprise. ‘Very well. I will remove them through an abdominal incision. Is Mrs Coulter in the house?’

‘No, and I don’t want her to be troubled now that ye’re here, sir. I’d ha’ done it meself, and Mrs Coulter might ha’ helped, but now I’ll assist ye, and the sooner the better. I don’t want any other body by.’

‘It will be as you wish, my child. I am ready to begin.’

Parnham could have wept for her, but was well used to concealing his feelings. He put on a clean apron from his bag, and took out a sharp knife. Susan fetched a basin of water and spread towels around the bared belly of the corpse. She watched unwavering as he made a vertical incision into the pale flesh now stiffened in death.

Susan knew from the doctor’s lectures that this opening of the womb was very occasionally performed on a living woman in a desperate last effort to save the child, and she remembered Mrs Coulter saying that it had been used to bring forth the emperor Julius Caesar. An unlettered Irish midwife had done it over forty years ago, Parnham had said, and successfully, for both mother and child had survived.

Although Polly Lucket was beyond human suffering, every move was made with care and reverence. There was very little oozing of bloodstained fluid as Parnham cut down through skin, muscle and the thinned wall of the womb containing the two small bodies. They lay curled together, their limbs intertwined with their cords attached to a single after-burden. First one and then the other was released, and the cords cut; first one and then the other was tenderly placed in Susan’s arms, held out with a towel to wrap round each of them.

‘See, my dear, they are both boys, and not a blemish on them – about ten pounds between them, I’d say.’

The babies’ flesh was white, with bluish-grey areas, and their sightless eyes were open. Susan wiped them dry, and after Parnham had sewed the two edges of skin together with linen thread, she put a clean nightgown on her sister and combed out the curly hair upon the bolster. Then she laid a baby on either side, each encircled within an arm. Apart from the soft rustlings of her precise movements, there was silence in the bedchamber. Parnham longed to hold her in his arms and tell her to weep her heart out, to let the sorrow and anger find a voice, but he too remained silent.

There was a gentle tap at the door, and Susan opened it to Sophia, whose eyes widened at seeing Dr Parnham in his apron, wrapping up his knife, scissors and needles. Then she looked at the bed, and gave an involuntary cry, putting her hands to her face.

‘Oh, my God! What a sight to move the hardest heart! Forgive me, Susan, but those dear babes . . . Oh, Dr Parnham, what heartbreaking work – however can you bear it? And Susan, your sister! I’m sorry, please forgive me, but oh! Heaven have mercy on them!’

Tears spilled down her cheeks, and she sank to her knees at the bedside.

Susan spoke quietly. ‘I doubt if even this pitiful sight’d touch the hearts o’ the Calthorpes, Sophy – neither the man who brought her to this, nor his mother who turned her out f’r what he did to her. They wouldn’t even send f’r the doctor at the end, so my brother risked his life. They don’t care.’

Sophia made an effort to bring her emotion under control, dismayed by the bitter condemnation in Susan’s words and tone.

‘Job is safe, dear Susan. It was so unfortunate that Mr Calthorpe is laid low with the fever, for he would have listened to Job, I’m sure.’

‘Maybe, but that’s no help to Polly now. No, Sophy, I ha’ finished with that family, and with their name. Don’t call me Calthorpe again, f’r I won’t answer to it.’

‘Susan, my dear –’ Sophia rose and put her arms around the cold, unresponsive frame – ‘your husband Edward had no part in this, and loves you dearly. For his sake you must remain Mrs Calthorpe.’

Susan gave her a heavy look. ‘Edward is dead, Sophy. I’ve heard nothin’ since the
Bucephalus
went down near three months ago. If he’d escaped drownin’, I’d ha’ heard by now. I believe meself a widow, and people may call me—’

She stopped. Having renounced the name of Calthorpe, she had no good memories of being a Lucket girl. She turned to Parnham with a grim little smile.

‘People may call me Madam Trotula if they want an answer!’

Susan wiped her eyes and could think of nothing more to say, while Charles Parnham kept his thoughts well hidden. He shared Susan’s view about Edward’s chances of survival. Many a life lost at sea went unrecorded, and families waited while hope ebbed away and time at last provided melancholy proof that a man would never return. Charles Parnham was willing to bide his time, but that time was not yet.

Sophia found time to keep her promise to Osmond Calthorpe on that fateful Saturday, and wrote him a short letter, sending it by carrier to Belhampton from where it travelled on the post-chaise to Winchester; by late afternoon he held it in his hand. Rising at once from the officers’ dining table, he called for his horse and set off for Beversley, arriving at Miss Glover’s door before dusk.

Susan lay in a deep, exhausted slumber, and did not hear the door knocker, nor the sound of voices as it opened to admit him. Sophia was not inclined to allow him access to the dead woman’s room, for fear of an encounter with his sister-in-law.

‘Only one minute, Cousin Sophy, and I swear I will not cause you trouble. Only let me look upon her for one last time.’

Their footsteps on the stairs were quiet enough; it was the knock-knock-knock of the wooden peg that penetrated Susan’s consciousness, like the sinister approach of some dreadful fiend. She moaned with fear, and in a waking dream she heard it coming nearer and nearer until it was on the landing, right outside the door.

‘Dear Lord, have mercy! Polly, Polly!’ she muttered, writhing under the bedcovers. Then came the whispers.

‘Just for one minute, mind – this is against my better judgement – you must keep absolutely quiet, not a word to me or to – to her, do you understand?’

And the sound of a door opening quietly and closing again.

But when Osmond saw the tranquil faces of the mother and her babies – his own sons – he forgot his promise.

‘My little Polly, oh my dear love, my sweet children. Oh, forgive me, my pretty, pretty Polly!’

‘Hush, Osmond, hush, for heaven’s sake! She has finished with the troubles and deceits of this world.’

‘But how shall I live out the rest of my life, Sophy? She died alone and forsaken, without one last sight of me. Oh, my God, however shall I bear it?’

Knowing that Polly had not died alone, but unable to reassure him because of her solemn pledge to Henry, Sophia now begged him to leave.

‘Come away, Osmond, you cannot stay here. Their souls are in God’s keeping. Come away now, quickly – and be quiet.’

Susan was awake now. She heard the door open and got out of bed. As Sophia led Osmond from Polly’s bedchamber, she opened her own door and stood before them.

‘Susan!’ Sophia instinctively tried to put herself between them, but shrank back before the blazing hatred in the grey eyes that confronted her enemy. He trembled and drew back a pace, steadying himself against the banister rail.

Susan glared at the man like an avenging angel, and deliberately let her gaze drop to his wooden peg. As plainly as if she had spoken, he knew that she intended to make a grab at his stick and kick at the peg, sending him sprawling helplessly down the stairs. He cowered before her, and a full minute passed; the three of them stood unmoving as a tableau.