A Carriage for the Midwife (5 page)

‘Ye’ll ha’ to look arter Jack while Oi stays along o’ Ma, Poll. Don’t ’ee let un fall!’

‘Be she dyin?’ asked the little girl tearfully.

‘No, she jus’ got a bad pain in the belly. Be a brave girl, Poll, an’ say “Our Father” like in church,’ said Susan, hiding her own dread of whatever awful fate was about to befall them.

‘Oi fergits the words!’ wailed Polly, clinging to her sister.

‘Ssh, Poll, just hold on ter Jack, an’ don’t let un tumble down below,’ answered Susan, who was beginning to understand that everything now depended on her keeping her head.

‘Help! Help me, fur the love o’ God, help me!’ shouted Dolly, and Susan disentwined herself from Polly and shinned down the ladder.

‘Shall Oi go fur the handywoman, Sukey?’ asked Bartlemy, hovering helplessly.

Susan heartily wished him out of the way. ‘Ay, go on, Da,’ she said, and he at once picked up his stick and stumbled out of the door, thankful to be out of earshot. It was still dark.

Dolly shrieked and writhed from side to side.

‘Oh, God – oh, Lord, help me!’

‘Ssh, Ma, take hold o’ me hand.’

Lying back on her straw bed, Dolly clutched Susan’s hand so tightly that the little fingers were cruelly squashed together, but Susan scarcely felt it because all her attention was now concentrated on what was happening. She watched round-eyed as her mother drew up her knees: all at once the sound of grunting and straining made Susan think of when she herself had to sit on a pail to do a turd.

‘Oh, Ma, be it a great, hard turd ’ee got there? Won’t un come out?’ she asked as Doll’s muscles tightened again to boardlike hardness. ‘Go on, then, push un down and get un out!’

She took courage at her own words, for if it was only a matter of pushing out a great big turd, her mother would surely feel better afterwards. Dolly’s face was contorted, her eyes closed, her mouth stretched in an agonised grimace; her legs were drawn up and apart, and her arms flailed helplessly.

‘Take hold o’ yer knees, Ma,’ ordered Susan instinctively. ‘Get yer hands under yer knees an’ pull on ’em – heave away! Oi be here beside ’ee, Ma – heave again, heave! Heave!’

It worked. The uncontrolled cries gave way to the steady, purposeful sounds of an immense effort. Susan pulled up Doll’s woollen skirt, and by the light of the candle saw that the fleshy hole was filling up with something dark and round and damp: something that moved forward with each straining push.

And at the same time all Susan’s fear melted away: she was here with her mother at a time of – what? She had seen Death at close quarters only a few weeks ago, and she now knew that this was
not
Death. Nor was it something as mundane as passing a great, stinking turd. No, this was an ancient miracle, this was Life, like the trees and fields and harvest of the earth, this was blood and breath: a huge elation seized Susan as she understood that this was
Birth
!

All at once the groans and cries were explained. Susan’s mind went back to when Jack had been born, and Georgie before him. She had been sent to Goody Firkin with Polly and Bartle while Mrs Gibson had bustled around their cottage and the same kind of noises had been heard. They had eventually been called back to find a new baby boy lying beside their mother. Susan had not fully understood how it had arrived, but now she knew, for here, surely, was another baby – and she felt that she had known all along.

Without any sense of repugnance she put her little hand over the roundness that was advancing from Dolly’s body, while from the woman’s throat came deep grunts and indrawings of breath between each long effort. There was no sound from Polly or Jack, who had fallen asleep above them. The woman and her child-midwife were alone in the winter dawn.

The dark, hairy head now filled the circle of stretched flesh. Susan felt it push against her palm, and as it thrust forward she saw a forehead appear, then two round, staring eyes; a little nose came through, wrinkling on contact with the air; a mouth, dribbling thick spittle; finally a chin, and so the head of a child was born. Dolly gave a long, low moan.

Ancient wisdom prompted Susan to put her forefinger into the baby’s mouth and clear away the spittle; the stimulation of this made it gasp and take its first breath. Air bubbled out through the moisture, and a second breath came out with a little mewing cry; there was a snuffle and another cry, louder than the first. The head rotated between Susan’s hands, and the shoulders appeared, one arm was freed and then the other, followed by the rest of the body and a gush of cloudy fluid. The little legs began to kick, and the room was filled with the piercing cries of Doll Lucket’s seventh child.

Susan was jubilant, and cried aloud in joyful wonder.

‘Oh, Ma, it be a little boy! An’ he got a rope thing on un’s belly.’

‘Ay, it needs tyin’ off an’ cuttin’,’ muttered Doll. ‘There be a bit o’ string in me pocket to tie round it in a knot, see – make sure it be tight, then cut below it. Fetch the knife from the table, an’ be quick, un mustn’t get cold. An’ there be a length o’ clean cloth to wrap un in, under the straw here, see. Cover un over, Sukey, him be but newborn.’

With fingers that trembled with excitement Susan tied and cut the slippery cord with its three intertwined blood vessels, and wrapped the baby firmly in the cloth, winding it round and round his squirming body.

‘Oh, look, Ma, he ha’ shitten already!’ she exclaimed with a smile of surprise.

‘Wipe it off and give him to me. Oi’ll feed un wi’ what poor milk Oi can make.’

Susan watched in awe as the child began to suck. As long as she could remember there had always been a hungry baby latched on to her mother’s soft and often empty breasts.

‘What’ll he be called, Ma?’ she asked, putting her face close to the baby’s.

‘Job, out o’ the Bible,’ said Dolly promptly, looking fondly down on the child in her arms. ‘Him was a man o’ many troubles, but un never gave up. Neither will ’ee, my little Joby.’

Susan began to clear away the soiled straw, but Doll stopped her.

‘No, wait, Sukey, while he sucks – ‘’twill bring the arter-burden. ‘Ah! There it be!’

When she saw her mother pushing down again, Susan half expected another baby to emerge, but what flopped out between Dolly’s legs was a piece of raw meat, bloody on one side and glistening reddish-purple skin on the other.

‘Put that in the basin, Sukey. It ha’ fed the child in the womb, an’ now ’twill feed us all. It must be cut up small in the pot over the fire, and we’ll ha’ dinner off it today.’

Susan sighed for sheer relief and happiness, overwhelmed by all that she had seen and learned from this amazing happening, and even more by her own part in it. She had helped her mother to give birth, and had cared for her new brother from the moment he was born. She now gazed in satisfaction while he fed, marvelling that Dolly’s agony was now so completely forgotten.

It was almost daylight, and as the candle flickered out, Widow Gibson hurried through the door. She had run all the way from her cottage in Quarry Lane, and when she saw the situation, she was full of praise for Susan.

‘Her’s done a woman’s work fur ’ee, Doll Lucket, an’ Oi hopes as ’ee be as proud o’ her as ’ee ought,’ she said as she bustled round the dingy room, getting the fire going and depositing a basket of clean rags she had brought, together with a block of hard yellow washing-soap. She poked Susan playfully in the ribs.

‘Oi tells ’ee, little Missus Lucket, Dame Coulter an’ me’ll ha’ ter look out fur oursel’s, else us’ll lose our women ter the new Beversley midwife – an’ her hardly eight year old!’

Susan glowed, and dared to hope that her mother would also value what she had done, and maybe show it with grateful smiles, kind words and kisses.

Polly and Jack were brought down from the roost, and Polly stared and marvelled at the new little brother, only eleven months younger than Jack.

‘His name be Job, out o’ the Bible, but we’ll call un Joby,’ Susan told her proudly.

So Joby he was called and Job he was baptised by Parson Smart, just as the snowdrops were lifting their brave white heads in the churchyard around Little St Giles.

Susan had another good reason for remembering that day. Watching the ceremony was a serious-faced young woman who spoke to the parson afterwards and smiled at Susan, who recognised her as the lady she had seen at the pig-killing at Bever House all those long months ago, with Edward. She introduced herself as Miss Glover, and they then saw her from time to time in Lower Beversley. She now lived in a handsome stone cottage that faced the village school at the lower end of Beversley’s main street. She even came to visit their home at Ash-Pit End, which thrilled Susan and Polly, though Doll Lucket received her with blank stares and no word of acknowledgement for the home-baked bread and pies she brought with her. Miss Glover told Susan that Edward had been sent away to school at Winchester with his elder brother.

There were to be no more Lucket children. Dolly was done with child-bearing and the coupling that preceded it. She tied Joby to her back and went out to find work in the fields, hoeing and hand-weeding, a solitary figure who kept apart from other female workers, and met good and bad times with the same stony silence. The only emotion she ever displayed was her doting fondness for her two pretty little boys, as she called them, though Jack was a whining child whose nose continually dripped and whose eyes never looked in the same direction.

But the winter of death was over, and young Susan Lucket greeted the spring of 1768 with new heart and renewed hope, all unaware of the foul shadow lying in wait for her.

SUSAN RAN UP
to her sister and slapped her face hard.

‘What d’ye think ye’re about, Poll, hangin’ around outside the alehouse? Oi’ve a good mind to box yer ears fur ’ee.’

Her blazing anger was a measure of her fear and anxiety, for she had spent the past hour searching high and low for her naughty little sister. They had been toiling in the Bennett hayfield all day under a merciless July sun; from six in the morning the men’s scythes slashed through the green stalks that fell in swathes for the women to gather, following the men as they circled round and round the field from the edge towards the centre. The women’s backs were bent and their hands bleeding from the barbed thistles among the grass; Susan worked alongside them, a wiry girl of ten, while Polly and the two toddling boys chased the rabbits towards the middle of the field where they took refuge in the last remaining clump. As the scythes advanced towards them, the luckless creatures made a desperate bid for their lives, scampering in all directions, their white tails bobbing. A roar went up from the men as Farmer Bennett’s gun was lifted and fired many times, sending lead shot into heads and bellies; the soft bodies flew up in the air, and blood stained the yellow stubble. All hands received rabbits for the pot that night, and when the haymakers at last trudged wearily to their homes, Doll Lucket held Jack’s hand while Susan dragged a half-asleep Joby.

‘Where be Polly, Ma? Ha’ ye seen her?’

Doll shook her head and kept walking, but Susan began to be alarmed. She hoped against hope that Polly had gone on ahead of them, but when they reached the Ash-Pits there was no sign of her. Panic-stricken, Susan at once set out to search the fields and hedgerows, calling out to her sister and trying not to picture her caught in a trap or fallen into a ditch.

‘Polly! Polly, where be ye? Oh, Poll, come out, come back, don’t be lost, Polly!’

At last, exhausted and despairing, Susan began to make her way back to the Ash-Pits to see if Polly had turned up there, and went by way of Mill Lane where the Swan Inn stood near to the parsonage of Little St Giles. A crowd of men and a few women sat outside on benches, laughing at the antics of a saucy little girl who was dancing for them, holding up her skirts and stepping lightly to the strains of a fiddler, in return for sips of ale and morsels of bread and cheese.

‘Polly!’

Susan’s relief erupted in furious reproaches, and she slapped her sister in front of the company.

‘Ye bad, bad gal! Oi bin seekin’ ’ee this past hour, an’ Oi be that fagged. ’Ee deserves a good whippin’, an’ ’ee’ll get no rabbit stew tonight, ye little numbskull!’

Polly put her hand up to her reddened cheek, frightened at such an outburst from her usually easygoing sister.

‘Oi didn’t mean ter run away, Sukey,’ she whimpered, cowering in a pathetic manner. ‘Oi jus’ be come to find Da.’

Her look of surprised innocence had its intended effect, and Susan rolled her eyes heavenwards.

‘Oh, Poll, Poll, how Oi ha’ feared fur ’ee! How Oi ha’ prayed to find ’ee!’

The younger girl quickly seized her advantage, and stood with eyes downcast, her hands clasped behind her back.

‘Oi never meant to frighten ’ee, Sukey. Oi be sorry.’

Bartlemy Lucket rose from a bench against the wall, and came towards them. He had taken enough ale to flush his features, but was not drunk. In recent years he had become more regular in his habits, and a somewhat better provider, so that Susan sometimes felt quite sorry that Dolly took so little notice of him; but at this moment she felt nothing but impatience.

‘Why’d ’ee let Polly foller ’ee to the Swan, Da? Oi bin half crazy wi’ worry, thinkin’ she be drownded or summat!’

He looked suitably regretful. ‘Ah, ’ee be a good gal, Sukey, an’ her be a little baggage. Don’t ’ee fret no more, then. Oi’ll walk along o’ ye, soon as Oi finished this’n.’

He uptilted his mug and drained the last quarter-pint of ale. ‘Run along home now, Polly, an’ tell yer ma we be comin’. Go on, gal – no, not ’ee, Sukey. Wait fur me. ’Tis a fine evenin’ fur a stroll.’

Susan was by now exceedingly tired, and longed to be at home and up in the roost with Polly, yet she waited for her father, who was the only person to show any appreciation of her. She had dimly made the connection between Doll’s complete indifference to him and the fact that Joby had been the last child. The strange sounds that at one time used to drift up to the roost had ceased ever since that terrible winter when three brothers had been taken and one had been born. Susan was a country child, and had seen the boar and the sow going about their natural business, the bull with the cow and the cock with the hen; it seemed to her a strange activity that the female had to endure. Remembering the vague uneasiness that Doll’s protesting moans and Bartlemy’s thick grunts had given her, it was a relief that it no longer happened. Even so, she thought that Da deserved a few encouraging words for the effort he now made to keep off the drink and stay in work. Even Farmer Bennett now tolerated him at such busy times as the spring ploughing and sowing, or as now, at haymaking.