No sooner was the cord cut and tied than Mrs. Bradford’s bleeding slowed to a trickle. The afterbirth came away without strain, and she was able to sipsome broth. Silently, I cursed the surgeon for abandoning this woman. Had he delivered her hours since, she would not have lain here bleeding, and two lives would surely have been saved. Now Mrs. Bradford would need a miracle to survive the loss of such a prodigious amount of blood. Still, I meant to fight for her. I told Elizabeth Bradford to ride in haste to my cottage and instructed her where she might find a flask of nettle tonic, which I deemed might strengthen her mother.
“Nettle?” She pronounced the word as if it tasted ill inside her mouth. Even in such a crisis, the woman managed to sneer. “I’m sure I cannot find such a thing.” She placed a hand gently upon her mother’s pale brow, and her hard eyes softened as she looked at that exhausted face. “I would she have what you deem her to need, but you must go yourself, for I fear to leave my mother lest she pass away while I am gone.”
I could see the reason in that, so I consented, instructing the maid how to clean the babe and settle her at her mother’s breast as soon as may be. If Mrs. Bradford were to die, as seemed more likely than not, I wanted the babe to know at least a few precious minutes of comfort there. I was halfway to the stable when I realized I was chilled right to the bone. I was still wearing nothing but the thin serge smock I’d grabbed up that morning when I’d fled Michael Mompellion. I turned, thinking to borrow Elizabeth’s cloak. The kitchen door was the one closest to me, so I made for it in haste and barged inside.
Elizabeth Bradford had her back to me, but it took just less than an instant for me to grasp what she was about. She had troubled to push her fine wool sleeves up past her elbows so as not to damage her dress. A bucket filled with water stood on the bench before her and her forearms were sunk into it, her muscles tensed with the slight effort of holding the baby under. I crossed the distance between us in a stride and pushed her aside with more force than I knew I possessed. She lost her grasp on the slippery babe and fell sideways. I plunged my arms into the bucket and drew that tiny little body out and hugged her to me. The bucket teetered and fell from the bench, splashing its contents over Elizabeth Bradford’s skirt. The baby was cold from the water, so I rubbed her, hard, as I would rub the life into a new lamb born on a cold night. She sputtered, blinked, and let forth a cry of outrage. She was, thank God, unharmed.
Relief gave way to a rage that broke on me so strong that I grasped up a meat hook from where it lay on the deal table and lunged at Elizabeth Bradford with the child still clutched to my breast. She rolled sideways, saving herself, and scrambled to her feet with difficulty on the water-slicked stone. Horrified at my own action, I took a step backward from her and dropped the hook. We stared at each other, wordless.
Finally, she spoke. “It is a bastard, born of adultery. My father will not suffer it near him.”
“That may be, you murdering bitch, but you have no right to take her life from her!”
“Do not speak to me so!”
“I will speak to you howsoever I choose!”
We were screaming over each other now, like a pair of fish-wives. She raised a hand to call a halt to it.
“Do you not see?” she said, and her voice was plaintive now. “An end to this business is my mother’s only chance for a new beginning. Her life is over, otherwise. Do you think I want to kill it? My mother’s child, who shares my blood? I do it only to save my mother from my father’s wrath.”
“Give the baby to me,” I said. “Give her to me, and I will raise her with love.”
She stood there, pondering, and then she shook her head. “No. It will not do. We cannot have our family’s shame flaunted in this village for all to stare at and whisper over. Nor would it be any favor to this girl to grow up in the shadow of the Hall and yet be barred from it. For word would come to her of her true origins. It always does, in these cases.”
“Well, then,” I said, cooler now and as calculating as she. “Give me the means, and I will take her far from here, and you will have my promise never to hear a word from either of us again. You and your mother may tell whatever story you like.”
Elizabeth Bradford raised her eyebrows at this and drew her lips tight together, considering. She was silent for a long moment, and my eyes searched her face for a trace of the compassion that she showed to her mother. But there was nothing like that there. Only cold reckoning. This matter, like all matters concerning the Bradfords, would be weighed on scales that could be raised or lowered only according to the heft of strict self-interest. I could not bear the sight of that hard, lipless face any longer, so I looked down, at the baby, and tried to form a prayer for her. A single word formed in my mind.
Please.
As hard as I willed it, I could not draw up anything to follow: no formal supplication, no Bible verse, no scrap of liturgy. All of the texts and Psalms and orisons I had by rote were gone from me, erased, as surely as hard-learned words written with painful effort onto a slate can be licked away with the lazy swipe of a dampened rag. After so many unanswered prayers, I had lost the means to pray.
“Yes,” Elizabeth Bradford said at last. “Yes, that might do very well.”
I swaddled the baby warmly, and we sat then, at Maggie Cantwell’s beloved old kitchen table, and haggled over the details. It did not take us long, for I was firm about my requirements, and Elizabeth Bradford was anxious to be rid of me. When we had agreed on terms, I climbed the stairs to her mother’s chamber. Her color was surprisingly good. She had drunk the broth and managed a piece of sopped bread and lay back with her eyes closed, so that I thought she had fallen asleep. But her eyes opened as I stood there, and when she saw the baby, tears brightened her swollen, bloodshot eyes. “She yet lives!” she quavered in an exhausted voice.
“So she does, and so she shall.” I told her then what Elizabeth and I had agreed upon. She struggled up from her pillows and grabbed my forearm with her limp fingers. I thought she was going to protest, but instead she kissed my hand. “Oh, thank you! Thank you! Bless you.” But then her eyes widened and her whispering became urgent. “You must go, quickly, this day, before my son or his father learn that the child lives.”
She pointed then toward a coffer at the foot of her bed. Inside, in a hidden drawer, an emerald ring and necklace gleamed against dark velvet. “Take them. Use them for her if you have the need, or give them to her when she is grown. Tell her that her mother would have loved her, if she had been allowed ...”
She had grown pale with the exertion of all this, and I knew she would remain agitated while ever I was there with the baby. So I hurried to fashion a warm sling from one of her fine woolen shawls and nestled the baby inside it, tight against my body. I knelt then beside her bed, took her white hand, and laid it on the child’s silken head. “Know, always, that she will be cherished.”
I descended the stairs and went outside to where Elizabeth Bradford waited with the horse. The three of us rode to my cottage, the baby’s small coos turning to whimpers. Once there, I handed Elizabeth a flask of nettle tonic, with instructions on how best to dose her mother. In exchange, I took from her a purse containing more gold pieces than I had ever thought to see.
THE cow EYED ME reproachfully when I entered her byre with my bucket. “I’m sorry I made you wait,” I said, “but I’ve good use for your milk this day.” In the cottage, remembering my own milk, watery and bluish, I skimmed off the cow’s rich cream and thinned what remained with a little water. I held the babe in the crook of my arm. Her mouth was wide now, uttering the weak cries of the newborn. I stroked her soft cheek until she turned toward my finger. It was a messy business and slow. I dribbled liquid down into her mouth for as long as she would take it. She stopped crying and presently became drowsy. I lay her then on some straw by the hearth and busied myself gathering the few possessions I would take with me. There was so little left. The winter jerkin I’d made for Jamie and saved from the great Burning; a
medical book of Elinor’s that she and I had pored over and studied until our eyes ached. These I took for the memories. A few phials of herbals useful for infant fevers and fluxes. I remembered, with a pang, the morning in Elinor’s garden when she had tried to teach me the use of feverfew, and I had been determined not to hear her. How soon, how very soon after that day had I been forced to change my thinking.
And then I put the thoughts of the past year away from me and tried to think clearly of the future. I determined to give my land and cottage to the Quaker child, Merry Wickford, so that if she chose to stay in the village she would have a home more certain than a tenant’s croft and something other than a lead vein on which to build her future. The flock I would give to Mary Hadfield in exchange for her older mule, which would do to convey us from the village—to where, I did not rightly know.
I still had the piece of slate on which Elinor had taught me my letters. I drew it out and was scratching down the directions for these dispositions when the door to the cottage opened. He had not knocked, and in the sudden glare, I could not make out his face. I jumped up from my stool and put the table between us.
“Anna, don’t flinch from me. I am sorry for what passed between us, sorry for everything. More than you can know. But I have not come here for that, for I know that you cannot yet be ready to listen or to hear me on these matters. And you have every right. I am come now only to help you go from here.”
I must have looked surprised at that, for he rushed on. “I know what happened this morning at Bradford Hall—all of what happened there.” He raised a hand as I was about to interrupt him. “Mrs. Bradford lives, and gains in strength. I am just come from her. I have looked hard into my heart this day. You, Anna, have recalled to me what my duties are. I do not propose to go on as I have been, feeding on the gall of my own grief. For you grieve, and yet you live, and are useful, and bring life to others. One does not have to believe, after all, to bring comfort to those who yet do. I think you have saved more than two lives this day.” He took a step, as if he meant to come around to where I stood across the table. But the look upon my face stayed him.
“Anna, I am not come here to tell you these things, for I can well imagine that you might feel you have heard enough from me already on the subject of my sentiments. I am come because I do not know if you realize that you are in danger. For you are, Anna, and gravely so. Soon, it will occur to Elizabeth Bradford that you are the one person alive who can bear witness that she attempted a murder this day. Her father already wants the baby dead: it will be a small matter to such a man to add your life to the due-bill. I want you to take Anteros”—his eyes creased for a moment in the merest hint of amusement—“for we both know you can handle him.”
I stuttered a few words of protest, saying that I planned to ask Mary for her mule, but once again he hushed me. “You are in need of speed. By fortunate chance I am just met with Ralf Pulfer, an ore merchant from Bakewell. He leaves this day for Liverpool port with a load of lead pigs from the Peak mines. He has agreed that if you come to Bakewell before his departure, he will escort you to Elinor’s father, my patron, whose estate lies close to the route that Pulfer will be taking. I have written a letter of introduction, setting down your situation. I think it is a good choice for you, Anna, for he is a fine man, and it is a large estate. Somewhere—in the village or the farms, if not in his household service—I am sure he will find a place for you. The Bradfords will not likely think to seek you there. They will look for you on the London Road rather. But you must go now.”
And so I left my home with barely the time for a last look at the rooms that had held the sum of my life’s joys, and most of its grieving. The baby did not wake when I lifted the sling once again and secured her tight to me. There was a moment of awkwardness in the garth, when Michael Mompellion reached out an arm, meaning to help me up onto Anteros. I turned away from him and mounted unassisted, preferring an ungraceful scramble to the touch of his hand.
I was halfway down the road, and going at a canter, when I realized that I could not let it end so. I turned then in the saddle and saw him standing there, his gray eyes fixed upon me. I raised my hand to him. He lifted his in return. And then Anteros reached the bend that leads to the Bakewell road, and I had to turn away and give all my attention to the downhill gallop.
Epilogue
The Waves, Like Ridges of Plow’d Land
ONCE, A LONG TIME AGO, Elinor Mompellion showed me a poem that likened the sea to a pasture. I was thrilled by it, because it was written by a woman, and at that time I had no notion that a woman might do such a thing as making poems. In my excitement, I memorized it and can recite it still:... The sea’s like meadows seen
Level; its saltness makes it look as green.
When ships thereon a slow soft pace do walk;
Then mariners, as shepherds, sing and talk ...
I thought it very clever then, having never seen the ocean. But now that I spend my days gazing at the sea, it is apparent to me that Margaret Cavendish knew nothing at all about it.
I have my own room here, where I may study and do my work in quiet, away from the endless chattering and childrens’ noise in the women’s quarters. This house is large and very fine, set into the wall of the citadel, high on the mount that rises sharply behind the wide arc of the gulf. My room is circular, with a latticed window that overlooks the garden, and then beyond to the hive-like roofs of the lower town, and finally to the endless expanse of sun-spangled water. From here, I can see the boats from Venice and Marseilles—and other, farther-distant ports—unloading their glass and tin wares and loomed tapestries and taking on their return freight of gold dust, ostrich feathers, ivory, and, sometimes, that saddest of all cargoes; the chained lines of tall Africans, destined to be slaves. I pity them their terrible journey, and wish them, at least, gentle winds.
For myself, I do not expect to travel anywhere ever again. But if I do, I am determined that it shall not be by sea. The waves that carried me away from England were not the even, furrowlike swells that Margaret Cavendish described in her poem. They were jagged crags from the landscape of a nightmare. Ravines one instant, soaring cliffs the next, not rooted in the earth but tossing and leaping and never still. For days and nights our ship plunged down their faces as a child’s sled skids wildly on an icy slope. As the timbers groaned and the mariners cursed at rending sails and fraying haulyards, I breathed the stink of tar and vomit and fully expected to die. Indeed, I was so ill that very often I wished to do so. It was only the thought of the child, and my determination to keep her alive, that gave me the will to continue.
But I do not mean to dwell on the great difficulties through which we are got hither. Only to say, in short, that Anteros carried me easily to Bakewell, where I hired a wet nurse for the baby and we left with Mr. Pulfer and his load of ore. But when we came to the turn that would have led us to Elinor’s childhood home, I drew out Michael Mompellion’s letter of introduction, tore it into a dozen small pieces, and watched the wind carry them away. I told Mr. Pulfer that I would not trouble him to escort us there after all but would carry on with him instead for the port. I do not rightly know, even now, what made me so head-strong in this, but it seemed good to me then to sever every tie that bound me to my old life. Suddenly, and very clearly, I knew that I did not want to walk each day in yet another place where Elinor had walked. For I was not Elinor, after all, but Anna. It was time to seek a place where the child and I together might make something entirely new.
I bespoke a room at a portside inn, and in the following days, there were many times that I rued my rashness, for it proved no simple matter to decide what course to follow. I barely slept during that time. For our room was hard alongside the tower of a bell that tolled the hours, and every stroke only helped me keep count of the time I had laid wakeful and worrying about our future. Just before dawn, when I might have been exhausted enough for sleep, the gulls would awaken and scream in the sky as if the world were ending
at sunrise.
In the end, I did not make the choice so much as have it made for me. The innkeeper, who seemed a decent man, came pounding on my door just as the seagulls had begun their clamoring chorus. He was in a great state of agitation, saying that a young gentleman had been asking my whereabouts all over the town. “Don’t be angry at this, now, but ’e’s noising it all about that you’ve stolen jewels from ’is family—I didn’t credit it, mind; as if you’d be ’ere wearin’ your own name if you was a thief. And another odd thing: it was your baby he kept pounding on and on about. ’E seemed much keener on that than the matter of the jewels. I don’t like to mind my guest’s business, Mistress, but he’s an unpleasant piece o’ work, and if you known your’n, you’ll be taking yer chances on the next ship, whatever it be and wherever it be bound.”
As it happened, and fittingly enough, I suppose, a carrack loaded with Peak-mines pigs was the only ship sailing on that morning’s tide, bound for the great glassmakers of Venice. I knew nothing of that watery city, and the decrepit carrack looming alongside the dock looked scarcely seaworthy. But I had, as I have said, no choice. So I paid out some of the Bradfords’ gold for a cuddy and more to quiet the wet nurse, who wailed that she had not bargained on a sea voyage. And thus I traveled away from my home atop a hold brimming with the very ore my feet had trodden over all my lifetime. I soon lost count of the days and nights as the babe and I rocked together in that gimbaled bed, and I thought that our story would end there, with the glassy green water cracking through the timbers and carrying us down into the deep.
And then one morning I awoke to a smooth sea and warm air spiced with cardamom. I gathered up the baby and went on deck. I will never forget the dazzle of the sunlight, glinting off the white walls and the golden domes, or the way the city spilled down the mountain and embraced its wide blue harbor. I asked the captain what the place was, and he told me we were come to the port of Oran, home of the Andalus Arabs.
Year of Wonders Page 28
