The Brazen Woman

by Anne Groß

  “The doctor? Do you mean the army surgeon? Why? Is Amy in any danger?” Collins asked.

  “Are you not calling for the surgeon a little prematurely?” Mrs. Gillihan asked.

  “Amanda’s fine. I just want the doctor.” Suddenly, there wasn’t anything Elise wanted more than to put the responsibility of mother and baby into more capable hands. She felt like a rookie nurse with a raw deal. It was hard not to think about all the things that could go wrong, and all the equipment she was missing. Giving birth was something a woman’s body was built to do, but that didn’t mean much. After all, human bodies are built to do a lot of things, like breathing, yet people died all the time from lung related illnesses. She’d rather deal with a gaping wound or a broken bone any day. At least you could splint a bone or sew a wound. “Um. I’ll be right back.” Elise darted away before anyone could ask more questions.

  At the bottom of the ladder to the upper decks, a dark silhouette stepped in front of her, blocking her path. She didn’t have to see Thomas’s face to recognize him. His broad shoulders, slightly hunched by a lifetime of leaning over people to intimidate them, gave him away. “What do you want?” Elise asked. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “How is she?” Thomas’s legs were spread and steady against the pitching floor.

  “Fine. Why do you care?”

  “Why should I not care?”

  Elise shrugged. Thomas loomed. The ship lurched. In tandem, they both took a wider stance for balance and Thomas grabbed Elise’s arm to steady her.

  “You going to get out of my way?” she asked, pulling away from his helping hand. “I need to get the doctor.”

  “Do you mean the surgeon? Is Mrs. Collins in any danger?”

  “Why is everyone asking me that? I don’t know, probably not. Maybe.” His warmth remained on her arm, her skin sensitized to the roughness of his hand. “I’ll feel better with the doctor around.”

  “He’s a surgeon, not a doctor.”

  “Aren’t surgeons also doctors?”

  “Entirely different fields of study. Mr. Russell is quartered in the ship’s storeroom. You’ll likely find him there.” Without another word, Thomas stepped aside to let her pass.

  The air grew slightly more breathable as she climbed her way to the upper decks, and the sound of the raging storm grew louder. She gripped the rail, white-knuckled, as the ship plunged in and out of the waves. Even with the ship battened down, everything was wet. Fleetingly, she thought of Tucson, of the broad desert and endless sky, warm and dry—the kind of warm that crackled in your hair and smelled sharp, like the acrid smell a line of fire ants leaves behind.

  It seemed strange to house a doctor in a storeroom. The sailors all had fourteen inches of space to swing in their hammocks when they were off shift for the four hours at a time they were allowed to sleep. The army men had the floor. She supposed sleeping in a storeroom was a great privilege. Elise assumed the storeroom had to be closer to the weather deck, but hadn’t a clue beyond that. After two men had given her incomprehensible directions laden with nautical slang, Elise pounded on a door that looked promising. The answering groan gave her hope that she’d finally found the right place. She pushed open the door and was slapped with an eye-watering scent of sweat and vomit.

  It was less storeroom and more broom closet. On the floor was a small pile of leather trunks of all sizes. One was open, revealing an impressive collection of books. Under the trunks were three layers of crates. And shoved whereever there was space left in the small room, were cages of live chickens. Suspended from hooks in opposite walls was a hammock, the bottom of which barely grazed the home of a skinny hen who had lost most of her feathers. A lump of blankets in the hammock moved and a pair of bloodshot eyes peered out.

  “I’m looking for Doctor Russell,” she said. The eyes blinked. “Wait. Are you?” Elise had a sinking feeling. “Doctor Russell?”

  “I am the army’s surgeon, George Russell. Who the bloody hell are you?” The man’s head stretched out of the blanket like a turtle coming out of its shell. His orange hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat. His mustache, such as it was, lay limp over his upper lip. The youthful freckles that dotted his nose were the only indication of a healthy past spent outdoors.

  He reached under his hammock and drew a sloshing pail closer towards him and dry heaved over it. “Yes? Yes?” he asked impatiently when he managed to look up again. “State your business.”

  “I’m Elise Du--, er, Mrs. Richard Ferrington. Your nurse?”

  “My nurse? Who sent you to nurse me? I’ve no need of a nurse.”

  “No, I’m on your staff.”

  “My staff?”

  “Um. Yeah. I’m an army nurse.”

  “Army nurse?”

  Elise took a steadying breath. So many of her conversations consisted of her saying things and people repeating whatever she said in incredulous tones. “Amanda Collins is in labor. We need you downstairs right now.”

  Russell smacked his lips together unpleasantly. “Ah yes, now I remember Corporal Whiffle said you’d called yourself the best nurse in the entire British Army,” he laughed weakly. “I suppose that means you’re nearly as helpful as a loblolly boy.”

  Elise narrowed her eyes, suspecting that Russell had just insulted her. “Mrs. Collins is having her baby right now.”

  “Who is Mrs. Collins?”

  “Private Collins’s wife.”

  “Private?”

  Elise took the man’s coat off the top of a barrel and held it up for him. When he made no effort to move, Elise grabbed the corner of his blanket and tugged.

  Russell pulled back. “Just one moment. Why would you need me? Is the baby breech?” he asked.

  “Transverse.”

  “Transverse?” He peeled Elise’s hand from the blanket. “Is the mother in any danger?”

  Elise felt herself flush. Normally she’d have data to give, mother’s vitals, baby’s heart rate. Approaching a doctor without having a complete report on the status of the patient was inexcusable under normal circumstances, but she didn’t even have a watch to time the contractions. “No, I don’t think so. I mean, not yet. I’m just worried that her labor won’t progress without the baby’s head engaged. I think the baby is premature, but Amanda doesn’t know her due date.”

  “Bloody hell, are you a nurse or not? You’ve been caught in your lie, madam.”

  “No, I am a nurse, but—”

  “Unhand me you hag,” Russell shouted while trying to roll himself tighter into the blanket that Elise had been trying to pull away. “I am unwell. A real nurse would see that instantly. How dare you attempt to rouse me from my deathbed for a transverse presentation.” To more colorfully illustrate his condition, he swung his bucket at Elise. She jumped back to avoid wearing its contents and felt a light sprinkle of backsplash on the tops of her feet. “Mrs. Amanda Collins,” he said, gasping and coughing through heaves, “can go to hell. And God help her whelp if you don’t know enough to turn the bugger. Nurse indeed! Go do your job, madam.”

  ENGLISH LESSONS

  Adelaide sailed the ocean like an old hand. The ship called upon the forces of all four of nature’s elements in a manner remarkably similar to casting a spell—wind was captured and harnessed by white sails so large they swallowed the sky, water was cut by the keel like the sharp blade of a sleigh, and flames had steamed the wood into the shape of the Sea Otter’s curved hull. The ship herself was like the great mother earth, her rounded belly protecting all within. The ship’s crew was like a large coven who lent their collective power to the captain so that he might conduct them all from one place to another at speeds that took Adelaide’s breath away. She stood on the lower deck of the Sea Otter and rode the bucking ocean. Under the open hatch, she took great gulps of salt air and felt nourished.

  Accustomed to placing candles at the four cardinal directions as a calming meditation, Adelaide could easily take her bearings, even when the ocean looked equally roiled by weather i
n every direction. In this small way, she and the good Captain Briggs were alike. He was always aware of where his ship was in relation to the rest of the world. The crew’s confidence in their leader’s navigation skills was a basic trust, and yet to Adelaide, this skill was unremarkable. Although unable to light candles on board, Adelaide set her own personal compass every morning with a drawn card and a nod to the cardinal points.

  The weather had been violent in the North Sea. Rain, and wave after pounding wave, had soaked everything and tossed the ship like a leaf in the breeze. But now that they’d left Britain behind, there began a nearly imperceptible lifting of the weather. Adelaide felt nothing but relief. Not just relief from the incessant darkness of her cabin, but also relief from the responsibilities that la Société had placed upon her. So much time in her cabin had purged her of any fears of the task set before her. Now it seemed like nothing more than a triviality. Should she actually find the emerald, which she deemed unlikely, it would be nothing more than a happy surprise, like having un joli bonbon offered to mask the flavor of a spoonful of medicine.

  Standing on deck in the heavy drizzle, she gazed out at the Sea Otter’s wake. Above, the white sails sliced though the dark sky. Sailors were out on the yardarms, dropping the reefs in the abating wind. Normally Adelaide ignored them all as she took in the air, but as she promenaded along the perimeter of the ship—which wasn’t much of a walk given the many obstacles of sailing tack in her path—one grizzled sailor caught her eye. He was sitting on the lee side of the purser’s cabin, hunched against the wall. In his lap, a ball of thick worsted wool danced as the front panel of a guernsey sweater fell from the knitting needles that flashed in the sun. He was working a complicated pattern of knots, a spell the likes of which she’d never seen. “Making wind?”

  Adelaide asked in her simple English.

  The sailor gave her a slow grin revealing a mouth full of broken teeth and swollen gums. “Passing wind d’you mean? Oh aye. I’m passing it. I’ve been farting away my whole life on this bitch of a ship.” Then he leaned aft and bore down, squeezing his eyes closed with the effort. “Thank ye for asking.”

  The captain and his officers on board had made it their project to help Adelaide learn English. Dictionaries and grammar books had been lent to her, and every evening over dinner, she practiced speaking with the gentlemen. Being immersed in the language on a small merchant ship helped, but it turned out that she didn’t have much of a head for English. Adelaide was hardly surprised by her difficulty. Germanic languages were entirely without poetry.

  She made a second attempt at communicating with the strange sailor, her curiosity overriding his insulting response. “Tricotage. . . knitting,” Adelaide insisted, calling up the obscure word from the depths of her recent memory and pointing to the bearded man’s handiwork. “Knitting wind.”

  He stopped laughing. Adelaide felt his gaze take in her simply cut dress, the Alençon lace that edged her sleeves and petticoats, her shawl that warmed her shoulders with its complicated twists of yarn. His eyes pierced her so that she could almost be certain he saw the divination cards that she kept pressed against the soft skin of her bosom. “You think I can knit the wind, do you?” He crossed himself in an act of protection. “It’s bad enough having women on board, but now we’ve a witch. And I suppose you want me to show you all my tricks?”

  “Knitting,” Adelaide said again, not understanding his meaning. She dearly missed having her own needles. There was something about feeling the wool thread through her fingers, pulled by the slowly winding pattern. The repetitive motion calmed. The smell of the wool healed.

  The sailor took up his project again and shook his head. “I’ll not put this power in your hands. This is a man’s job. Always has been, always will be.” The creamy wool snagged on his rough, weather-worn hands leaving tufts of fiber in the cracks of his fingers. He slipped five stitches onto a third needle, and bypassed them only to turn back to knit them three stitches later. Adelaide gasped. She’d never seen such audacious patterning. “Show,” she demanded, “show!”

  “No. I will not,” the man said primly, balling up his work and turning his back with his beard in the air.

  She sighed. Of course he wouldn’t share his spell. What was she thinking? But the strength of her desire to knit didn’t allow her to give up. “I touch?” She breathed the question hesitantly, and was rewarded with a leering grin.

  “Mademoiselle Bonnediseuse, I must say I’m surprised to see you out in this rain. Is Nigel bothering you?”

  Adelaide turned quickly, startled, and then struggled to keep her face neutral at the sight of Mrs. Briggs. The blue-eyed blond stood ramrod straight under her umbrella, showing no discomfort from the rolling waves. Her knees, spread apart for balance, puffed out the skirt of her immaculate white dress as they bent in rhythm with the rising and falling deck. Jacques Noisette had failed to mention that the handsome captain traveled with a young wife. The flirtation Adelaide had looked forward to was now more difficult to achieve. Worse, Mrs. Briggs’ French was intolerable. Captain Briggs had a charming lilt to his accent, but his wife merely drawled, as though her tongue was too meaty for her lower jaw to support the weight of it.

  “I must apologize for the crew,” Mrs. Briggs said, drawing Adelaide away from Nigel, who had submissively bent his head over his knitting again. “With the war resuming, it was nearly impossible for my Howard to find any sailors worth their salt. The Navy is in constant need of able seamen, and the very few who haven’t volunteered are forced to join by press gangs, leaving no one to crew England’s merchant ships. Nigel here is one of the best men we’ve got, but a bit strange. I’d stay away from him if I were you.”

  “I was admiring his knitting needles,” Adelaide said. “They’re beautifully fashioned. I wish I had my own again.”

  “Knitting needles?” Mrs. Briggs laughed in surprise. “You’ve barely a stitch of clothing to call your own, and that is what you miss? I must say, my dear, you do surprise me at every turn. I’ll put the ship’s carpenter to work for you. He’ll turn you a pair of needles in no time, and when we reach the Azores Islands, I’ll have the captain buy all the wool your heart desires. Nothing makes Howard happier than to buy me gifts and I’ll tell him what I want most is for you to have yarn.”

  Mrs. Briggs affectionately threaded her arm into Adelaide’s elbow, inviting her to share her umbrella. “Personally I prefer needlework to knitting,” Mrs. Briggs continued as they walked together. “There’s something so satisfying about stitching a spray of violets or a bouquet of garden roses. No matter how far out to sea I find myself, I’ll always wear flowers stitched in the softest silk. Isn’t that wonderful? But you are correct to think so pragmatically. Embroidered flowers are absolutely absurd. Just think, a woman such as myself living out here on the ocean and embroidering roses! I should heed your better judgement and spend my time knitting Howard a guernsey.” Her laugh tinkled pleasantly.

  “Have you ever embroidered lace?” asked Adelaide hesitantly. She wasn’t sure how far she should go down this path, but it was difficult not to encourage Mrs. Briggs’s interest in textiles, despite the woman’s atrociously accented French.

  “Embroidered lace? I thought lace was knotted.”

  “Not all of it,” Adelaide lifted her sleeve to show the hidden lace at her wrists. “See how the threads of this lace make a mesh? How the stuffed cordage lines each rose pedal? This detail is not possible with common bobbin lace.”

  Mrs. Briggs hesitantly reached out a tiny hand, reddened from the weather, to touch Adelaide’s wrist. “It’s beautiful.” Her smile was soft and her blue eyes sparked with imagination. “How wonderful would it be if the bouquets I love so much to embroider could become lace.”

  “If you are interested, I could show you a bit of the art.”

  It took ten years of apprenticeship, countless hours of building trust, and a sacred initiation for Adelaide to achieve mastery of the embroidered lace. The guilt she fel
t for suggesting to pass along a few tricks to her hostess was considerable, but one evening’s worth of embroidery lessons wouldn’t reveal too many secrets, she reasoned. She was surprised how it made her long for her old hometown of Alençon. The world had been simpler in those years she’d spent in that sleepy village in Normandy.

  “That would be a delightful way to pass the time,” Mrs. Briggs said. “I’m so glad you’re here. I must say you’ve been a delightful surprise. Although, I’m sure you are most anxious to return to your family and all the rich comforts you surely miss.

  “Indeed,” Adelaide said quietly. She hadn’t yet grown accustomed to her adopted identity of a French royal exile in disguise as a commoner.

  “It’s been wonderful to have another woman aboard! I know it is selfish of me to think such a thing, but I do hope you soon grow tired of your family and come back to me. Life on the ocean has a strong appeal, and I can tell it calls to you.” Her smile was infectious.

  Adelaide patted the younger woman’s hand that rested on the crook of her arm and looked at the subtle pattern of entwined white silk rosebuds adorning her gown. White on white. It was a ridiculous garment for a woman living on board a ship, but she understood the desire to wear beautiful things, despite the circumstances. She couldn’t help but think wistfully of her own gowns, left behind in Paris. Once home, she was sure it would be a long time before she would yearn for adventure as Mrs. Briggs predicted.

  Perhaps Mrs. Southill was right when she had counseled her to return to lace making. There was indeed an allure to the adornments of fashion. She hadn’t felt its pull in years, turning to rough knitting when she most needed extra power in a cast spell. There was nothing about magic that forced her to use wool, it was just easier to work with. Mademoiselle DuBette had accused her of throwing away a powerful talent for the more elusive draw of masculine success. But then, one could question why some activities were labeled as masculine and some feminine. The sailor Nigel’s insistence that the knitting he was completing was not for a woman’s hands seemed to challenge the idea of what was women’s work.