by Betsy Tobin
“You must eat,” I say. “And rest. I’ll come again this evening.” I turn to go but his voice stops me.
“I will wait for her,” he says fervently.
I leave, hoping my mother will return soon, though what she will make of his wild talk I do not know.
Cook has prepared a ray with some refreshment for my mistress and the painter. When I enter her outer chamber I can see that the effort of sitting for him has already left her tired. She rises and excuses herself. I remain behind and offer ale to the painter, who appears oblivious to her fatigue, perhaps willingly so. He takes it but places the cup to one side so as to carry on with his work. The canvas is covered now with a wash of gray and salmon, and the outline of my mistress can be discerned. After a moment, he lays aside his brush and takes up the cup.
“The woman whose body was taken,” he says after a moment. “Who was she?” His directness catches me off guard, and for a moment I cannot think how to answer him. It is not an easy question, for she was both a mother and a whore, but these two things do not begin to describe her.
“She lived here,” I say evasively. “In the village.”
“But she was not from here,” he says. He has clearly overheard talk in the village, probably at the alehouse.
“No. She came across the water many years ago. When I was a child. But she was one of us,” I add quickly. He smiles a little.
“Is such a thing possible?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
He pauses, considering his response. “To be foreign. This is not a skin one loses easily,” he says.
“I do not know.”
“But I do,” he replies. “How did she die?”
“She fell,” I say. “It was an accident. She was . . . unlucky.” He stares at me closely, as if he can read my doubts, and I am forced to look away. He takes up his brush and dabs at the canvas.
“The thieving of bodies . . . does this happen often here?” he asks.
I shake my head slowly. “No. Never before.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Was she buried with her possessions?”
“No,” I say, my mind reaching back to the money in the hole beneath her floor.
“Then it is very strange,” he says, with a frown.
“You did not know her,” I say quietly.
“Did you?” he asks.
“We all did.”
“You knew her well?”
I nod my head slowly up and down, imagine she is here listening to my answers, as if it were a test of my loyalty.
“I was very fond of her,” I say finally, and my voice is thin with grief. The painter frowns.
“I am sorry,” he says quietly. “I did not know.”
I stare at him. Perhaps I did not either, for we do not feel our thirst until the water has run dry.
At supper that evening there is talk of a search party. A group of men from the village, those that could be spared, spent much of the day combing the forests and fields, but to no avail. No one has a clue to her whereabouts, nor to who has taken her.
“They found nought,” says Rafe, chewing earnestly, his long, black curls bobbing up and down. “No sign nor trail, though with the ground frozen solid, there’d be none to follow.”
“ ’Tis a heavy load. Whoever it was could not have got far without the help of a horse or pack animal,” says Josias.
“Perhaps there were two of them, or even more,” ventures Alice. There is silence for a moment. Our village is small: how could a group of men engage in such a task without the knowledge of others? Josias frowns and shakes his head.
“Perhaps they came from somewhere else,” he says. “Outsiders.”
“Aye,” says Rafe. “It is possible, for she was known throughout the county. I met a man in Chepton once who spoke of her as if she were the queen.” He pauses, smiles a little, and for a moment we are swallowed by her memory. It is Lydia who finally breaks the silence.
“Perhaps she was not truly dead,” she says tentatively. We raise our heads, regard each other; it is a thought that has passed through all of us like a silver thread. Rafe shrugs and Josias gives a little cough. Indeed, it would not be the first time such a thing has happened. There was a celebrated case not two years earlier in a neighboring county of a yeoman farmer who dropped dead plowing a field. During the course of his own funeral shouts were heard, much to the amazement of the onlookers, and when the coffin lid was pried open, he sat up and cursed those who’d put him there. The man lived for several months more and then died of drink when he collapsed in a ditch and drowned.
But the great-bellied woman would have needed the strength of an ox to raise herself from below the ground.
“No woman is strong enough for such a task,” says Rafe after a moment. “No man either.”
Cook enters then, carrying a large bowl of hot broth that she proceeds to serve. She has clearly overheard the talk and her mouth is pressed tightly in a grim line. When she serves out the last bowl she finally speaks.
“We’ve not seen the last of her,” she says. Then she picks up the serving vessel and disappears into the kitchen, leaving the rest of us wide-eyed.
After supper I slip away to Long Boy’s cottage but even as I approach the smell of fresh-made stew tells me that my mother has returned. When I open the door she is there in the darkness, kneading pastry of some sort. She pauses and looks at me, then raises a finger to her lips, for the boy lies sleeping in his corner bed. Once again, she looks tired and drawn, her face a pool of weary lines.
“When did you return?” I ask.
“This afternoon,” she says. “I came directly here.”
“How is he?”
“A little feverish, but it does not seem serious,” she says.
“Did he speak?” I ask tentatively. She looks at me.
“Of her?” she asks, then nods with a sigh. “I told him she is dead.”
I pause, unsure how to break the news, when she reads my mind.
“I have seen Mary,” she says grimly.
“She told you?”
“Aye.” She stares down at the lump of dough. “May God take pity on her soul,” she adds quietly. I frown.
“Is it possible she is alive?”
My mother glances up at me with a sharp, scornful look. “She was dead,” she says flatly. “I laid her out myself.”
I nod, take a seat beside her. It would be unwise to press her further. She is not given to speculation: she sees only the lay of things before her, never what they might have been. Just then the boy stirs and moans a little in his sleep, and in an instant my mother is at his side, her hand upon his brow. Satisfied, she returns to the table and resumes her kneading.
“How went the birth?” I ask quietly.
She appears not to hear me: she carries on with the punch and slap of dough, her jaw rigid.
“Mother,” I say. She stops and looks at me.
“The baby,” I say. “How was the birth?” She pauses for a moment, then returns once again to the dough, flipping it over and reaching for more flour.
“It was still,” she says, her voice as flat as glass.
After a moment she finishes her kneading, placing the dough on the stone hearth to rise. She brushes the flour from her hands.
“Stay with the boy,” she says. “I have some business to attend to.”
“At this hour?” I ask. “Can it not wait until morning?”
“It is best done now,” she says with a weary sigh. She puts on her wrap and then crosses to the fireplace, taking up a small iron shovel. “I won’t be long,” she says. I follow her to the door, and just outside she pauses, picking up something lying to one side in the dark.
“Mother?” I say, from the doorway. She turns to me. My eyes drift down to the burden in her hand: a lumpy, dirt-stained sack of cloth.
“Where are you going?”
“To bury the child,” she says.
I look at the cloth, see now that the dark stain upon one side is the color of dr
ied blood. “The child is here? Why?”
“I made a promise to the mother . . . to give the baby a proper burial.” She stares at the sack lying heavily in her hand, cannot meet my eyes. “She had concealed the pregnancy. It was a bastard child. That is all.”
“Where will you go?” I ask.
“To the clearing behind our house. I’ll not be seen there.” She is right: the clearing behind our house is well concealed and rarely entered by anyone but ourselves.
“Do you need help?” I ask.
“No,” she says, much to my relief. “Stay with the boy.” And with that she turns and goes, never once meeting my own bastard gaze.
I close the door and return to the fire, taking up the iron poker and prodding it absently, the bloodstained sack like a stubborn weed planted resolutely in my brain. It is not the first time I have seen her with a sack of blood: the other night in my dream it was much the same. But I know that the real image, the seed, is from another, earlier time.
When I was eight, I secretly followed my mother in the dead of night to Dora’s house. Her time had come, and I was determined to unravel the mysteries of my mother’s nocturnal life, with or without her permission. And so it was I came to witness my first birth. I followed my mother through the cold, damp night, and perched outside the cottage, peering through a chink in the rough-hewn walls. When we arrived, Dora was already deep within the throes of labor. Her hair was wet and matted, her face an unearthly pink in the glow of the firelight. She wore a simple nightdress, pulled up to reveal the cream of her large thighs, and was crouched by the bed on all fours. I watched as my mother coaxed her onto the bed. She took out a cone-shaped instrument from her bag, one that I had seen her use countless times before in her examinations, and pressed it hard against Dora’s abdomen, her face taut with concentration as she listened for the life inside. Dora moaned, and my mother laid a hand upon her shoulder to silence her, and then there was nothing but the spitting of the fire. I watched my mother’s face, the look of intensity in her eyes as she strained to hear the life within. After some moments, she shut them tightly, as if to block out everything, and both women remained frozen for what seemed an eternity, Dora scarcely daring to breathe. And then her body jerked with a spasm of pain, and her deep moan split the silence. My mother opened her eyes, and I saw at once the uneasiness they held. Dora rolled over onto her stomach, her haunches slipping to the floor. She stretched her arms across the bed, her face buried in the bedclothes, her upper body heaving with the effort. And then I saw the blood spill forth from between her split-wide legs.
My mother crouched below her, one hand reaching up into her womb, the look of concentration still heavy upon her face. After a few moments, she removed her arm, now stained with blood, and moved round to face her. She took her by the shoulders and spoke directly to her with some force.
“The baby is sideways,” she said. “There is no sound of life.” Dora panted and blinked and then once again was gripped by pain. My mother released her shoulders and stepped back, and I watched in horror as Dora squatted and pressed down with all her might. The sounds coming from her throat made my blood run cold: a deep, low growl that was more animal than human. The blood spurted forth anew, and I thought for a moment that she would lose her insides. Instead, a tiny hand appeared between her legs, small and purple and limp. My mother leaned forward again, and grasped her shoulder.
“The baby is dead. I must act quickly. Do you understand?” She said, her voice rising to a near shout. Dora nodded, blowing and puffing, her eyes wide, and then she threw her head back and roared, the sound reverberating in my ears for days afterward.
What I saw next I have since tried to forget. I saw my mother pull the arm as far as it would come, and then taking up a knife, I saw her cleave it from the body. It fell loose onto the floor, like a tiny stick of kindling, then she reached both hands inside the womb and pulled forth a mass of blood and bones and membranes, quickly stuffing all of it into a sack of hemp which she had ready at her feet. After a moment’s hesitation, she picked up the arm and dropped it in the sack. She crouched in silence by Dora’s side. After another minute, she reached again between her legs, and I thought another child would emerge, but this time it was only blood and membranes. These she stuffed as well into the sack, then bundled it tightly and carried it to the door, depositing it just outside, only a few feet from where I crouched in the darkness.
She returned then to Dora, who squatted silently against the bed, chest heaving, her face turned toward the wall. She had not seen what I had seen, though I have no doubt that she must have known. My mother picked up a cloth and began to wipe the blood from between her legs, and when she was through she eased her up onto the bed. Dora’s hair was matted with sweat and when she turned over I saw that her eyes were dull and lifeless. My mother covered her with bedclothes and within moments she had closed her eyes and fallen into sleep.
I looked down at the bloodstained sack lying just outside the door and felt my stomach heave. I stood and backed away from it, turned and ran as fast as my legs would carry me to the cottage. Once home I climbed into bed and lay awake shivering in the darkness, my throat bone-dry, my body taut with memory. How had she known the baby was dead? I asked myself over and over. “I must act quickly,” she had said. Had she sacrificed the child for the mother? And would she have done the same to me, in order to save herself?
When she returned I feigned sleep, scarcely breathing as she readied herself for bed. Once or twice when her back was turned I opened my eyes to look at her. I do not know what I expected: a mark or sign of what had happened, I suppose, but I saw nothing other than the usual weariness. In the morning, she went about her business as usual. Finally, when I could stand it no longer, I asked about the baby, and she told me only that it had been born dead. She said nothing of the other: the dangling arm, the bloodstained cleaver, the roar of anguish, the bag of hemp. Nothing of the things that mattered, the things that plagued my mind.
It was some days before I saw Dora, and when I did she too bore no trace of what had gone before. She was splitting logs with an ax in the clearing behind her cottage, and I approached slowly, cautiously, as if she was a creature too delicate to behold. But of course, she was not, and as she turned and caught my eye, I saw nothing of her previous anguish. She stopped immediately and laid the ax to rest, extending a hand toward me. I moved slowly, my feet sluggish with the memory.
She must have sensed my unease, for she planted herself upon a thick stump of wood and pulled me onto her knee, her great arms wrapped round me in the kind of embrace my mother never gave. I buried my face in her neck and breathed deeply of her smell: strong and mossy, the damp, wild scent of the forest. She held me there upon her for a long time, rocking me slowly to and fro, and for those few minutes I imagined that it was I, not the other, who had sprung from between her legs.
I never heard another word about that baby. It lived and died within me only.
Chapter Ten
After my mother returns I go in search of Mary at the alehouse. When I enter, the room is full and noisier than usual. Mary is behind the bar filling jugs of ale as fast she can. She catches my eye and nods toward the kitchen, and I go within where it is warm to wait for her. It is some minutes before she is free, and I occupy myself with a joint of mutton that is roasting on the fire, turning it and basting as I go.
“Lord, they drink like fools tonight,” says Mary as she enters, her hands full of empty wooden platters. She deposits them on the table and wipes her hands on a grease-stained apron. “If you ask me, it is fear that makes them thirsty,” she says.
“Fear,” I say. “Of what?”
“Of her,” says Mary. “Or her ghost, whichever be the source of the stories.”
“What stories?” I ask.
“Have you not heard?” I stare at her uncomprehendingly. “She’s been seen,” she says. “In Chepton town.”
“When? By whom?” I ask.
She shrugs. �
� ’Tis only a rumor. But it has them drinking like a herd of horses,” she says with a toss of her head toward the other room.
I frown. Can it be that my mother is wrong?
“He is there as well,” says Mary, interrupting my thoughts. “Your friend, the painter.” She begins to scour the platters in a bucket. I go to the door and peer within. He is alone in the corner by the fire, once again sketching, a tankard of ale by his side. “Does he speak to anyone?” I ask.
“I did not know he had a voice,” she says with a laugh.
I think again of his questions: they were not asked in idleness. It interests him, this business of Dora’s disappearance: she interests him, though I do not know why. Truly her allure extends beyond the grave.
“What does he draw?” I ask.
“People,” she says with a shrug. “Rough sketches only, as far as I could make out.”
“This business of Chepton. When did you hear it?”
“This night only. From some farmers who’d been to market.”
I shake my head. “ ’Tis nothing but a fancy tale,” I say. Mary picks up a tray and heads for the other room, pausing just before. She turns to me with a piercing look.
“’Tis a tale she might have told,” she says, and disappears behind the door.
The following day my mistress is unwell, and she elects not to sit for the painter. She is disappointed by the process: it does not hold her interest as she thought it would, or perhaps it is his manner that puts her off. She sends a message via Rafe that he will not be needed in her chamber that day, that he may attend her son instead, if he is willing. Then she sends for Lucius, and I am kept occupied with Scripture reading for the remainder of the morning, as we await his arrival.
Eventually she dozes off, much to my relief, for I find I do not have the patience for Scripture these last few days. I take up my sewing, but before I can progress Alice comes to the door, saying that my master has requested me to attend him in the library.
“For what purpose?” I ask her, a little startled, for he is not in the habit of sending for me.
