by Julie Hearn
She stamps her feet, deliberately, as she heads for the door. The Watchers tut as she passes, cupping work-swollen fingers around their candle flames so they won’t blow out in the draught of her leaving.
“You’ll stay,” snaps the cunning woman. “And you’ll learn. And the first thing you’ll learn is that when a birthing woman gets nasty, ’tis time for her to push.”
“Oh,” says Nell. She is at the door now and can see most of what is happening to the parts of Mistress Bramlow where pot lids come out. “Oh,” she says again.
It’s not that she is squeamish. No country girl, used to the birthings of piglets and calves, kittens and lambs, would find any of this repulsive. It is just … it is just …
“Think I’ll go anyways,” she murmurs. “Afore I does something wrong.”
“You’ll stay,” the cunning woman repeats. “And the second thing you’ll learn is whether an unborn be ripe enough to drop. Get here. Aside of me. Now.”
Slowly, dragging her dirty heels, Nell does as she is told.
Mistress Bramlow has heaved herself up onto her elbows and is glaring over the mountain of her belly. “’Tis coming too fast,” she pants. “Too fast…. I ain’t had the pains more than two blessed hours.”
The Watchers’ heads nod. Too fast … Not good …
“Hush now.” The cunning woman is greasing her grand-daughter’s right arm with goose fat. Up and around each finger she goes, then over the wrist and down to the elbow, with swift, slick strokes.
Nell blinks. “That pig be on the loose still, up in the orchard,” she says. “’Tis him I oughter be gettin’ to grips with this day, not no unborn. Don’t you think so?”
The Watchers clearly think so. The Watchers think Nell should be just about anywhere except at the foot of this pallet, preparing to stick her fist into a birthing woman.
“Now,” says the cunning woman. “Between pains. I’ll guide you.”
And Nell scrunches her eyes shut tight as her grandmother forces her slippery fingers into slippery flesh and then presses her arm to follow. This cant be right, she thinks, the sweat gathering on her. You could kill a person doing this, surely? Mistress Bramlow is certainly yelling fit to bust. But: “When you reach the top, feel what’s there,” says the cunning woman. “Go on, girl. Feel what’s there and tell me.”
Cautiously, carefully, Nell moves what she can of her fingers. It is like groping along a stovepipe, full of hot sludge. Any second now Mistress Bramlow is going to kick her in the teeth, and who would blame her?
“Gently,” urges the cunning woman. “But quickly. As quick as you can, or a pain will be on her, and you’ll lose the chance.”
Even with her own eyes closed, Nell can sense each Watcher willing her to fail … to cry, perhaps … to admit defeat, anyway, and leave the whole messy business to her grandmother.
I’ll show them, she tells herself. I’ll show those old sows …
“Well?” says the cunning woman. “Well, girl? What is it you feel?”
Cautiously, carefully, Nell waggles the tips of her fingers. “I feel … ,” she murmurs. “I feel …” Drops of sweat trickle from her hairline as she probes. The straw of the pallet is too damp and hot to crackle, but it makes a slipping sound as Mistress Bramlow braces herself for another contraction.
Too late … Too late, girl.
Then something pulses. Just once. Out, then in. And something wet … something matted and warm, soft yet solid, meets the cramped spread of Nell’s fingers. Amazed, Nell wills those fingers to be welcoming, and still.
“A head,” she breathes. “I can feel its head.”
She moves her hand, just a little.
A person, she thinks. A new person. And I be the first to touch it. The first thing it knows.
“Be sure,” says the cunning woman. “Be very sure. For the top of an unborn’s head can feel much like anywhere else, to a learner.”
“I’m sure,” whispers Nell.
“Good,” says the cunning woman. “Now get out of there, and let this woman push.”
Mistress Bramlow curses and thrashes as Nell pulls her arm out. Then she sets about pushing as if her life depends on it. Which it does. The Watchers shuffle closer, and Nell backs away.
Be alive, she wills the unborn. Just be alive, will you?
From her place beside the door, she can see her grandmother’s hands at work. Probing and twisting. Probing and twisting. The old woman’s face is in shadow, but Nell knows that her lips will be moving as she mouths a silent spell. There are swaddling clothes beside the pallet and a pail of water, its surface dappled with herbs. There is a name waiting for this unborn, along with five sisters, a cradle, and a beautiful spring day.
Then: “’Tis done,” announces the cunning woman. And something slithers out of Mistress Bramlow in a sudden, watery rush.
Nell takes a step forward, but the Watchers have closed ranks, their shoulders and rumps as solid as a wall.
“Let me see!” Nell takes another step, but no one else budges.
Your fault, implies the silence. Wretched little unwed. This is all your fault.
Shut out, behind a blockade of fat bottoms, Nell can feel her fingers tingling where she touched the unborn’s head. It was living then, she knows it was. Living, and sensing, and pulsing with the will to arrive. To begin.
If it dies now, will it really be her fault? Just because she is an unwed and has touched it? She can’t bear to think this might be true. It seems so unfair—to both of them.
Although prevented from seeing, she can hear: the mutterings of the cunning woman; the keening sound of Mistress Bramlow’s weeping; then a light splash as if something small has been dropped into the pail.
“Granny!” she cries. “What’s wrong with it? What have I done?” And she butted the nearest bottom, so hard that the Watcher attached to it swivels in astonishment, creating a space.
“Does it live?” Nell careens through that space so fast, she almost topples over the pallet.
The cunning woman is holding the unborn—the newborn now—up toward the roof space. It lolls from her hands, like something made of dough. It is blue, and it is slimy, and it makes no sound at all.
Down into the pail of water it goes again, and then again, and then onto the straw, where the cunning woman sets about kneading its flesh, pummeling and pressing and murmuring all the while.
“Powers of the air … of the wind that howls and the breeze that blows … Powers of the air, I summon you … I summon you … Come unto this newborn that it may breathe and know its life … Powers of the air, be here now. So mote it be.”
And as Nell watches, and the Watchers lick their lips, and Mistress Bramlow continues to moan, the scrap of skin and bone beneath the cunning woman’s palms begins to twitch, and then to wriggle, and then to cry.
“It lives,” announces the cunning woman, grabbing it under the armpits and holding it aloft, in the general direction of the sky. “It lives. And it’s a boy.”
A boy …
Mistress Bramlow carries on crying, but softly, out of relief. Nell senses the Watchers pressing in. She feels like spinning round, to give them a mouthful, but her fingers are tingling still, and she wants, more than anything, to touch the newborn’s head again.
“But he be feeble,” the cunning woman adds. “So if its baptism you’re wanting, Mistress, best do it without delay.” She looks up, straight at her granddaughter.
“Go fetch the minister,” she says.
Nell scowls. “But—”
“Now! Go now. Straightaway.”
She has swaddled the baby boy so tightly that he looks like a pullet, all trussed up and ready to roast. Only his face is exposed; waxen and crumpled. Nell feels a tugging in her middle, like nothing she has ever felt before. She would do anything for this newborn. Anything.
“All right,” she says. “But if them girls of his do taunt me, I’ll slap ’em one.”
The cunning woman is edging round the pa
llet, carrying the newborn to his mother.
“You’ll do no such thing,” she snaps. “Just fetch the minister.”
So Nell throws the baby boy one last gentle look, then turns to leave.
The Watchers are blocking the way.
“I’m on a mission,” Nell says. “For my granny. So out of my path, if you please.”
They shift slowly, one by one, keeping their eyes upon her as they move. The one whose backside she butted treads, heavily, on her toes as she passes. And Nell knows, though no words are exchanged, that these Watchers would have known a horrible satisfaction if that newborn had never drawn breath. And that they would relish it, still, should he die before the minister gets to him. For that, too, would be Nell’s fault. Their believing it would make it so.
“Thank’ee,” she says to them, flashing the sweetest smile she can manage before rushing through the doorway, down the splintery stairs, and out into the sunshine.
“Old sows,” she grumbles. “They can’t hurt me.” But her heart is thumping as she takes the track leading to the minister’s house, and everything, from the beautiful day to the pattern of her own life, seems suddenly less cut-and-dry.
From his place at the forge, the blacksmith’s son spies Nell hurrying by. He knows, by now, why she was called away and guesses at once where she is going.
Without thinking twice, he throws down his hammer to follow.
“Oi!” yells his father. “Get back here!”
But Nell isn’t the only one with good reason to call on the minister. Young Sam’s long legs catch up with her easily, and he makes a big effort to seem casual, even though his heart is pumping like bellows, and he has only one thought in his head.
“Be the pot lid broken?” he asks.
“Shhh. No. It be good and strong.”
“Can I come with you, then? Wherever it is you be going?”
Nell looks sideways at him. “You won’t see her,” she says. “She’ll be shut away somewhere, learnin’ the Bible or some such thing.”
“I might,” he mumbles. “I might see her.” And just the hope of it is enough to make him grin.
The minister’s house is set apart from, and above, the village. Gabled and turreted, with mullioned windows that reflect every sunset, it looks down upon the church and the forge, the inn and the pond, and the cluster of tumbledown cottages like a great, bleak custodian.
Built by a wealthy merchant during the reign of Queen Bess, no expense was spared on paneling its rooms or filling its garden with sweet-smelling flowers and hedges cut to the shape of birds and beasts. It was rumored, back then, that this house was to be a hideaway for some woman. For a deformed bride, perhaps, or a mad nun. For Queen Bess herself, maybe, should she ever pass this way, with her retinue of servants, a string of fine horses, and trunks full of nightgowns and curly, red wigs.
For years, though, no woman, apart from a housekeeper, raised so much as a spoon in the place, let alone a smile or a brood of children. The merchant lived there alone, like a hermit or a mole. And when he died, he left it to whomsoever came to preach in the church, for so long as this person spoke God’s truth and lived.
The last minister to take up residence had been a kindly man, and for a while the house had seemed benevolent. Peddlers selling trinkets and mousetraps had been welcome to put their feet up in the kitchen. The singers of Christmastide had been invited in.
This new minister, though, come recently from a neighboring county, is a right miserable bogger. A Puritan with strict ideas on how the villagers should conduct themselves, and no lenity in him toward any who frolic out of wedlock (or even in it, it sometimes seems); get drunk on the Sabbath (or any other day of the week, come to that); and dabble in Catholicism or the old pagan rituals.
Singers and peddlers get short shrift from this minister, and he is letting brambles grow up the walls.
“We should go round the back,” Sam says as he and Nell approach the place. “Don’t you think so?”
“No,” Nell replies. “I’m on an errand, and I needs be quick about it.”
So saying, she uses both hands to shove open the iron gate, with spikes along the top, that leads into the garden and right up to the minister’s front door.
“You be asking for trouble, you,” mutters Sam. But he follows her eagerly enough, ducking his bright head beneath a stray branch that juts out like a skinny arm, barring the way.
“Ooer,” he breathes as more branches slap out to meet him, and the pupils of his eyes dilate in a sudden greeny gloom.
This is like no garden he has ever set foot in. Where are the flowers, for a start? Even the tiniest plots, down in the village, are bursting with color this season—brimming over with gillyflowers, violets, and clots of creamy yellow primroses. But here …
The brightness of the afternoon is having trouble getting through to what were once neat borders with gravel paths in between. The trees have gone wild. Great topiary hedges—originally shaped as a griffin, a hare, a cat, a greyhound, and a peacock—are so unkempt now that they all look like sheep. Arbors and tunnels, designed to support roses, are weighed down by a tangle of unpruned stems, seething with greenfly and thorns.
“They’ll get piskies living here, if they don’t tend to things,” declares Sam. “The really bad sort, what need to lie low for a bit.”
“Hmmm.” Nell is too focused on her mission to care either way.
“I seen one today,” he tells her, lowering his voice as they draw close to the house. “’S’truth, I did. A piskie, plain as anything, up in the orchard. What be the meaning of that, do you think? What would your granny say?”
Nell is picking burrs from her hair and the sleeve of her dress, preparing to face the minister. “She’d say you be blinded by love, Sam Towser, and seeing everything slantwise. And don’t you be mentioning no piskies in front of the minister. You know he be an unbeliever.”
They have reached the studded oak door, with its round knocker the size of a dinner plate. Nell bangs the knocker, hard, and the door swings open.
“Oh,” says Sam. “That’s good. We can walk straight in, then, can’t we?”
“No, you daft beggar,” Nell tells him. “We gotter wait. It’s manners.”
So they wait, on the step. They wait a long time, but nobody appears.
“Come on,” Sam says eventually. “Let’s go in. You needs be quick, don’t you? We can say we knocked. That’s manners enough.”
Nell thinks of the newborn. If it dies unbaptized, its soul will go straight to the piskies, to flutter forever as a will-o’-the-wisp, lighting up dark places.
“All right,” she agrees. “But don’t touch nothing. And don’t say nothing either. This is my day’s business, not yours. Be you listening to me?”
Sam nods. His eyes are as round as the door knocker, and his mouth as dry as a lavender bag. He might see her now; somewhere in there. It all looks extremely promising.
“Come on, then.” Nell shoves the door, so that it swings wide open. The great paneled hall is big enough for a family of five to live in. Sam hesitates. There is dung on his left boot, he is sure of it. Dung on his boot, burrs on his shirt, and enough grime on his face to plant carrots in.
“Come on, if you be coming,” hisses Nell.
Through the entrance and off to the right, Sam can see the sweep of a staircase with carved spindles and newel posts. She climbs them stairs to bed, he thinks. This is her home. This is where she is. And he jumps the step in one bound.
Nell is peering from left to right, wondering which way to go. Where would he be, the minister? Beside her, on the wall, hangs a long, somber painting of a boy-child dressed in old-fashioned velvets and a plumed hat. He has a sparrow hawk perched on his left wrist. Both boy and bird have yellowish, hooded eyes that seemed fixed on Nell as she stands there, scratching an itch.
“Through here!” Sam tells her. “This way. Through here.” He has homed in on a murmur of voices. Girls’ voices. Nell hesitates, then t
aps at the parlor door.
“Enter.”
The command is light, but with an edge to it. Bogger, thinks Nell. Its the haughty one. And she throws Sam Towser a warning glance before stepping into the room.
The ministers daughters are sitting, straight-backed, on low stools, either side of a granite fireplace. They have pieces of linen on their laps, which Nell assumes they are mending. They wear identical black dresses and clean but ugly bonnets. The younger, stupid-looking one gapes in surprise and drops her needle. The older girl regards them coolly, then says: “Does my father know you are here, treading mud in?”
Nell feels her face grow hot. “No,” she says. “But he’s needed. There be a newborn in the village. A boy-child.”
“So?” The girl’s eyes are such a deep, dark brown, they look black; yet her brows, and the little tendrils of hair escaping from her bonnet, are as fair as wheat.
“So, he be sickly and a worry to his mother. ’Tis baptizing he needs, and soon.”
The younger daughter has turned away. She is hunched, once more, over her needlework; too timid, it seems, or too simple to say a word. Her sister continues to appraise Nell, a contemptuous little smile lifting the corners of her mouth.
“Hmmm,” she says eventually. Then she shifts her gaze to Sam.
“Hello,” she says, and Nell watches the smile soften and dimple. “You’re an apprentice at the forge, aren’t you? I’ve seen you there. And at church, of course.”
Sam’s voice comes out squeaking. “I am,” he gibbers. “I am that. And church. Yes. I do go regular to church.”
Nell could have belted him one. And that girl … her fingers itch to slap the smile right off her face.
“The minister,” she repeats, clenching her grubby fists in the folds of her apron. “Where is he?”
The younger daughter raises her head, startled by such vehemence. The other one ignores it. She is holding up the piece of linen from her lap. It is a sampler, Nell realizes—an intricately worked thing, with a border of strawberries and lizardlike creatures and some words stitched in the center.
“Can you read what it says?” the girl is saying to Sam. “No, I don’t suppose you can. I don’t suppose you know your letters at all, do you? Well, then, I’ll tell you.” Her voice is low. Hypnotic. Mischievous. “It says: ‘Virtue is the chiefest beauty of the mind. The noblest ornament of womankind.’ That’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
