by Mary Hooper
‘I do not!’ Eliza said in dismay. ‘And indeed I can’t have a child’s life – or your life – on my hands. We must have proper help.’
Jemima burst into fresh tears but Eliza didn’t allow them to sway her. ‘First we must take you back to Mrs Trott’s and then –’
‘Not there! Let’s go to your lodgings, where no one knows me.’
Eliza shook her head. ‘We can’t,’ she said briefly. She thought of her room in the Star; the innkeeper’s wife would be sure to know of a midwife nearby. ‘We are best to go to a nearby inn,’ she began, but Jemima burst into such a torrent of tears that she feared hysteria might set in if she didn’t give way. ‘Very well,’ she said, troubled almost to tears herself, ‘if you refuse to move you’ll have to lie-in here. But we must send out for help.’
Jemima didn’t reply, for another pain had seized her, and when it had retreated Eliza half-pulled and half-carried her across the tiring room, along a corridor and into a small dressing room which Nell sometimes used. It had no bed nor settle, but contained several chairs and a quantity of cushions, and was very light, with three casement windows open to the sky.
‘This will be more private,’ Eliza said, and she gathered together some of the cushions and laid a sheet over them on the floor, then encouraged Jemima to get on to this makeshift bed while she went to seek out a midwife. She also promised her that she’d send word to William, and accordingly gave a shilling to an errand boy and instructed him to go to the Wilkes’ household in Whitehall, request to see the master in person and tell him his presence was sought urgently.
The cost of Mistress Reynolds, the midwife, was two pounds, which she said crisply was for a live or dead birth. She lived close to the theatre and had come recommended by a nearby apothecary, although the matter was urgent enough for Eliza to have taken more or less anyone she could find.
She was a short, wiry woman and hard-faced, but clean-looking and decent.
‘This is a strange place to give birth,’ she said, looking around the room. ‘Hasn’t the girl got any mother to help her? No sisters or cousins to attend the occasion?’
Eliza shook her head. ‘She wants to be very private,’ she said, dabbing Jemima’s forehead with a damp cloth.
‘Is it a natural child?’ the midwife asked in a low voice.
‘No!’ Jemima cried. ‘I have a husband and we are legally wed!’
Mrs Reynolds and Eliza exchanged glances over Jemima’s head.
‘Of course you are, my sweeting,’ Mrs Reynolds said soothingly, opening her bag. As well as clean rags, bowls and scissors, she’d brought with her a piece of jasper with a hole in it, and she tied this round Jemima’s thigh, saying it would help hasten the birth. She’d also brought a birthing stool made of sturdy oak, its seat cut away to leave a new-moon shape, which Jemima would be required to sit upon in the final stage of labour.
She told Jemima that until then she should keep moving as much as possible, so Eliza was engaged to walk the room with Jemima leaning on her heavily and digging her fingernails into her forearms whenever the pains came. Periodically she’d lie down on the cushions and writhe around, or sometimes take a little cordial. Every once in a while she’d beg Eliza to go to the front of the theatre and see if word had come from William, and Eliza would agree, only too pleased to have an excuse to leave the overheated room where the perilous process of childbirth was being enacted.
The boy whom Eliza had sent to seek out William Wilkes eventually returned to report that the master of the house was away with the king and court, but whether in Newmarket or elsewhere Wilkes’s servant didn’t know. This news, however, Eliza kept from Jemima, thinking that she should have some hope that William might appear.
Mrs Reynolds had been there perhaps three hours when she sent Eliza to the apothecary to obtain feverfew boiled in white wine to aid the birth, and after five hours with the child still not coming forth she dictated a list of ingredients: cinnamon, saffron, betony and maidenhair which Eliza was instructed to purchase, mix with a raw egg and feed to Jemima by the spoonful.
The concoction being consumed, the birth was still not progressing as fast as it should have done, and Jemima was as white as the sheet on which she lay and dotted all over with sweat. She writhed backwards and forwards, moaning softly to herself. Observing her pains, Eliza remarked to Mrs Reynolds in a low voice that under no circumstances would she be having children herself, but that lady just smiled grimly and said that she’d oft heard that in the last thirty years, but had not yet heard of how to prevent them.
Eliza began singing to Jemima, soothing country ballads that she’d learned in childhood, and these did seem to calm her somewhat. Another hour went by and, in the hopes of speeding things along, Mrs Reynolds seated Jemima on the birthing stool with Eliza kneeling behind her and supporting her upper body.
Jemima was keeping up a constant moan now, as if one great continual pain was racking her body without pause.
‘Is she all right?’ Eliza kept asking in a whisper, between ballads, and each time was only partially reassured by a brief nod or a shrug from Mrs Reynolds. Oh, how long it all took, Eliza fretted. So painful. So dangerous. Suppose Jemima died?
At last the midwife examined Jemima once more, then sighed greatly and beckoned Eliza outside.
‘I fear that the child is in the breech position,’ she said.
‘What’s that?’
‘’Tis upside down.’
‘Is that bad?’ Eliza asked fearfully.
Mrs Reynolds nodded. ‘Bad for a first birth particularly, for no babe’s head has been down the birth canal to stretch it beforehand.’
Eliza’s eyes filled with frightened tears. ‘But what will happen?’
‘If the babe is not born soon it will die,’ Mrs Reynolds said, shaking her head. ‘Or your friend may die before she can give birth to it.’
‘But is there nothing that will help her?’ Eliza implored Mrs Reynolds. ‘Surely with all your knowledge you can do something?’
Mrs Reynolds shook her head, wiping her hands on the bloodied apron she wore. ‘The only hope is a doctor wielding an instrument to pull the child from the womb. Doctor Chamberlen is one such, but he is not for the likes of us, for he attends only moneyed people.’
‘I have money!’ Eliza said. ‘I have near twenty guineas.’
‘That may be enough,’ Mrs Reynolds said doubtfully, ‘but he lives in Greenwich and may not travel this far.’
‘Oh, but he must!’ Eliza said desperately. ‘He must be made to come!’
There was a sudden, horrific and long-drawn-out scream from Jemima, and Eliza and Mrs Reynolds rushed back into the room to find the birthing stool upturned and Jemima sprawled backwards, a bloodied, glistening baby between her legs.
Eliza gave a scream of her own on seeing this, terrified in case mother and child were dead, but Mrs Reynolds ran to the baby and picked it up, and it immediately let out a thin wail.
‘Bless me, she did it on her own after all!’ Mrs Reynolds said. ‘You have saved your money.’
‘It’s all right?’ Eliza asked fearfully. ‘It will live?’
‘It seems so.’ Mrs Reynolds held the child – a boy – a little distance from Jemima’s body and, asking Eliza to pass the scissors, cut the cord that joined mother and child. ‘He seems well and healthy enough,’ she said.
The child was named William by a near-fainting Jemima, and Mrs Reynolds wrapped him carefully in strips of linen, placed him in an egg basket that Eliza had previously found in the props department, then concentrated on the next stage of labour: ensuring that the afterbirth was delivered. While this was going on, Eliza threw away the soiled linen and cleaned the room, then swept the floor and sent out for some strewing herbs from the market to freshen the atmosphere.
Feeling more confident now about the child’s survival, she also sent for some lengths of soft swaddling cotton for him, and a gown and bonnet. He was not a pretty child, she thought, gazing at him in
the egg basket, for his face was squashed and scarlet and he had no hair. Her little sisters had looked much the same, however, and by and by they’d improved.
As to Jemima, she thought, well, as soon as she was strong enough, she’d order a sedan chair to take her back to Mrs Trott’s. For the time being, though, she dragged in an easy chair from the tiring room which would serve as a lying-in bed, and found an old velvet drape to act as a counterpane.
All this being achieved and Jemima being tucked up and near-prone in the chair, Mrs Reynolds spoke to her gently to ask what she intended to do next.
‘Will you go home, dear?’ she asked. ‘For I suspect you have no facilities here for caring for a child. Nor much idea about it,’ she added, for Jemima didn’t even appear to know that the child should be put to the breast to feed.
Jemima looked up at them both. ‘William,’ she said in a pathetic tone. ‘Does William know that he has a son?’
‘I couldn’t reach him, for he’s away with the king,’ Eliza confessed. ‘But I’ll find out where he is and send a message by rider.’
Jemima sighed and closed her eyes wearily.
‘But let us think to your babe … have you a wet nurse in mind?’ Mrs Reynolds asked gently and, on Jemima just turning an exhausted eye on her, added, ‘It would be for the best, perhaps.’
‘Mrs Reynolds, do you know of a wet nurse?’ Eliza asked, no reply being forthcoming from Jemima.
She nodded. ‘I know a good matron in the country – in Barnes, where the air is said to be good. She would care for him until such time as he could be taken into the family again.’
Eliza thought that Jemima might object to her child going out of town, but she didn’t seem to have any strength to do so.
‘This matron has an infant of her own and a good supply of milk,’ said Mrs Reynolds. ‘She’d tend your babe and love it as her own.’
Jemima merely blinked at them.
‘Do you want that, Jemima?’ Eliza asked, wondering if she knew what she was agreeing to. ‘For the babe to go to a wet nurse?’
Jemima gave a slight nod. ‘But we’ll send for him soon. His father and I will send for him,’ she said in a whisper, and after saying this fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
The baby, young William, had already been in the country for over a week when Nell, the king and the rest of the court came back to London, having travelled from the races in Newmarket to those of Windsor, where they’d occupied some of the castle. By this time Eliza had settled matters with Nell’s landlord and was living back in Lewkenor’s Lane, and Jemima was back with Mrs Trott. Eliza had visited her three times but each time found her still in bed, listless and melancholy, her face to the wall. She only stirred once – when Eliza mentioned William’s name – but on ascertaining that Eliza had no news of him, had turned away once more. Mrs Trott not being particularly interested in the welfare of her lodger, Eliza had no idea of what to do. She decided, therefore, that she could only wait until Nell returned and see what she advised.
After Eliza had listened with excitement to Nell’s tales concerning the courtiers’ taking of the waters at Tunbridge Wells, and the masques, dances, musical entertainments and bedroom parties at Newmarket and Windsor, she then began to tell Nell all that had happened in her absence. Nell listened sympathetically to the tale of her visit to the magician and subsequent letter from her aunt, and was highly amused by the tale of Eliza and Claude Duval, especially when she heard that it was the Duke of Monmouth who’d been robbed.
‘He told us that Duval held him up, and he was mighty cross about it!’ Nell said, bursting into delighted laughter. ‘He didn’t say that Duval was merely taking back what he’d been cheated out of at cards, though.’
‘And did he mention an accomplice being involved in the crime?’ Eliza asked nervously.
‘He said that Duval had used a lure, a girl partner, but I don’t think he said anything more.’ Nell hesitated, ‘Just a minute, though …’
Eliza looked at her in alarm. ‘What? Did he mention me?’
Nell looked at her wide-eyed for a moment, and then gave a screech of laughter. ‘Of course not! I was merely teasing you!’
Eliza breathed out again. Nell did love her jokes …
As they chattered, they were threading their way through the crowded streets of Covent Garden, for Nell had told Eliza that she’d something particular to show her and wished them to see it on foot.
‘But what of William Wilkes?’ Eliza asked when she’d told Nell the news about the birth of young William. ‘Did he get my message? For I spent two pounds on sending a rider to Newmarket to tell him that Jemima had been confined.’
‘He got the message all right,’ Nell said. ‘He told me of it.’
‘And was he happy to hear he had a son? What did he say?’
‘He was happy all right. The scurvy wretch celebrated by taking a whore to a gaming club and losing three hundred guineas!’
As Eliza sighed, appalled, Nell continued, ‘He’s a scoundrel and good for nothing at all! Why, you should see how he, Monteagle and Monmouth behaved in Newmarket with their drunkenness and their gambling and their rampaging through bawdy houses! I don’t know how the king tolerates them, indeed I don’t. And as for Rochester – he engages in activities which even I have never heard of!’
Eliza noted to herself that Nell had not mentioned Valentine Howard as being in this little group of ne’er-do-wells, but decided not to mention his name in case she was teased.
‘But how will Jemima manage?’ she asked instead. ‘Is William Wilkes ever going to take her away to the Americas to start a new life?’
Nell left Eliza’s side to dart across the cobbles to a shop window and admire a purple hat bedecked with a froth of ostrich plumes, then returned to take her arm.
‘No, he’s not, is the plain answer,’ she said. ‘For I questioned him on the subject when he was fairly sober, and he said there’s no point now, for Jemima’s father has seized her fortune and tied it up in law.’
‘How has he done that?’
‘He’s had her grandfather’s money put in a trust so that Jemima can’t touch it until she’s thirty-five. He placed a notice in the London Newes to advertise this, and that’s how Wilkes discovered it.’
‘But what will happen to her?’ Eliza asked anxiously.
They paused, waiting for a gap in the traffic, then proceeded across the Strand, past the maypole and towards St James’s, where the nobility had built many fine homes.
‘As far as that rogue is concerned – nothing,’ Nell said. ‘He doesn’t want her without her fortune, that’s certain.’
‘Poor Jemima!’ Eliza said, her eyes filling with sympathetic tears. ‘But what of their marriage? Will he have it annulled?’
Nell shook her head. ‘No need, for ’twas not a marriage. The reverend gentleman was but a trickster, and ’twas all done in the hopes of fooling Jemima’s family into giving her up. Just as William was about to inform her father of the deed, however, he read in the Newes that she was not to receive the money and realised that the whole charade had been for nothing.’
‘Oh!’ Eliza shook her head, horrified, ‘and what of the babe …’
Nell sighed and pulled a dismal little face which said she had no idea, but then seemed to dismiss all from her mind as she came to a halt in Pall Mall.
‘Look,’ she said to Eliza. ‘This is why we didn’t take the carriage this morning, for I wished to look upon something from a distance and observe every detail as I came closer.’
Eliza, still thinking of Jemima and wondering if she could tell her of William’s true nature, looked at her in some confusion. ‘What do you mean? What do you wish to look upon?’
‘That house,’ Nell pointed further down the street. ‘The redbrick house with the sign of the Flying Swan over its door. Is it not a fine place?’
Eliza looked and nodded. ‘It’s very grand.’
‘Who do you think live
s there?’
Eliza said that she hadn’t the least idea.
‘Then I’ll tell you!’ Nell said with a squeal of joy. ‘Mistress Eleanor Gwyn lives there, for the king has taken a lease on that house and given it to me!’
Eliza, gasping, followed her to stand on the other side of the road from the house in question, which was five storeys high and very wide, with large windows and two front doors.
‘It has many rooms – about forty, I believe,’ Nell went on excitedly, ‘and a courtyard for the carriage and horses, and a large garden which backs on to St James’s Park so that His Majesty and I may talk to each other over the wall when he takes his morning constitutional!’ She squeezed Eliza’s arm. ‘I’ll have servants in livery and everything very fine, and you living with me if you wish.’
‘Oh!’ Eliza said, quite overcome.
‘And one more most excellent thing,’ Nell said, her face wreathed in smiles. ‘What do you think it is?’
Eliza shook her head, staring at her wide-eyed. As if going on a tour with the king as his principal mistress, receiving all the fine clothes and jewels you could wear and being given such a well-situated and extensive house wasn’t enough …
‘Why,’ Nell said, ‘I’m expecting a baby.’
Eliza gave a little scream.
‘’Tis true. I’m to have the king’s child! Now let Squintabella try and take my place.’
Within a week, redecoration of the house was well under way, furniture, tapestries and paintings had been ordered and Nell, Eliza and a small retinue of staff were almost ready to move into the house at the sign of the Flying Swan. Eliza had been given two new gowns and caps in pale blue – Nell’s livery colour – and several long starched aprons. She’d also been assured that her presence would still be needed as a maid/companion, and that she’d now be paid a proper living.
‘For you know how I like my things, and how to dress my hair so well, and what colours suit my complexion,’ Nell said on one of their last nights in Lewkenor’s Lane. ‘And now that I bear the king’s child there’ll be endless money to spend on gowns and shoes and fripperies, and I’ll need someone who’s willing to go to the shops on any whim.’
