A Carriage for the Midwife (44 page)

But it seemed that the midwife had taken to her bed with a feverish cold, and Mrs Decker was firm to the point of incivility in refusing to allow visitors over the step, not even closest friends.

‘The poor soul must be afraid to believe that her husband is alive, for fear of her grief if it be not true,’ said Miss Gravett, though this explanation did not satisfy Miss Glover, who remembered the strange conversation she had had with Susan in the summer, before her own life had been changed for ever: that disclosure that the marriage had not been all it seemed, for which Susan appeared to blame herself entirely.

If it were her own beloved Henry miraculously brought back from the dead, thought Sophia, what rejoicing, what thanksgiving there would be! She sensed a mystery, but living under the cloud of her own sorrow, she did not confront her friend as she might have done in happier days, but waited for Edward’s return to prove his survival beyond doubt.

As soon as Charles Parnham received the message he at once saddled his mare and rode over to call at May Cottage. It was a cold January afternoon when Widow Smart showed him into the little parlour where Susan presided over a tea-tray.

‘Thank you, Mrs Smart, that’ll be all,’ she said firmly, and they were left alone.

‘Now, Madam Trotula, you have sent for me. First tell me all about it. Is it true that young Calthorpe lives and is coming home?’

‘It may be true, sir. I can’t take it in. I was so sure – there ha’ been no word f’r two years.’

Charles Parnham stirred his tea and knew that he was on very delicate ground; but in order to help her, he would need to know how far his suspicions were correct.

‘And are you happy in the hope of seeing him again, my child?’

The small fire crackled in the grate, and a log fell with a faint hiss of steam. He noticed how tightly she gripped her empty cup.

‘I am your friend, my Trotula. Tell me, are you happy?’

Still there was no reply. Her head was bent low, so that he looked at the top of her white frilled cap.

‘You do not speak, so I will attempt to answer for you,’ he said carefully. ‘Listen, and tell me if I am correct or wide of the mark. Now, we are both midwives, and in our work we daily deal with women’s bodies. We look at them, we touch them with familiarity, though always with respect. Is that right, Trotula?’

‘Yes, sir, I suppose so – yes,’ she muttered, not looking up. Parnham sent up a silent prayer: O God, if there be a God, give me the right words now.

‘But as regards men’s parts, they are a very different matter, are they not? Men’s bodies fill you with abhorrence – fear, dislike. Would you say that was true, my Trotula?’

She raised her eyes and looked at him with a kind of amazed relief, as if she had borne a heavy burden in secret for a long time, and then discovered that a friend had known about it all along.

‘Yes, that’s it, sir, that’s right. Oh, my God! How did you know?’

And while he wondered how best to reply, she reached out a hand to him and answered for herself.

‘Ye
know
, Dr Parnham.’

‘What?’

‘Ye know about me. Ye know because o’ that poor girl Jinny Potter.’

‘Yes, my poor Trotula, yes, I knew then,’ he said heavily.

She gave a long sigh. ‘And ye said it wasn’t her fault, sir.’

‘Certainly not! She was shamefully wronged by the very ones whose duty it was to protect her. Sheep-stealers are hanged, but men who do such evil as that – ugh! They go unpunished.’

There was silence for a minute or two, and then he continued with his questions.

‘So, my dear, because of what was done to you in the past, you had difficulties with your married life, even though you loved young Calthorpe?’

The storm broke. She rose from her chair, clutching wildly in the air with her hands.

‘Yes, yes, yes,
yes
, that’s it, that’s true!’ she burst out. ‘I was no wife to him, I couldn’t – I didn’t – oh, Dr Parnham, I never should ha’ married him, the best o’ men! Poor Sophia Glover ha’ cried her eyes out f’ r not marrying Mr Hansford, but I ha’ wished with all my heart that I ha’ never married. Oh, Dr Parnham, I’d do anything to set him free – anything – drown in Wychell Lake or hang from a tree—’

Parnham curbed his overwhelming urge to rant and rave and curse and swear, so great was his anger at what this girl had endured. He leaped to his feet and took both her hands in his.

‘Hush, hush, in God’s name,
never
utter such blasphemy again! Oh,
why
did you not come straight to me, my poor child? You must know that there’s nothing I would not do for my clever Signora Trotula. Think of the loss to – to the women of Beversley if . . .’ He paused to steady his voice. ‘I knew that all was not well with your marriage from the start, and your distress over the Potter girl explained it all. Now listen carefully, I want to ask you a few more questions when you are ready, Trotula.’

When she had calmed somewhat, he sat her down and spoke very gently.

‘There
may
be a lawful way for you to set Edward free, Trotula. Now tell me the truth, however painful it may be. Did you ever have a true union of your bodies, as husband and wife?’

‘No, sir. I refused him.’ She began to sob afresh.

‘Hush, my child, and answer me again. Did he not enter your woman’s part at all?’

‘No, sir. I got out o’ the bed to escape from it – I couldn’t bear it, Dr Parnham—’

He seized her hands and looked straight into her face, ravaged with misery.

‘Then I see a way out of your marriage, and I will do everything I can to secure it for you. Answer another question now: would you be willing to swear in a court of law before a judge that what you have just told me is true? That you and Calthorpe were never truly man and wife together?’

She looked up at him and saw the promise in his eyes.

‘Why, yes, sir, if ‘twould do any good.’

‘And young Calthorpe, d’you think he would be willing to swear the same?’

‘I don’t know, sir, but ’tis certainly the truth.’

‘Then he will be asked to do so, and so will you,’ said Parnham with conviction. ‘I will consult with an attorney-at-law, and get him to draw up affidavits. Those are written statements that you must both sign to declare that your marriage was never consummated, and is therefore null, as if it had never taken place. You would then be granted an annualment and be freed from your vows. Do you understand that, Trotula?’

‘Is that really possible, Dr Parnham?’ she whispered, unable to believe that it could be.

‘With my support behind you, Trotula, it will be more than possible – it will be
done
, by heaven!’ he assured her.

Oh, yes, he thought, he’d get it for her, if he had to go begging to lawyers, if he had to spend a fortune, if he became a laughing-stock, he would obtain an annulment for this young woman.

‘Trust me, Madam Trotula,’ he said emphatically. ‘I’ll consult with a Winchester attorney to set the wheels in motion. If Edward Calthorpe truly lives and arrives here in Beversley, I’ll see him myself and explain what he has to do. Only trust me.’

‘But he must never know, Dr Parnham – I couldn’t bear him to know what used to happen when – when I was a child,’ she pleaded.

‘He never will know, my dear, nor will the lawyers. It will be said that you refused him his conjugal rights because of your enmity against his family. I warrant to keep your secret, Trotula. Nobody shall know of it but you and I.’

He was rewarded by the smile that brightened her tear-stained face, the grateful look, the hand-clasp.

‘Right, you have given me my orders for the day, madam! I shall go to Winchester tomorrow, and return to speak with you again before the week is out – Friday afternoon, if not before. Farewell until then – and trust me,’ he repeated again.

I was right to send for him, Susan thought, grateful beyond words. What a friend he has proved himself to be, to understand so completely, to take such trouble on their behalf. If it were truly possible to set Edward free from an empty marriage, free to marry a wife with no unnatural fears, no terrors from the past, it would be the best gift that she could now bestow on him. And he must be made to see that.

A thought suddenly struck her: what of Sophia Glover – she who had lost the love of her life – what would
she
say when she heard that Susan had knowingly cast hers away?

Two days passed, and Friday arrived. At noon Susan changed into a dark blue merino wool gown and plaited her hair to pin up under a neat little white cap with no bow but which framed her face becomingly in tiny goffered frills.

In the kitchen a tray was set with teapot, cups and saucers and a plate for fruit cake.

‘When Dr Parnham arrives, show him in and boil water for tea, Lizzie,’ Susan said. ‘Bring in the tray and then leave us. I will call you if I want anything, but otherwise we are not to be disturbed.’

‘Very well, Madam Trotula,’ said the discreet Mrs Decker, who refused to speculate even to her mother about the midwife’s secret matters. Susan took paper, ink and a quill pen and put them on the table in the parlour. It was not yet noon; she got out her sewing-bag and settled down to wait beside the fire.

Just after twelve came the urgent knock on the door, and Susan started: he was earlier than she had expected. Folding up her sewing, she sat bolt upright while Lizzie went to open the door.

Heavens, that was Sophia Glover’s voice, surely? Susan’s heart thumped. Sophy was the last person she wanted here when Dr Parnham arrived with news of his visit to Winchester. A flustered Lizzie put her head round the parlour door.

‘’Tis Miss Glover to see you, madam, and says you’re to come to the door. She’s got a – a poor man with her, half-fainting and frozen with the cold!’

Susan rose and left the room at speed, saw the couple at the door and clapped her hand to her mouth.

Sophia’s face was stern beneath her black bonnet.

‘Help me, Susan. He came to my house seeking for you. Get a hot drink and warm a bed. He’s more dead than alive.’

At first Susan hardly recognised the man whose matted uncut hair and beard obscured his sallow face; a tattered coat and breeches hung on his frame like a scarecrow’s poor rags. But his sunken eyes lit up at the sight of her, and his lips moved as he tried to speak her name.

‘Susan.’

The word was scarcely audible, and she was only just in time to support him before he fell to his knees. She and Sophia got him up the stairs between them and laid him upon her own bed.

For he was her lawful wedded husband.

EVERYTHING WAS CHANGED
by Edward’s return. From the moment that the two women removed all his clothing and put on a nightshirt supplied by the Widow Smart – it had belonged to the parson, and she sometimes wore it herself – he became the central point of May Cottage, around which the female household revolved.

‘His parents must be told at once,’ said Sophia, and Mag was accordingly sent up to Bever House with the news, and told to call at Mr Turnbull’s on her way back.

By what Sophia had been able to gather, Edward had been ill with a fever that had raged on board during the uncomfortable Atlantic crossing. Already weakened by two years as a prisoner of war, when his life had been saved by the farmer’s wife Mrs Nollekens, the long voyage in winter conditions and on meagre rations had again brought him close to death, and he arrived in Portsmouth a penniless beggar. It was not until some time later that his wife and cousin learned how he had been recognised by a former crew member and put on the stagecoach to Winchester. The final five-mile walk from Pulhurst in a bitter easterly wind ended on the doorstep of Glover Cottage where he begged to see Susan once more before dying.

Susan was racked with love, pity, remorse and every tender emotion, but on that first day of their reunion there was no time for words or even for tears. When Edward was settled in bed and a fire lit in the grate, she spoon-fed him with warm milk and brandy; his body warmed and he whispered her name, but no sooner did he start to revive than the Bever carriage arrived at the cottage with his parents, sisters and brother, all wanting to see him and welcome him home.

Susan was aghast at the sound of their voices below.

‘Oh, Sophy, they can’t all crowd into this room!’

‘Leave them to me, Susan,’ responded Sophia at once. ‘Sit down beside him on that stool, and I will let his mother and father in to see him. The others must wait for another day.’

The Calthorpes were shocked at the wasted appearance of their younger son, and Gertrude burst into a torrent of tears.

‘Oh, Edward, my poor son, he’s no more than a skeleton,’ she sobbed. ‘Let us take him home in the carriage now, so that he may be nursed in his own room!’

‘Hush, my love, he is well enough here for the time being,’ Mr Calthorpe hastily interposed, knowing full well that Susan would not agree. Stepping to the side of the bed opposite her, they each leaned over to kiss the moist forehead and whisper words of encouragement to their son. Edward’s eyelids fluttered, but he made no other response.

‘I shall send Mrs Ferris to be his nurse,’ said Mrs Calthorpe, wiping her eyes. ‘She brought my Osmond back from the very jaws of death.’

‘That will not be necessary,’ said Sophia. ‘His own wife will nurse him better than any other. She saved many lives in the influenza outbreak at the House of Industry.’

‘But she has to be out attending women in childbed at all hours!’ protested Mrs Calthorpe, as if Susan were not there.

‘I shall be staying here at May Cottage to help care for him and to take over when the midwife has to go out,’ answered Sophia calmly.

‘But who will cook for him and wash his linen?’ demanded the lady, her voice shriller with each sentence she uttered.

‘Mrs Smart is an excellent housekeeper,’ replied Sophia. ‘Mrs Decker is also here, and there is a maidservant. Rest assured, cousin, he will be as well cared for as at Bever House, and you may visit when you please – but he must
not
be upset or wearied. Now you had better leave him to rest.’