The Midwife and the Assassin (2 page)

I sat with pen and paper before me, considering all that the journey would require. Hannah would be more than happy to care for Elizabeth during our absence, but even if we were gone for just a few weeks I would have to hire another servant or two so that she would not be overburdened. The harder question was our lodging once we arrived in London. We could stay at an inn, as my father had done when he served in Parliament, but I wished we had a friend in the city.

And then I remembered Esther Cooper, one of my gossips in York. We had been friends for many years, and I'd even asked her to serve as my deputy. But shortly after Martha came to my household, Esther was arrested for the murder of her husband. Martha and I ultimately proved her innocence and saved her from burning, but her reputation within the city had been so stained that she'd fled to London to start anew. I had not seen her since she left York, but we had exchanged a handful of letters over the years. She had married a prosperous goldsmith named Charles Wallington and seemed very happy. I had no doubt she would welcome Martha and me into her home for as long as we needed. There was no time to write to her and await a response, so I composed a brief letter and sent it by one of my servants to Hereford. With any luck, it would arrive in London a day or two before we did, giving Esther at least a little time to ready her home for our arrival.

It took us two full days to prepare for our departure for London. I arranged for another midwife to work with any mothers who might go into labor, and packed the clothes I would need during our time away. These tasks were made more difficult by Elizabeth's steadfast refusal to admit that she would be staying behind. “Hannah could come with us. What does it matter whether she minds me here or in London?” Elizabeth's words were reasonable, but I could hear the frustration behind them. I tried to take her in my arms, but she ducked away.

“Elizabeth—” I started to say.

“No.” Her blue eyes threw off sparks with every word. “You cannot leave me here. You and Martha will go off and have an adventure. I will be here with nothing to do, and only Hannah and my pony for companions. It is not fair.”

“Fair has nothing to do with it,” I said. “It is about what is best for you. You are my daughter, and I must keep you safe.”

Elizabeth's face fell and her anger turned to sorrow. “But what if something happens to you? If London is as dangerous as you say, it could. I cannot…” Her words failed her, but I knew what she was trying to say:
I cannot be orphaned again
. I joined her in weeping and tried once again to take her in my arms. This time she did not resist.

“I love you,” I said. “And I love that you want to come with us, and that you are not some sheep doing whatever you are told. But there is too much we do not know to bring you along. You will be safe here, and we will return as soon as possible. I promise.” We held each other until we both had stopped crying, and then it was time to finish the preparations for our departure. A servant took the last of my chests to the carriage, and my eyes fell upon my birthing stool and the valise of oils, herbs, and tools that I took to every travail.

“I suppose it never hurts to be prepared,” I murmured, and took them down as well.

After ensuring that our baggage was secure, Martha and I sat down to dinner with Elizabeth. It was a melancholy affair, and I was relieved that Elizabeth did not renew her entreaties to accompany us. I did not know if I could have held out another hour. After we had eaten, Martha and I climbed into the carriage, bid Elizabeth one final farewell, and began the journey north to Hereford, where we would find the highway to London.

We made the best time we could over the rough road. The Lord smiled on us with fair weather, so we did not have to fight the mud that sometimes took hold of English travelers and held them in place for days at a time. As we bounced our way east, Martha and I whiled away the hours trying to decipher Will's letter.

After a series of increasingly fanciful suggestions from both of us—perhaps the King was behind our call to London!—we agreed that we were doing no more than spinning cobwebs out of our imaginations. We pushed aside such questions as unknowable, and talked of more practical matters. Looking back, it is strange to think how close to the truth our most fantastical ideas had been.

As we neared London I asked Martha to tell me what she knew of the city—what more practical question could there be? She shook her head in wonder at the thought.

“It is like no place you've ever seen.” Martha's voice was filled with awe, excitement, and fear. “The crowds, the noise, the filth: They put York to shame in every imaginable way. It is as if some mad architect took twenty Yorks, jumbled them up, and cast them out along the river Thames. And once the city was built, the architect filled it with every kind of person you can imagine, from every corner of the world. London is a great and terrible city, but one that offers astonishing rewards to those who learn her ways.”

“And how can we do that?” I asked. I had no intention of staying in the city even one day longer than I had to, but I was entranced by Martha's description and the wonder in her voice.

“First, you'll have to forget yourself and who you were before you came,” Martha replied. “Londoners don't care for the past, only the present and the future. And once you are in the city, you can become anyone you please. What is more, if you don't like who you become, you can simply transform yourself into someone else.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. If I'd not been sitting in a carriage with her, I'd have thought she'd been drinking.

“When my brother and I were here, London offered endless opportunities for our trickery.”

I was surprised by this admission. Before she came into my service, Martha had escaped a brutal master, only to fall in with her brother Tom, a notorious highwayman and thief. I knew they had spent some time in London, but I'd never pressed Martha for details.

“If Tom thought there was a chance we would be taken, we would simply move a half a mile, or—if things were truly dangerous—we'd cross the river. Once in a new neighborhood, where nobody knew us, we'd just start fresh: new names, new trades, new crimes. It's not one city, but hundreds, all set up together.”

Martha's rapturous description was interrupted by a cry from our driver as the carriage drew to a halt.

“I'm sorry, my lady,” the driver called through the window. “The cart ahead of us just lost a wheel. I'll help the driver pull his cart off the road and then we can be on our way. It won't be long, I don't think.”

Martha and I climbed out of the carriage to observe the scene and ease our aching joints. A large cart filled with sacks of grain sat before us, listing precipitously to the right. A group of men had gathered around the broken wheel, surveying the damage and discussing their options. I looked past the cart and caught my breath.

We had just crested a hill—Highgate Hill, I later learned—and all of London lay below us.

“Remarkable, isn't it?” Martha asked.

I could only nod. My eyes followed the Thames as it snaked from the west until it reached the city itself. Even from this remove, St. Paul's Cathedral towered over the rest of the city, made more magnificent by the thousands of buildings that surrounded it like supplicants at an emperor's feet. To the south and east, I could pick out the spires of the city's churches, though there were so many I could not count them all. In the far distance I saw London Bridge, with its many shops and houses, and I could see the theaters in the lawless precincts south of the river. A dull blue haze hung over the entire city, produced no doubt by the thousands—tens of thousands—of hearths burning wood and sea coal to ward off the autumn chill.

By now the men had unloaded the stricken cart and dragged it to the side of the road, clearing the way for the rest of us. We returned to the carriage and, with a shout to the horses and a crack of his whip, the driver took us down the hill and into the city.

I knew that Esther Cooper's new husband, like many of the city's goldsmiths, had taken a home on an avenue called the Strand, which lay between the city and the halls of Parliament. I said a prayer of thanks that they'd chosen to live there, for it meant we would not have to pass through London itself to reach their home. If everything I'd heard was true, my carriage would have a devil of a time on London's streets, and I could not imagine how long such a journey would take.

After a time we turned south, onto a road our driver said was St. Martin's Lane, before finding ourselves on the Strand. I gazed in wonder at the riverside palaces built by England's oldest and wealthiest families. The largest houses in York would have fit inside these homes many times over. Here in miniature was the difference between York's merchants and London's nobility; it was the difference between power over a city and power over a nation. Even Martha marveled at the sight.

“I thought you already knew the city,” I teased.

“My brother and I spent our time in other neighborhoods.” Martha laughed. “Though if he'd found a way to rob one of these piles, he certainly would have. We'd have collapsed under the weight of all the gold they must contain.”

As our carriage rolled over the roughly paved streets, I noticed that many of the shops belonged to goldsmiths. It took me a moment to work out the connection, but I soon made sense of this strange mix of noblemen and craftsmen. What better place for a goldsmith to ply his trade than a few steps from England's dukes, barons, and earls? Moreover, to the west lay the palaces of Whitehall and Westminster—the seats of King and Parliament. Within a mile of that spot one could find more power and wealth than in any other city in England. It would have been strange if the goldsmiths had settled anywhere
except
the Strand.

When I spied a sign announcing C
HARLES
W
ALLINGTON,
G
OLDSMITH,
I called for the driver to stop. Martha and I dismounted from the carriage, hopping over the dung as best we could. We each breathed a sigh of relief that our long journey had come to an end. I told the driver to unload our luggage, and knocked loudly on Esther Wallington's door.

 

Chapter 2

A handsome youth answered Esther Wallington's door and peered suspiciously at Martha and me, as if deciding whether he knew us. After a moment he concluded that he did not.

“What do you want?” he spat. “Are you here to see Mr. Wallington?”

I was taken aback both by the lad's peremptory speech and his failure to acknowledge my rank. I wondered if I had become so disheveled during our journey that I no longer looked the part of a gentlewoman. Or perhaps everything I'd heard about Londoners' rude nature was true.

“We are here to see Mrs. Wallington,” I announced, hoping that my carriage and dress might overcome his refractory nature. “I am Lady Bridget Hodgson.”

“Oh yes,” the youth replied with only the barest hint of a bow. “Come in. I will tell Mrs. Wallington you have arrived.”

Martha and I followed him through the entry hall into a large and sumptuously appointed parlor. Even though we'd only passed through two rooms, it was clear that Esther had married very well indeed. Every aspect of the house—from the paintings to the ornaments to the furniture—announced the Wallingtons' great wealth. I said a prayer of thanks for this, for it meant that our stay in London would be a comfortable one, no matter how disrespectful the servants.

“If you wait here,” the servant said, “Mrs. Wallington will join you presently.” I glanced at Martha as she absorbed the opulence that surrounded us. She was no less impressed than I, both at Esther's good fortune and our own.

It was not long before Esther swept into the parlor, trailed by gorgeous silks and fine lace. She crossed the room and embraced me with all the warmth I could have hoped for. The years since she'd left York had done her no visible harm, or at least no more than they'd done to any of us.

“Welcome, welcome,” she cried as she embraced Martha as well. “I was so pleased when I received your letter. What a wonderful surprise!” She stood back and looked me over. “And you are as beautiful as ever. It seems that country life agrees with you.”

“It is quieter and cleaner, to be sure.” I laughed. “But sometimes I do miss the bustle of York.”

“London will cure you of that desire, I think,” Esther replied. “What you've seen thus far is nothing at all. Wait until you try to travel from one side to the other!”

“How have you been?” I asked.

“Well enough,” Esther replied, barely able to suppress a smile. “Did I tell you that I have a baby boy?”

Martha and I cried out in delight. Esther and her first husband had come to me when he could not get her with child, but I'd been unable to help them. At the time I'd thought the problem lay with him—she showed no signs of barrenness—and now we knew that it was the case.

“When can we see him?” Martha asked.

“He is with the wet nurse now,” Esther replied. “And then he will sleep. But she will bring him down when he wakes.”

I could hear the uncertainty in her voice and knew its source. I'd long counseled women to nurse their own children rather than hire a wet nurse.

“Charles insisted I hire a nurse,” Esther explained. “My husband is not a young man, and is eager to have another son. He said James has a weak constitution and might not survive.”

My heart sank at this. Esther's first husband had treated her very badly, and I had prayed that she would choose more wisely the second time. It appeared that she had not. I tried to hide my disappointment, but I did not believe that I succeeded.

“It is wonderful to see you,” she chirped, no less eager than I to change the subject from the past to the present. I knew I could not question her choice of husbands at this late date. What was done was done.