The Midwife's Revolt (17 page)

I pitied her then. Whom did she have to talk to? What friends did she have? Not a one. There was no one in the world with whom she could discuss her present situation.

“That’s the baby’s head growing against your spine. You ought to have a servant massage you each day and place hot chamomile cloths upon it. That will greatly relieve you.”

“Oh, it’s not so severe as all that,” she said dismissively, “but I thank you for the suggestion.”

“And the father? Is he unwilling to marry?”

I had been careful about broaching the subject of the father, but that seemed Eliza’s clearest solution—to marry now, as soon as possible.

“He is”—she turned away from me—“he is dead,” she pronounced.

“Dead?” I did not believe her for a moment.

She would say no more upon the subject of the father, and I thought it wise to let it go for now. “Is there no one else—?”

“To marry, you mean?” she asked, a half smile playing across her face. “No one I wish to marry. Or wish to trick into marriage.”

“I wasn’t speaking of trickery. Some men, when they love, are capable of great forgiveness.”

“I know of no such men,” she said pointedly, with a slight shake of her blonde curls. Not being a clever manipulator of others, I am slow to recognize manipulation when I am the victim of it. But I confess that it was only then I understood why I had been called upon. In my discretion and my skills lay the solution to Eliza’s problem.

“Eliza, there is another way. How many weeks, to the best of your understanding, since you conceived?”

She looked around the empty room as if someone might overhear our terrible words. “Twenty,” she replied, and, without the least warning, she burst into tears.

I was moved by her tears, but it is a well-known fact that women are often quite wrong about their dates. And so I pursued gently, “Might I lay my hands upon you to ascertain for myself?”

“Certainly not!” She dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief that she’d pulled out of a small silk bag.

“Oh, come now, Eliza. If I am to deliver this babe, I will be obliged to touch more than your belly.”

“Disgusting!” She turned away from me again.

I laughed heartily. “You must take your quarrel up with our Maker. Woman is His design, not mine. Come now, allow me.”

I helped her back on the bed.

“These stays are far too tight. I’m loosing them. You’ll harm your child and yourself to wear them so. You shouldn’t wear them at all—or very loosely, at the least.” I placed my hands on her belly. It was warm, pale, and quite beautiful. If only her character were as lovely! My hands told me the babe was indeed about five months.

“I’m finished,” I said. “As close as I can tell, you are due in middle to late October. Let us talk about it.”

What I recommended to Eliza was that in her last month, sometime in early October but well before it would be unsafe for her to travel, she come to stay with me and Martha in Braintree. This move would have the double advantage of discretion for her and convenience for me, as it was the busiest time of year on a farm. I could not possibly leave Martha alone.

She glanced only very briefly across at me. “I will consider it. Thank you.”

As we parted, I could not help but say, “Come what may, Eliza, let no ignorant, backward woman, nor no cocky, inexperienced physician, deliver you. It would spell death.”

“Thank you,” she said again, proud as ever. I soon left her and a house from which no one bade me so much as a good day.

22

AS I WALKED down the road toward
my ancestral home, I felt lucky to be free from such grievous encumbrances as Eliza now had, and I pitied her. And while I entirely doubted her story of the dead father, the man must have been a rogue or an idiot not to marry her—she of a good family, a dying father, and a large home and furnishings. Then a terrible thought occurred to me, and I regretted not having asked: perhaps she had been ravished. I had heard numerous stories of soldiers and their rude, violent ways. I prayed for her that it was not so. But the more I thought on it, the more likely it seemed.

I was home before the sun had fully declined. Crickets chirped, and the spring evening light cast a glow over the old manse and orchards. I sat out back on the brick patio with a glass of Giles’s bilberry wine, feeling suddenly whole and strangely happy. Giles approached so quietly that I started at his cough.

“Madam, you had a visitor.”

“When?”

“While you were abroad.”

“Who was this visitor, pray?”

“A Mr. Miller, he said his name was. He said he would return tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, thank you, Giles.”

For some vexing reason, neither Giles nor Bessie was to be found the following morning when Mr. Miller rang. And though our small number could hardly be disguised, it was quite mortifying to have no doorman. Instead, I had to suffer the humiliation of hearing Mr. Miller shout as he stuck his head partway through the unlocked door, “Hallo! Anyone home?”

I was then in the kitchen, where Bessie and I had, half an hour earlier, taken our mid-morning tea, having been up and working already for many hours.

Bessie finally emerged, cobwebs on her head from the cellar.

I sighed. “Bessie, would you kindly see our visitor in? Giles seems to have disappeared.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Boylston,” she said with mock formality. “Giles is tinkering in the cellar.”

“What could he be about in the cellar?” I asked.

“His experiments. You know.”

“Ah, yes—I forgot.”

I recalled now that Giles fashioned himself somewhat of an inventor. And it’s a testament to my family’s faith in him that they allowed the old slave free use of a musket, when he once informed them that he wished to improve the lock mechanism.

I smiled at the memory. It’s a wonder Giles didn’t manage to shoot himself. I swept the cobwebs off Bessie’s gray head as she passed me, for Mr. Miller was still waiting. She scurried out to him, took his hat and walking stick, and brought him into the empty parlor with its two sad chairs. Earlier that morning, we had found a table in an upstairs chamber and brought it down, completing the pathetic semblance of a formal seating arrangement.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he greeted me, bowing briefly before sitting down, “you look well. Er, what’s her name? The plump one there,” he whispered, leaning in to me just as I sat down.

“Bessie, you mean?” I asked.

“Yes. Bessie!” he called, and she turned, having no doubt heard his epithet. She scowled at him.

“Bessie, have you some cider?” Mr. Miller fanned at his neck. “I’m positively parched. Not ten and already quite a hot day. They say we shall have a drought this season.”

I rolled my eyes at Bessie. “Yes, Bessie, some cider, please. And our best cakes.”

We had but one type of cake, which we ourselves had eaten for breakfast, and a tiny smile sprang up at the corner of her mouth.

“Yes, madam,” she said in a fine English such as she never used with me.

“Oh, madam, of course,” he echoed. “Madam Boylston. I do apologize.”

And with that he stretched himself out in the too-small chair. His legs were long, and as he stretched back and suddenly yawned, I worried lest he tip over and fall backward upon his head.

“You’re smiling,” he said after he had finished his stretch. “Why so?” He looked at me over his elbow. His wide amber eyes glittered bemusedly, and his dark plait, hastily tied, had come partly out of its ribbon. I had an odd urge to retie it.

“I was just thinking what a funny sight it would be were you to fall backward in that chair, as you are very like to do in another moment.”

“Oh, sorry.” He laughed, sitting back up. In this posture he was equally risible, however, as his knees were now nearly at his neck.

Our cider came, and a plate of corn cakes. Bessie curtsied officiously.

Mr. Miller took a big bite of a cake and washed it down with his cider, which was nice and cool.

“Now that you are in possession of your house once more, what do you plan to do with it?” he asked directly, looking around.

“I await further news of my brother.”

“So, you have a brother?” He looked surprised and somewhat pleased. “I thought you all alone in the world. Is he younger or older?”

Mr. Miller shifted uncomfortably in his chair. His waistcoat and breeches, I noted, were finely made, though somewhat rumpled. All in all, he had the air of someone who had come from wealth but cared little for worldly possessions himself. “Two years younger. But I know not whether he’s alive or dead—it is this I wish to determine before I decide about the house.”

“Oh, I see,” he replied in an altogether different tone. His voice was now somber, and I could not tell if he were in earnest. “Tell me about him, if you would.”

“Well,” I began, “his name is Henry—we call him Harry. He went off on a privateer ship, the
Cantabrigian
, near four years ago this autumn, when he was but sixteen years of age. I’ve not heard a word from him since, except—”

“Except?”

“Someone has been paying the servants all this time. I had thought them long gone.”

“Then he must be alive!” Thomas slapped his leg. “Hang me if he isn’t, the rogue!”

I smiled at his familiarity. I was not so sanguine, but merely said, “I pray you’re correct, Mr. Miller. But in any case, it will do no good to conjecture. Either he is or is not. At the next post, I will inquire of the messenger.”

I thought it was time to change the subject. “Have you heard from Martha?”

“Of course.” He sat up and took a sip of cider, but his eyes remained steadily upon me. “That’s how I knew to find you here.”

“Were you looking for me, then?” I could not help but tease him. For something in Mr. Miller’s bearing, some faintly ridiculous insouciance as he sat so uncomfortably in that too-small chair, made him an alluring target. Part of me, I admit, wished also to break through his unflappable good cheer.

But Mr. Miller merely set his mug down. “Why do you ask?”

“I meant merely to point out that ‘to find’ something implies that one was looking for it.” I stared back.

“Not at all,” he contradicted easily. “I find many things quite by accident. This ring, for example.” He turned a ruby ring around the long, slender pinky of his left hand, then held it forth for me to examine. “I found this quite by accident along the pier at Rowe’s Wharf. Quite a ‘find,’ I’d say.”

I knew he was teasing me, but I would not be made fun of so easily. “You are very good at avoiding questions, Mr. Miller. You have not as yet answered me.”

“As to whether I was looking for you, do you mean?”

“The same.”

“Indeed I was, as a matter of fact,” he admitted. “I wished to thank you for taking in my wayward little sister and teaching her something useful. Of course, she would never have needed to be useful, had our parents not—” A certain raw emotion seemed to break through his glib ease.

“—left you.” I finished for him.

“I was going to say, got themselves trapped like so many frightened sheep.”

One would think the death of parents would invoke more pity than anger. But I understood Mr. Miller’s anger. For a long time I was angry with my father for dying—he was supposed to return to me, as were Thomas and Martha’s parents. But Thomas Miller seemed to hold their very flight against them as well.

“Yes, Martha has done well. Learned a great deal—she is a very able girl.”

He looked at me questioningly. “And you, Mrs. Boylston, are good at staying the course,” he concluded, his large amber eyes continuing to watch me.

“The course? Of what, pray?”

“Of the conversation. You insist upon steering me back to safer channels.”

Now it was my turn to smile. “I suppose it’s what I’m used to doing. Keeping others focused on the safer channels.”

“And must I now give birth to something?” he asked in mock horror. “What a half-human monster that might be!”

“Oh, don’t joke about such a thing, Mr. Miller,” I said, but I myself was smiling. Never in my life had I engaged in such free conversation with a man. I had not known many men, it is true. But never had I known one so willing to stray quite so far from convention. There seemed no art whatsoever to Thomas Miller. Artless as a child, I thought.

The idea that Martha and he were involved in anything politically important now struck me as ludicrous. Were I General Howe, I would not trust this Mr. Miller with anything more than shining my shoes. Indeed, he had already made a bad impression on Bessie, it seemed. She lingered among us, casting him baleful looks as she pretended to dust the empty bookshelves. I was about to change the subject when he stood, pulled a gold pocket watch from his vest pocket, and stared at it with some surprise.

“Nearly eleven!” he exclaimed. “I have an engagement in town at noon which I’ve nearly forgotten.”

He then extended his hand and shook mine heartily, as if I were a man. He said his good-byes to Bessie and was already halfway out the door when he poked his head back in and said, “I shall call on you again, if the idea is not too repulsive, while you’re in town.”

I merely curtsied.

Once we’d heard his carriage grow fainter, Bessie turned to me with one hand on her hip. “What kind of hot wind just blew in here?”

“A sirocco, I think.”

Our eyes met, and we laughed quite heartily at the puzzling individual who had announced his intention of calling upon us again.

Only well after he’d gone did I realize that Mr. Miller afforded me no opportunity to ask him about himself. I knew not where he lived, nor whether he had a profession or survived on more than words and good cheer. Martha had insisted that, apart from doing certain “errands,” he was “indifferent to politics.” In these times, to profess oneself indifferent to politics was the same as professing oneself indifferent to air.

I could not but wonder whether, like Shakespeare’s Mercutio, Thomas Miller was indifferent to love as well. Looking at him now, I thought him not so wholly unattractive as I had previously done, though he had not the classical beauty of Mr. Cleverly. His features were too big and bold, his face too animated. And, though tall, he had not the gentle elegance of some but rather seemed quite the proverbial bull in a china shop. He was young and eligible at a time when men were few, yet Martha had mentioned nothing of his being attached to anyone.

No, Mr. Miller’s pieces did not fit, I pondered disagreeably after he had left, and there could only be one reason for it: I did not have all of them in my possession.

One week had now gone by without my hearing from Martha. I wrote her every day, though some days I had little to recount. Worried, I wrote to Abigail inquiring as to whether she had been to the farm. The following day, I was greatly relieved by my prompt correspondent. Martha was quite well, Abigail reported, as was the farm. She went on to say that it was exceedingly hot for June. They were predicting a scorching drought, and Martha had been kept busy by her chores. The colonel had twice that week invited Martha to dine at his home.

I felt a flash of envy, followed immediately by a stroke of shame. Surely I could not begrudge Martha a night or two of gaiety?

Whether it was this envy that propelled me I know not, but I resolved to return to Braintree the following Wednesday, the tenth of June. It was now Thursday, and Steadman was three days late. Bessie was mystified.

“And you say he’s never been late before?”

“Never. Not even when the Reg’lars were here.”

“He has been detained, then,” I said with a certainty I did not feel. “He’s sure to arrive next Monday.”

He did not arrive the following Monday, but another letter from Abigail did, with news that the distemper had arrived once more in our parish.

I worried for Martha, for she had not yet had the illness. I knew I had to write and press upon her the need for immediate inoculation. I was certain she could take the inoculation in town and hurried to send word to Dr. Bullfinch.

The following day I heard from Martha at long last:

Dear Lizzie—

I hear through our mutual Friend that you are afraid for me, but do not be. I am much engaged at the moment and could not possibly “take the cure” in town, tho I thank you heartily for your kind offer. In any case, I believe I may already have “taken the cure” by way of the Cranches and their friends, for I dined with them all the other night and Billy is now quite ill, as is Dr. Flynt. I do what I can to ease their suffering, as you taught me. Billy has many eruptions, but Dr. Flynt, tho I can find but one, fares far worse.

Rest assured I am well and remain, etc. etc.