The Midwife's Tale

by Margaret Frazer

  He drew another, not quite so long but driven out of him with all the force of the first. And another after that, long and gargling and let out in a rush.

  "What is it?" one of the women whispered.

  Dame Claire opened her mouth to answer, but Father Clement said, "He's forcing the devils out of him that would have taken his soul to hell."

  Another breath drove from Jenkyn's unconscious body. Elyn groaned and, shuddering, covered her ears. Everyone, Father Clement included, crossed themselves. Ada Bychurch would not have thought there was that much evil in Jenkyn Browster to be driven out. He had always seemed a quiet, goodly man. But who but God could judge a man's heart?

  Because it would be easier on everyone to be doing something, she said, "Can't he be moved now he's shriven? Won't it be better if he dies in his own bed?"

  Dame Claire said, "He's past being harmed. Do it."

  Ada could see Father Clement was annoyed at the nun for giving permission instead of leaving it to him in his greater authority. He had long since settled into complacency with himself and his place in the village, and in return the village was use to him. He always had the right words though never quite the right sympathy, and never cared to be crossed in anything.

  Now he looked around and demanded, "Where's Pers?" with the clear thought that two men were better than one in lifting poor Jenkyn even though Jenkyn by any description was nowhere near a big man.

  For the first time Ada wondered too where Pers was. He was Jenkyn's nephew and heir and had come to live with his uncle and aunt two years ago when his older brother had taken a new wife and wanted the house he and Pers had shared to himself and her. Pers had taken it in good part, and the Browsters had welcomed him, a well grown, happily disposed young man willing to put himself to whatever work was to hand. And it had been the more convenient because a few years before then Jenkyn, at Elyn's prompting, had asked the priory's steward for the holding next to theirs when it fell vacant with no heir to claim it. He had been given it, and Elyn had seen to turning its house into a byre so there had been no longer need to keep their cow, the sheep, and chickens in their own house, and she had had Jenkyn build a wall to make that end of their house a separate room, used for storage but ready to hand when Pers came to live with them.

  So where was he now when his uncle needed him for this final kindness?

  "He's not... here," Elyn choked out between sobs.

  "Then where...?" Father Clement began, but paused, maybe with the same thought Ada had. Yesternight had been Midsummer Eve, and Pers had likely been out with all the other village young folk, gone to the woods for greenery and dancing at the bonfire so, "Likely he's at Pollard's," Ada said. "He's been working there of days when he wasn't needed here and has his eye on Pollard's Kate."

  "And she on him," Mary Cedd, the other woman, put in. "Aye, likely he's there. I'll go for him."

  She left. Father Clement, with Ada to help him, lifted Jenkyn and carried him to his bed along the far wall, Dame Claire steadying his head. His breathing was shorter now, a gasping in and a gasping out. The straw-stuffed mattress crackled under his slight weight as they settled him onto it, and Dame Claire eased his head down onto the pillow as gently as if maybe he would feel it.

  With a final gasp, his breathing stopped.

  Stillness filled the room, no one moving, staring at him, waiting for it to begin again, longer and longer, until the waiting broke and they realized it was over.

  Until he drew a long, gargling suck of air deep into his lungs and drove it explosively out. And drew another after it. And another. In the same way he had done before.

  In too calm a voice, Dame Claire said, "I've seen a man die of a broken skull this way before. The breathing stops and then comes back, with the breaths shorter and shorter each time, until it finally stops altogether."

  Elyn moaned and hid her face in her hands. Ada murmured something between a prayer and protective spell, crossing herself as she did, then with her arm around Elyn again said, "Come sit by him now. All's settled."

  Face still covered, Elyn shook her head, refusing.

  Ada had seen this before -- the idea that by not doing what was expected of you, you could keep the inevitable at bay. Before she could urge Elyn again to what would bring her greater comfort in the long run despite what she thought now, Father Clement said, "You have to trust in God's mercy, Elyn. For him and for yourself. And let us all see the lesson in it. That anyone can be taken to God's judgment on the instant and all unprepared. `You do not know the day or the hour.' It comes by God's will and -- "

  "There's something not right," the taller of the two nuns said. Dame Frevisse. She had been so silent this while that Ada had thought she was deep in prayer for Jenkyn's soul, but now she was looking at the wall where Jenkyn had struck it.

  Father Clement, not used to being interrupted, snapped, "What do you mean?"

  Apparently not noticing his tone, she answered, "Look at the wall here. Jenkyn's not a tall man. Shorter than I am." That was true; Jenkyn was shorter than his wife, and she was a head shorter than Dame Frevisse. "But see where he hit." She pointed at the dent. "It's almost as high as where I would have struck, if I'd fallen against the wall. And if I'd fallen hard enough, over something or however, to break the wall like that, I'd have been falling very hard indeed and would have hit the wall much farther down, much lower than my head level, because I'd be falling. The dent in the wall should be lower than Jenkyn's head, not higher the way it is. He didn't fall against the wall."

  "He didn't fall?" Father Clement repeated her ridiculous statement. "Then how did he hit the wall?"

  "He might have been standing on something and fallen off it," Ada said promptly. Too promptly, because she realized the problem with that even as Dame Frevisse asked, "Off what? Nothing is near the wall. Unless, Elyn, did you move anything when you first came in?"

  Elyn was staring at her. "No," she said uncertainly. She thought a moment. "I came in and called to Jenkyn and when he didn't answer I thought he was gone to his work and went about opening the shutters for some light and didn't see him until I came to open the one beside where he was. I didn't move anything." She steadied to certainty. "No, not a thing."

  "Then he didn't fall against the wall," Dame Frevisse said.

  "But of course he did," said Father Clement. He was beginning to be overtly indignant. "There's the place where he hit it. That break wasn't there when I was here yesterday. How else could it have happened?"

  "He could have been thrown."

  The response to that was startled silence, until Father Clement declared, "Nonsense!"

  But, "How else?" Dame Frevisse asked back.

  "But there was no one here," Elyn protested. "He doesn't hold with Midsummer wandering. We stayed home and he was already to bed when I was called to Cisily."

  "He's dressed now and with his coif on for going out," Dame Frevisse pointed out.

  "Midsummer's come. He meant to be out early to cut the thistles in the far field."

  Since thistles cut before Midsummer Day grew back threefold, sensible men waited until then to deal with them.

  "But Jenkyn has been cut down instead of them," Father Clement said. "God's hand -- "

  " -- did not throw him against the wall," interrupted Dame Frevisse. Father Clement's face darkened with displeasure. Ignoring that, she said, "There were a man's muddy footprints on the doorstep when we came in, side by side as if he had stood there and knocked."

  "They could be Jenkyn's footprints," Father Clement shot back. "He could have stepped out to see how the morning did."

  Even if he had, he'd not have been so dull as to muddy his shoes and Elyn's doorstep, Ada thought tartly, while Dame Frevisse met the priest's challenge with, "There's no mud on his shoes."

  Elyn, rousing to something she understood, put in, "Those are his house shoes. He'd never muddy them. His outdoor shoes are kept by the back door always."

  Ada looked toward the door that led into t
he garden behind the house. "They aren't there now."

  Elyn pulled away from the women around her and took a few uncertain steps toward the door, staring at the place where Jenkyn always set his shoes. "Where are they?" she asked, bewildered. "They're always there." Her expression opened with a thought and she exclaimed, "They've been taken! Someone's stolen them!"

  Ada went to take hold of her again, less comforting now than trying to steady her. "They're only misplaced, likely. You know men. As like to put a shovel in the turnip bin as where it's supposed to be. We'll look for them. They're here somewhere. Come you, sit down by Jenkyn now and say farewell to him."

  But Elyn stayed standing where she was, insisting, "He wouldn't put them somewhere else. Where else would he put them? He always put them there. They're gone and I'm telling you so! Someone was here and took them!" Her face harshened with alarm. "Our money!" She ran to the hearth, knelt down heavily, and with knowing fingers pried up one of the stones around it. Why do we think that's a clever place to hide things? wondered Ada. Everyone she knew did it, including herself, when they had any coins that didn't need to be spent at once. It was nobody's secret.

  "No," Elyn said with naked relief, her hand on the bag that lay in the hole she had opened. "All's here still." She began to refit the stone, stopped, and said in a different voice, "But the stone's been moved. It's the wrong way around. Someone's been at it. Look, you can see!"

  "Jenkyn, likely," Ada said soothingly.

  "He'd never. He knew better. And he'd put it back right if he did." Elyn rose clumsily to her feet, looking desperately around the room. "There's been a thief here! He's taken Jenkyn's shoes and was after our money!"

  "But he didn't take it," Father Clement said. "You have to calm yourself. No one's been here. A thief wouldn't have left the money."

  Elyn turned wide, frightened eyes toward him. "Then I frightened him away ere he could take it! He'd hurt Jenkyn but when he heard me coming he ran away! He was here when I came home!"

  "And went out the back way!" Ada exclaimed. "When he heard you at the front, he went out the back!" She started for the back door, and Father Clement with her, but Dame Frevisse was suddenly in their way, stopping them with her arm across the doorway, saying, "Whatever happened, he's long gone by now and you'll trample over any tracks he's left if you all go out. I'll see what he's left."

  What indignation Ada might have felt was lost at sight of Father Clement's face, surprise going to red-tinged indignation on it at realization that a woman -- and a nun at that -- had told him what he should do and she would do; and by the time he had his mouth working to object, Dame Frevisse was already gone. Ada pushed past him to crane her head out the door to see what she was about. On his dignity, Father Clement turned back to go on uncomforting Elyn.

  Frevisse, with no compunction at all for thwarting Father Clement and careless of what the women thought, stood on the rear doorstep and overlooked the garden that ran from almost the back door to the woven withy fence that closed it off from the byreyard to one side, the neighboring garden to the other, and the field path and bean field to the back. It was long and narrow, like the house, and its only gate led into the byreyard. The path that ran from back door to there between beds rich with the late June growth of peas and beans and greens was narrow and neatly surfaced with small, round river stones, showing no trace of footprints, muddy or otherwise. Frevisse walked it with her eyes down, distantly hoping something had been dropped or a careless footprint somehow left, but she found nothing.

  The gate at its end was a new one, hung on leather thongs, with another thong to latch it closed and a flat stone laid under it to keep the way from wearing hollow. It was a little open, enough that someone turned sideways could have easily slid through. A narrow someone, for a spider's elaborate orb web was silver laced and sparkled with diamond dew across it now.

  From the byre -- it looked to have been a house not too long ago -- across the yard a cow was lowing in complaint over her unmilked udder and chickens were softly cawing to be uncooped so they could be at their morning scratching. They were not her concern and Frevisse stayed where she was, inside the gate, studying the muddy yard before turning to go back into the house.

  Ada made no pretense that she had not been watching her. She backed hastily inside as Frevisse approached. The nun followed her in, saying to everyone -- the priest and the wife and Dame Claire, too, "There's nothing in the garden, but beyond the gate into the byreyard, there's a line of footprints -- a man's by the size of them -- through the mud, overlaying all the others and going straight across to the outer gate. The garden gate and that one are both open," she added with an inquiring look at Elyn who promptly said, "We never leave those open. They're always closed. Always."

  "Then surely he's gone that way!" the midwife declared. "Along the field path and probably toward the woods! We have to raise the hue and cry!"

  If it could be shown a village had not pursued and done their best to seize a felon by hue and cry fresh after a crime, the village was liable to heavy fine for the failure. Because of that, and for the plain joy of hunting down a legal quarry, a hue and cry was rarely hard to raise. But this was early morning after Midsummer's Eve and there was surely more interest among the village men in being in their beds for as long as they could manage rather than haring across the countryside.

  Frevisse was darkly amused to see that counted for nothing with the women or Father Clement. They had been up all the night and not at merrymaking for most of it. He and one of the women after quick talk and a nod from the midwife hasted out the door and shortly could be heard calling the hue and cry around the village green.

  The midwife had turned back to Elyn by then, left standing alone by her hearth, and gone to put an arm around her. "At least come pray beside your man," Ada said. "There at the foot of the bed."

  Head bowed, shoulders hunched, arms wrapped around herself, Elyn sank down on the nearest stool. "He's going to die," she muttered brokenly, "And Father Clement has done what can be done. There's no use in my prayers then, is there?"

  Ada had no answer to that that Elyn would find reasonable. Even the nuns held silent, pity on their faces, and the only sound in the room was Jenkyn's noisy, snoring breathing. After a moment Elyn closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth in silence, leaving Ada nothing to do but stand beside her, ready to give more comfort if it were wanted.

  Dame Frevisse went to Dame Claire. Their heads close and voices low, they spoke together briefly, then Dame Frevisse went aside, to the room's other end, and beckoned for Ada to come to her. Since Elyn seemed to be noticing nothing beyond herself, Ada went, curious and a little wary as to why she was wanted.

  But it was only for a bit of gossip, it seemed, which went to show nuns were not so different after all, because Dame Frevisse said, low-voiced beyond Elyn's hearing, "Everything looks to have been going so well for them, it's a pity it's come to this. Were they happy together?"

  Ada thought about that. Happy or unhappy did not much matter after a marriage had gone on long enough, just so the pair rubbed along as best they might. And Elyn and Jenkyn had done that well enough, she supposed. "Aye, they did well together," she said. With the desire to think of something other than Jenkyn's unnerving breathing, she went on, "Though that's been mostly Elyn's doing. Jenkyn is -- was -- is -- " The wording was so difficult, things being as they were. " -- so easy-going a man he'd likely never have brought himself around to marrying at all except she took a liking to him fifteen years -- " She paused to think about that. "Nay, closer to twelve maybe. Or thirteen."

  "A while," Dame Frevisse suggested. "It was a while ago."

  "Yes, it was surely that," Ada agreed. "Elyn took a liking to him, despite her father had doubts and her mother thought she could do better, but she knew what she wanted and had him to the church door, just as she meant to. And they've done well. Mostly because of her, I'll have to say and so would anyone else who knows them, but Jenkyn's been a good husband t
o her." She was keeping an eye on Elyn, still sitting with her eyes closed and arms wrapped around herself. Ada lowered her voice even farther. "Except they've had no children and that's a pity, for Elyn's a loving woman and sorely wanted them."

  Ada shook her head sadly. "It was when she still had hope of having them that she pushed Jenkyn into asking for the tumble-down holding next door when it came vacant, so she could keep the animals over there and have a better house with more room here. But the children never came, and she gave herself over to managing Jenkyn in their stead. He'd be content to have no better than a barn to sleep in and do naught more than he had to do to eat, only she stirs him up, and they've both lived the better because of it. Though mind you, it's helped that Pers has come to live with them these past two years. There's only so much Elyn can do with a man who's not -- was not -- " This was annoyingly difficult. " -- a man not big or strong. Nor so young as he once was."

  "Pers is the nephew who's missing now?" Dame Frevisse asked.

  "He's not missing, only at Pollard's courting their Kate." Ada smiled fondly over the thought. "That will be a match before long, and a good one, that's certain."

  "But Pers won't inherit when Jenkyn dies, will he?" Dame Frevisse asked.

  "No. All this goes to Elyn for her lifetime. Though likely Pers will stay on here to help at least until he marries. But since he's like to marry Pollard's Kate, he'll do well enough, she being Pollard's only child and everything to come to her eventually."

  "But Pers has no inheritance of his own?"

  "Not while Elyn lives, and she's a healthy woman, God bless her. Though we're all in his hands," she added conscientously, seeing over Dame Frevisse's shoulder that Father Clement had come back and was giving them both a hard stare, probably for what he thought of as their gossiping. As it was, Ada had to admit, but felt no guilt at it. Closed up in that nunnery, the woman must have little enough of it in her life.