by Sam Thomas
“Why no verses?” Martha asked.
Without answering, I lifted Isabel’s skirts to examine her privities. A piece of paper that had been hidden in the folds of cloth fluttered into the air before settling on her bosom.
Martha picked it up. “Isaiah, chapter one, verse twenty-one,” she said. I picked through the skirts and found a second piece of paper. Revelations 19:2, it read.
“He just dropped them on top of her?” Martha wondered. “Why the change?”
“I don’t know,” I said. I knelt and looked at Isabel’s legs. While the murderer had slashed at Jennet’s and Betty’s thighs, Isabel’s were bare and bruised but otherwise unharmed.
“This time he didn’t cut her,” I said. “Why not? He seemed set in his ways.”
Martha and I looked around, as if the room would offer some explanation. It yielded none. We stepped outside to find Will, Barbara Rearsby, and Sarah Briggs waiting for us.
“Who found her?” I asked.
“I did,” Sarah replied. “I was minding Elizabeth for the night. When Isabel had not come back by morning, I left Elizabeth with a neighbor and went in search of her.”
“Did you put the cloak on her?” Martha asked.
The whore nodded but said nothing, and I found myself at a loss. I gazed up and down the street, as if the murderer might have left some clue outside. From the corner of my eye, I saw a curtain in the window across the street fall back in place. Someone inside had been watching us. I crossed to the door and knocked.
The door opened to reveal an elderly woman with clothes as shabby as the tenement in which she lived.
“Good woman,” I said. “May I speak with you?”
The woman looked me up and down.
“Yes, my lady?” she replied.
“Were you in your home last night?”
She furrowed her brow for a moment and I wondered if old age had begun its terrible work on her mind as well as on her body.
“Why no, my lady,” she said at last. “The Lord Mayor sent his carriage for me. He said he desired my company for the evening, so I went. He read me poetry until midnight.”
I felt my face redden, and Martha hid a smile behind her hand. Before I could react, Sarah stepped forward and took the old woman by the arm.
“Now, there’s no call for that, Mrs. Cowper,” she said. “Lady Hodgson is a friend.” The old woman squinted at me as if to say I’ll decide that, but apparently concluded that I could indeed be trusted.
“I was here last night,” Mrs. Cowper said. “I expect you’re here about the row they had.”
“You heard something?” asked Martha.
“Aye, even with my bad ears I heard the shouting. A more terrible clamoring I’ve not heard in years. I came out and yelled that I had sent my boy to summon the beadle, and that seemed to quiet them down.”
“And did the beadle come?” Martha asked.
“No, and I don’t have a boy to send.” The woman laughed. “My threat had no more teeth than I do.” She drew back her lips to reveal an unbroken set of gums.
“Did you see who was making the noise?” I felt a flicker of hope that the old woman had witnessed the murderer fleeing the scene. Even in the dark of night, she’d have known Stubb if she saw him.
“When I looked out the window, I saw one of them,” she said. “But he wasn’t alone. As he hurried off, he kept calling out Wait, wait! as if he feared being left behind.”
Martha and I exchanged glances.
“There were two men here last night?” I asked. It seemed that we’d found another clue that Joseph and Stubb were working together.
“Aye,” she replied. “I only saw one of them, but unless he was shouting at himself, there must have been a second. What happened in there, anyway? One of the doxies run off with a gentleman’s purse?”
Sarah took the woman’s arm again. “Isabel died last night,” she said. “Lady Hodgson is a midwife, and she’s hunting for the man responsible.”
The old woman grimaced and moaned softly.
“Ah, poor girl,” she said. “And you think the man I saw killed her? I wish I’d gotten a better look, then. Not too many around here put out lanterns at night, no matter what the Lord Mayor says. The wax is too dear.”
“Can you say anything more about him?” Martha asked. “Was he tall? Short?”
“He wore a dark coat,” she said. “Wasn’t big or small, either, just the same as everyone. He had the collar up to hide his face, but I thought it was because he had been robbed by a whore. I took him for a fool and nothing worse.”
I felt the little bit of hope I’d had disappear. If Mrs. Cowper had been a few years younger or if the streets had been a bit brighter, we might know who the murderer was, but in the end we’d learned little of use except that the murderer did not kill alone.
“Will, you’ll have to send for a constable,” I said. “Your father will want to hear of this murder, too.” He nodded solemnly. I bade the old woman good day as Sarah gave a cry and her knees buckled as if a great weight had been dropped on her shoulders.
“What is it?” Barbara asked, catching her by the arm. “The baby?”
“Aye,” she hissed through clenched teeth. “My waters have broken.”
“Well, God is smiling on you today,” Mrs. Cowper said. “You don’t even need to send for a midwife.” She turned to me. “You all might as well come inside. I don’t think it’s what you’re used to, my lady, but it’ll do at a pinch.”
Martha and Barbara took Sarah by the arms and helped her into Mrs. Cowper’s home. I rolled up my sleeves and followed them in.
Chapter 17
In keeping with her station, Mrs. Cowper’s tenement was small and spare, but she kept it as clean as one could want. Sarah’s labor pang had passed, and except for the drops of sweat rolling down her face, you’d never know she was in travail. We followed the old woman to the back of her home, where I laid Sarah on the bed and examined her.
“Everything is in order,” I told her as she sat up, “and you are still some hours from delivery.” We returned to the room that served as Mrs. Cowper’s parlor and kitchen, where the rest of our company waited.
“Barbara,” Sarah said, “will you fetch the gossips?”
“Of course. I’ll be back shortly,” she replied, and dashed off in search of Sarah’s friends. By then Mrs. Cowper had busied herself in her small kitchen, stoking the fire to heat a pot of water.
“Ordinarily, I’d use this water for the herbs in my garden,” she said. “But this seems more urgent.”
“You’ve kept your herbs alive though the heat?” I asked. I’d thought I’d have to send Martha back to my house for my valise, but with a little luck, perhaps not.
“I have everything you’ll need, including an eaglestone,” she said. “It’s been years since I delivered a child, but I still love tending my herbs.”
“You were a midwife?” I asked and the old woman nodded. After a week of terrible fortune, I said a prayer of thanks for this unexpected stroke of luck. We heard a knock at the door and Will poked his head in.
“Aunt Bridget,” Will said. “There is some other business we must see to.” He inclined his head toward the tenement across the street. I realized he meant Isabel’s body. “We must summon the constable.”
Obviously he was right—we couldn’t bury Isabel ourselves, and sooner or later we would have to tell city officials about her murder.
“There is a beadle living above the White Cross,” Mrs. Cowper said, referring to a nearby alehouse. “He’s a good man and will come readily enough.”
“And why don’t you summon Joseph as well,” Martha suggested. “Tell him you’ll guide him to the body. Then you can watch his reaction to things.”
Will considered Martha’s suggestion before responding.
“All right,” he said. “He’ll not betray anything, but I’ll try.” Will slipped out, leaving us women alone.
“How is it that you are hunting
a murderer?” Mrs. Cowper asked. “Isn’t that a job for the Justices and constables?”
“How long were you a midwife?” I asked by way of a reply.
“Years,” she said. “From the birth of my last child until the arthritis took my hands from me. But that was fifteen years ago, at least. I knew your mother-in-law passably well. She lived across the river, so we did not meet often, but we helped each other from time to time.”
The mention of Phineas’s mother surprised me. She’d trained me in the mysteries of midwifery after I’d come to York to marry her son. She’d been under no illusions about his nature, and I think she wanted to make sure I had a life of my own.
“I am helping the city in the search,” I said. “It is not so uncommon.”
The old woman laughed at this.
“Not uncommon if they’re hunting a bastard’s father, but a murderer? I’m neither so young nor so old to believe everything I hear.”
“It is unusual,” I admitted. “But we live in unusual times.”
“That we do.” Mrs. Cowper nodded.
“Mrs. Cowper,” Martha said. “Do you have a Bible?”
“It’s been some years since I could read it, but I should, somewhere.” She shuffled into the back room, and returned a moment later with a well-worn book. “Are you with the Puritans, then?” she asked.
Martha looked at me, unsure how much to share with the old woman.
“It’s related to Isabel’s murder,” I answered. “We think she was killed by the same man who killed the other whores.”
“And what’s the Bible got to do with it?”
There seemed no way to avoid telling her the truth now.
“I need you to be discreet,” I said.
“I am still enough of a midwife for that,” she replied.
“And Sarah, you must promise not to tell anyone either,” I said. “If the information escapes, it could help the killer cover his trail.”
“I won’t say anything,” she said.
I nodded. “The murderer has been leaving Biblical verses in his victims’ hands. He seems to believe that he has a divine warrant for his actions.”
Mrs. Cowper shook her head in wonder. “There are those who say the end of days is at hand. Sometimes I think they may be right.” She handed the book to Martha, who began to search for the passages.
“Here’s Isaiah,” she said. “How is the faithful city become a harlot! It was full of judgment; righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers inhabit it.” She read the passage again, this time to herself. “Damn him! Does he not see that this passage condemns him, not the whores?”
“He is using whatever text he can, however he can,” I replied. “If he’s made his peace with butchering women, he’ll not worry overmuch about mangling the Bible. What is the other verse?”
Martha turned to the end of the book and found the passage from Revelations.
“For true and righteous are His judgments. He hath judged the great whore who corrupted the earth with her fornication, and He hath avenged the blood of His servants at her hand.”
“Well, that’s a better choice,” said Mrs. Cowper. “But I don’t see how it helps you find the killer.”
I had to admit that I didn’t know either.
“Why weren’t the verses in Isabel’s hands?” Martha asked. “All the others—save the adulterers—had the papers in their hands.”
I puzzled at this for a time. It seemed that for everything the murders had in common, there also was a difference. “There’s no rhyme to any of it.” I said. “Some women had their privities cut, some did not; some were connected to Helen Wright, but Betty was not; some women had verses in their hands, some had them lying on their bodies, and some had no verses at all.”
“What do you mean, Some suffered when their privities were cut?” Mrs. Cowper gasped. “Are you hunting a man or a monster?” Her shock at the murderer’s brutality reminded me how hardened I’d become to the horrors he had visited upon his victims. When had I learned to speak so loosely of such terrible events?
“In some cases, the murderer cut at the whores’ privities and legs until he hit an artery,” I said. “That’s how they died. But he didn’t do that to Isabel.”
“Or Mary Dodsworth,” Martha reminded me.
“But she wasn’t a whore,” I said. “Merely an adulteress.”
“He’s killing adulteresses, too?” Sarah asked.
“So it seems,” Martha replied. “And he killed her lover, as well.”
“The sins of the flesh seem to be the ones he hates the most,” Mrs. Cowper observed. “Why is that?”
“We don’t know,” admitted Martha. “Nor do we know why Isabel escaped the abuse suffered by Jennet and Betty. And why wasn’t she bound up the way the others were? The murderer simply struck her and then ran.”
And then I knew the answer. “That’s exactly it,” I said. “When Mrs. Cowper shouted that she had summoned the beadle, the murderer dropped the papers and fled. He had no way of knowing it was a ruse.”
“And that’s why Mrs. Cowper heard the man cry after his comrade,” Martha finished. “If he’d been found wandering about the parish covered in blood, they’d have taken him straight to the gallows.”
While we could not be sure if the story we’d woven approached the truth, it did fit what we knew, and in light of the mean progress we’d made up to that point, solving any part of the puzzled offered us some comfort.
With Sarah’s final travail still some hours away, we women settled in and talked of the news of the town and of ourselves, and eventually Mrs. Cowper and I fell to talking about midwifery. I asked how she had come into the practice, for every woman had a different story and I loved to hear them all. While some women followed their mothers or—like me—their mothers-in-law into the profession, most came to it on their own.
“It was entirely by chance,” Mrs. Cowper explained. “I started as a gossip, no different than any of the other women in the neighborhood. Soon I started assisting midwives with little tasks like making the caudle. Eventually I found myself serving as a midwife when one could not be found or arrived too late.
“Around the time the German wars started, a midwife asked me to be her deputy, and five years later I had a license of my own,” Mrs. Cowper concluded. “That was nearly thirty years ago.”
There could be no mistaking the note of sadness that had crept into her voice. I could not imagine my own life without my mothers and babies, and my heart ached for her plight. I understood why she still kept her herb garden.
“Have you no children?” I asked.
“I have three daughters,” she replied. “All gone to London. They send me letters sometimes, but they have lives and husbands, and children of their own now.” We lapsed into silence, and I could not help wondering if that was the future that lay before me as well. Would I lose my work and grow old, with none but my maidservants as companions?
Suddenly, the front door flew open and four women burst into the house, laughing and full of good cheer. Sarah pulled herself to her feet to embrace her gossips, and from that moment all ill thoughts were banished from my mind. In addition to the happy conversation, the women had brought baskets of food, a pot of ale, and several bottles of wine.
“Martha,” I called. “Get some wine before it’s drunk and make Sarah’s caudle.” With such a merry crowd, I did not think the wine would last for long.
“In my house, we use my caudle,” Mrs. Cowper responded. She snatched a bottle from one of the gossips and busied herself heating the wine and adding the herbs and spices. When I tasted it, I had to admit it rivaled my own. She must have been a fine midwife in her time. Naturally enough, the talk soon turned to Isabel’s murder, and it became the strangest gossiping I’d ever heard, as the women both celebrated the birth of Sarah’s child and mourned the loss of their friend.
“What will happen to her daughter?” Martha asked. “Has she family in the city?”
“No, none
,” replied one of the gossips. “The churchwardens probably will put her with a widow.” While some orphans lived with more distant kin, newcomers to the city often had none. When that happened, the parish paid a poor woman to care for the child. Some of these women loved the children they received, but even the luckiest child grew up in poverty. Bad luck could mean a bad caretaker and a horrible fate.
“Oh, you’ll never guess what I heard this morning!” a gossip named Alice cried. No doubt she sought to turn the conversation away from such a dismal topic. “You know that one-eyed preacher? His son came around the Black Swan again last night.”
Martha and I looked at each other uncertainly as the women burst into laughter.
“Praise-God Ward?” Martha asked in disbelief. “Hezekiah Ward’s son?”
“Aye,” replied the gossip. “It’s hard to forget that name, especially when it’s hung on a man in search of a whore. And I’d have gone with him, too, but I came to the tavern a few minutes too late. It was a shame—they say that he pays well.”
“Praise-God Ward comes around looking for whores?” I said dumbly. “He hires you?”
“Well, not me,” Alice said. “But others. I saw him go off with Isabel on Saturday.”
“I wonder if hearing all his father’s sermons has shrunk his yard,” one of the other women said, holding her thumb and forefinger just a few inches apart. The gossips roared with laughter and fell to mocking the godly for all their pretensions and hypocrisies. Martha and I slipped into Mrs. Cowper’s chamber, where we could talk in private.
“What do you make of that?” I asked. “Praise-God going with whores?”
“Including Isabel, the night before she was murdered,” I replied. “It cannot be happenstance.”
“Could he be the one killing the women? Could he have bought Isabel on Saturday, and killed her on Sunday?” Martha asked.
“But why?” I asked. “He is godly enough, but he seems more mouse than murderer.”
“He seems a mouse, but we’ve been wrong about murderers before,” she pointed out. She was right, of course. Could there be more viciousness and violence in Praise-God than we had seen? Could he be cruel enough to burn Betty in such a heartless fashion?