The Popish Midwife: A tale of high treason, prejudice and betrayal

by Annelisa Christensen

  Still it did not move.

  Had that devil given Mrs Potter a potion that reached into the baby and stopped it breathing? She knew less than cared what she did, so it was possible.

  The door opened, but I was too busy with the baby to throw a sheet over the sliced belly and save the husband’s eyes. He had the boiled water, but quickly saw his time was wasted. Times like this were too frequent and disgraced me.

  ‘I grieve for you, Mr Potter, for no woman should ever bear such treatment and no man should ever suffer his wife do so!’ I said. My voice did not sound as if it came from myself.

  Holding the pail of steaming water, he looked at the open staring eyes of his wife on the bed, and the still form of the baby hanging from my hand. It was as if his very soul was taken from him. He cried then. He cried like an animal in pain.

  ‘Why, Lord? Why do you take my wife and child without me?’ Wide eyed, he fixed on the discarded mortal remains of the woman so recently his life companion. ‘Has the dark of night come to claim my day? Wake me from this, my worst nightmare, or take me, Lord! Take me to her!’ In horror, I watched as the man dropped to his knees, spilling scalding water on him, then plunge his hand into the water and scream, ‘Are bad dreams come to life? Take my pain that I know I dream!’

  I fast placed the dead baby on the bed beside its mother and rushed to aid the living. When I kicked over the pail, some spilled onto my leg. As if the action brought reality to the man, he collapsed over, his knees bent double, his head to the floor, and howled.

  The man’s grief was too great and could not be stayed by me, so I returned to the still form of the baby. If I did not try one more time, that woman would have the lives of two, and that I would not allow! The man had lost his wife and the boy his mother. I would not see them lose the baby without every effort to save it.

  The infant was turned black. I once saw a midwife bring a child back to life by the slapping of it from the bottom of the spine to the top, so I held firm its greasy feet and slapped it hard in the way I had seen, gripping hard to stop the slippery skin sliding through my fingers. There was no movement from the baby, but the man looked up, his jaw open, a frown upon his brow, the question froze ere it was full-formed. ‘Wha-?’

  ‘I must try, see?’ I told him, not wanting to waste breath talking.

  He shook his head and winced each time I hopelessly slapped its tiny back again, and again. Nothing. Letting go of hope, the man returned his head to the floor and continued weeping.

  I should have stopped, but a deep part of me had to purge the shame of what that midwife had done, and another part of me imagined the midwife there before me, so I was possessed by an urge to hit her until she could hurt no other. But she was gone, and my actions had no benefit. Neither did my anger abate. I slapped the baby hard on the back one last time. Perhaps it was the strength of the strike that forced the small ball of black liquid from its mouth, but no other thing happened, so I carried the body toward the bed to lay it down, knowing I had now done every Earthly thing I knew of.

  As I placed the body down, I near dropped it in surprise when it whistled like wind in the trees. But the man’s crying made me uncertain of what I heard.

  ‘Hush,’ I said to the man, more severely than I meant. ‘Hush!’

  When he realised my urgency, thick silence filled the room, pushed back the walls and the windows, so all I could hear were echoes of the woman’s screams. I let out my breath. False hope. Even the bodies of newborns sometimes passed through the final throes, and gurgled and rattled when Death came for them.

  As the life had gone from the infant, so it went from me. My shoulders slumped. I lay the little body next to his mother, made the sign of the cross, and murmured the Pater Noster so that the Lord would receive these innocents into his kingdom. When the husband saw I prayed, he bowed his own head, but then resumed his wailing the moment I finished.

  What more could I do but clean the room? The Almighty God knew Mr Potter was unable. Perhaps He was the only one to know why this little one was taken before it had lived any time, but the Devil it was that used such an evil woman as the instrument of its death.

  This woman called into question my life’s work and pride – all I had ever done or wanted to do. In this moment, the craft my mother had passed onto me, as I had passed it onto my eldest daughter, burned me with guilt and the wish to divest myself of any tie to it. Wearing the red cloak once more could only lay my own claim to that she-devil’s actions. I looked at my cloak, lying where I did not remember dropping it, and imagined throwing it, along with my prized bag of lotions, medicines and ointments, into the deep Thames River when I left there.

  Perhaps I stood there a long time, perhaps no time at all.

  The man cried still but, perhaps sensing my stillness, looked up, his face wet and so red that he might have plunged it in the boiling water as he had his hand.

  Suddenly, the bed made a squealing, hissing sound like a fresh cut log thrown in the fire. In the silence that followed, I searched for the cause of that noise. Then, when I thought I had imagined it, a yell tore through the air, so loud it caused me to start. The baby. A miracle had brought the baby back! My prayer was answered. He was alive, his little soul returned to us. For a moment I could do nothing but take in the sight of the baby, unable to credit it. The man, equally incredulous, came to his feet and moved to the other side of the bed and, for a while, we both simply stared down at the infant.

  The baby moved and waved his hands weakly in the air.

  I shook my head and forced myself into action.

  With the Oath I had taken before it was forbidden came permission for a midwife to baptise where necessary. This baby lived and cried, but if only our Father knew why he was taken before, then only He knew if He might take him from us once more.

  Without further ado, I cleaned every orifice and swaddled the baby, then asked the man for the gown he should be baptised in, likely the one either the father or mother had been baptised in too. He found it and brought it to me. I fast made a cross over the water in a bowl and thanked God for the blessing of this child’s return. Then I dipped my fingers in the still water, spoke the necessary words and administered the sacrament.

  That done, I took the baby up, and once more swaddled him, and offered him to the father.

  The man no longer bawled but took a step back from the infant, as if it had the Devil in it. I had seen it before. Some fathers might not take to a child when their wife had lost her life for it.

  I ignored Mr Potter’s red hand, which I would deal with shortly, and pressed the infant into his arms, shoving at the man’s chest when he did not at first take him. The balance tipped from reluctance to acceptance and he folded his arms around the bundle with surprising tenderness, new tears falling gently, quietly, on the baby’s tiny face.

  Later, once I had tended the man’s burnt hands with an ointment of plantain, comfrey and thyme, and dressed them with bandages, I took time to sew the woman’s belly that he would no longer have to see the insides, then cleaned up the day’s mess as best I could, scrubbing blood from the floor and wall and placed fresh sheets beneath Mrs potter.

  Wouldst that I had another pair of hands to help me.

  Finally, I laid out the corpse and cleaned her from head to toe, and dressed her in fresh clothes the best I could without help, ready for her family and friends to pay their last respects. It would normally be the job of the womenfolk of the family. I finished and a wiped stray hair from my eyes with the back of my forearm.

  Before leaving, I collected my paraphernalia together, and gave Mr Potter a bottle of burn lotion and instructed him in the use of it. He still held the baby, and the boy child by the fireplace peeked out from behind him.

  ‘I am indebted to you for my child’s life, Mrs… I beg your pardon, madam. I failed to ask your name?’ For the first time since I came there, I looked
fully at the man. I could not recall such a plain face. There was nothing remarkable about it at all. His nose was small and straight, his mouth not too large nor too small, his eyes were a good distance apart and of common colour. He did not wear a periwig, for he was not in society, though it was likely he frequently wore one, for his brown hair was shorn tight to his head. Despite having no mark of distinction, his face was of a good man, and I warmed to him.

  ‘The name is Mrs Cellier, Mr Potter. Elizabeth Cellier.’

  ‘My gratitude will always be at your side, Mrs Cellier,’ he said.

  My heart heavy and body worn, I would have done more, but no words of comfort for his wife came to mind, so I merely nodded. It was usual, at this point, to ask for payment, but I did not have that sort of uncaring heart.

  I still intended to find a neighbour to stay with him and, of course, a wet-nurse for the infant. Mr Potter informed me that the unusual lack of gossips at Mrs Potter’s bedside was because the so-called midwife had sent them away; a most peculiar thing to do. If I had to scour the whole of the city, I would find that woman and hold her accountable!

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Cellier,’ said Mr Potter. ‘That woman has taken my wife, but you have given me back my son.’

  ‘Only God can give life back, Mr Potter,’ I said. ‘He must have use here on Earth for this child.’

  That was ere noon and now, coming from Newgate the second time this day, I turned right from Old Bailey Lane into Ludgate Hill towards home and wished the rain might purge the image of that devil’s minion in the red cloak and the dreadful carnage she left behind. Women of that nature should not dare to call themselves midwives, but murderers.

  Dwelling deep on such horror, at first I did not hear the footsteps follow in mine, but as I became aware of them I naturally quickened. I had safely walked the streets at all times of day and night for so many years, my midwife cloak protecting me, I had become accustomed to doing so unchallenged, as well I maintained a respect for the characters that travelled them.

  Foolishly, I did not even yet imagine the footsteps had any relevance for myself until suddenly my cloak was grabbed so that I near lost my balance and fell.

  ‘You! Whore of the Frenchman! Plague of the city! What say you on the plot against the king? Talk witch! What know you?’

  I spun full round at the growl to find a hostile woman holding my cloak. Beyond her stood an equally unfriendly man and three children, any mask of civility removed, so that even the faces of the children held the raw purpose of a pack of hunters cornering their prey.

  ‘Tell me why I should know the answer to your question?’ I asked boldly, pulling myself upright, and grabbing back my cloak.

  ‘Do you deny you befriend Papist plotters?’

  ‘I do no such thing. I know of no plotters.’ Drops of rain dripped from the hem of my hood as I raised my head and tried to walk past.

  ‘But I know you! You are thick as thieves with Papist priests and traitors to the king. I doubt not how you hide wicked Popish charms, amulets and idols in your basket under the sham of alms and carry treasonous notes between the villains of Newgate and their plotting accomplices in the city.’ As the scowling woman said this, she stepped forward, as did others of her family. The woman grabbed my wrist.

  ‘Unhand me,’ I said, putting all the authority I had ever learned into my voice and pulled free from her hard grip, an action made possible only by the greasing of the rain.

  The woman barely reacted. She stayed too close to me and again growled in my face like a dog. Such hatred and suspicion was common in every Protestant that feared a Catholic should sit on the throne and bring the abominations of southern countries to our own three kingdoms. As of late, any not of this country or of the Presbyterian faith were condemned on the street without trial, and many an innocent man and woman was beaten for their religion or origin. Being both Catholic and married to a foreigner, I was doubly condemned. This one seemed to know me, but I did not remember her. I doubted reasonable voice would sway her but nevertheless I spoke out.

  ‘I have wronged no man and intend none to any.’

  She ignored my protest, so convinced was she that I was guilty of foul play. Without further warning, the woman struck me with some hard thing she had in her hand I had not seen. My head spun and bile filled my mouth. The woman did not strike once, but followed it by another and another before I had the chance to recover. I shielded my face from her brutal fists, but when her husband and children joined her, hitting and kicking me anywhere they could, I had no defence.

  ‘You bloody Popish toad – take your vile venomous husband back to the putrid bog you came from!’ I heard the man say, muffled by my arms wrapped around my ears to shield my head.

  ‘I am of this kingdom!’ I shouted without hope my words would find a mark. ‘This is my land…’ My words were cut off by the next hit.

  ‘Take that for the king, you foreign whore!’ The smack was smaller, but the young’un’s voice mimicked his parents’ words.

  They did not stop even when I fell into the grimy water. My chest made a breaking sound as the woman’s boot kicked it hard as any man’s. There was little strength or will in me to fight back and I let them have me. I could do no other.

  Then there was a shout, the sound of scuffling feet, followed by stillness. I was left to die in this place. I lay unmoving in the cold water soaking into my clothes and shivered violently.

  ‘Are you harmed? Can you stand?’

  Was I harmed?

  Of course I was harmed.

  The man, a rotund man of the law, grabbed my arm and laboured to lift me to my feet with less strength than a spider. I yelped loudly and he released me, then I screamed when I hit the ground. Whatever was broken in my chest pierced my innards in a cage of pain, so that only some of what happened around me after this slipped through the bars.

  The man of the law seemed not to know what to do. He left me lying in the blood-filled puddle while he took the names of the attackers who, it seemed, had the impertinence to still be nearby, and the name of witnesses that, I noted well, not only did not prevent my beating but now came forward to vouch for the attackers. The officer of the peace swore my attackers, a family by the name of Atterbury, to abide by the law. Once one witness had vouched Mrs Atterbury would appear in court the following day, they were free to leave.

  Free to leave!

  Theirs was the freedom to assault some hapless passer by until damaged beyond fixing.

  I could neither walk nor stand. It occurred to me I might die this night, my injuries being internal. Those bigots may have punched my insides into gruel and I might die before I could see my dear Pierre once more. Years of midwifery had taught me, it was not the wounds on the outside that killed a man, but those on the inside.

  Through a closing haze, before I blacked out, I heard the man of the law direct someone fetch a cart. My heavy eyes closed until strong arms lifted me from the ground and placed me in the aforesaid cart. The agony of being moved was nothing to that by each torturous bump the wheels encountered along the road. My chest yowled in protest, but all that came from me was an occasional groan.

  At some time the pain stopped. The next I knew, strong arms lifted me oh so gently from the cart and into the warm, familiar smell of my home. I knew they were Pierre’s arms. Only he could provide such comfort through the pain that filled me then. And I knew it was home. Only home has such superior effect of closing around one like a womb; it swaddled me as a newborn infant.

  My childhood showed that protection might be as superficial as external injuries, and that a marauder might, like internal bleeding, as easily enter your home to pillage and attack a family as if there were no walls or doors. A house was but false security, yet, though my family was regularly attacked by Puritans during the reign of the present king’s father, home remained safer within than without.

  Pe
rhaps it was the comforting crackle of the fire in the grate, or being cosseted by the love of my family, that gave me leave to relax the moment I was brought through the door. My husband fussed, as I knew he would, and directed the men to carry me to our bedchamber, where I was laid down.

  ‘My clothes,’ I might have said if I could speak, ‘they will drench the sheets’.

  ‘A surgeon has been sent for,’ came a gruff voice I did not know. I wanted to curl away from it, but could not move. The pain was only still when I was. Each part of me became solid as the winter Thames, as if blood refused to flow through it. I tried to tell Pierre what had happened, but my mouth, though uninjured, would not form even a mere whisper.

  ‘Is she dead?’ Pierre asked over and over.

  ‘She has heartbeat and breath,’ said the deep gruff voice, ‘but we lost her when we carried her into the cart and she did not return.’

  ‘When is the surgeon to come?’ The warmth of a blanket covered me, but I could not thank Pierre for his kindness. My limbs were so cold.

  ‘A man was sent to fetch him but a half hour ago by the man of law that found her. The people who did this knew her name, so he will know where to come. He will come soon enough.’

  ‘I offer you thanks, monsieur.’ I heard coins jangle, no doubt into the men’s open palms. Then the voices faded as Pierre saw them to the door. ‘If you see the surgeon, tell him to make haste,’ he urged them as they left. If they answered I did not hear them. The door latch clunked into place and Pierre’s footsteps returned to the bedside. A hand pushed the web of tangled hair from my face and stroked my cheek. Something warm moved over my cheek as light as a feather and I knew it was a tear tickling a trail to my ear. Did he cry because I was dead? I must surely be alive if my skin felt that exquisite touch.

  Then it was day. Familiar sunlight painted window squares on the wall telling me it must be late morning. Cold night still touched my face and turned my breath into clouds. Pierre did not lie beside me but slept upright in a chair next to the bed.