The Midwife and the Assassin

by Sam Thomas

  “No,” Martha said.

  I thought for a moment. “He is the same man we left in York, and you are the same woman. He will see that soon enough, and you will marry.”

  “And then what?”

  I did not have an answer for that question. If Will and Martha were to marry, what would happen when the time came for me to return to Pontrilas? Would Will come with us? Would he want to? Or would they both stay in London?

  “And then we shall see,” I said. “I know it is not the answer you seek, but the fact is that we must wait.”

  We had just reached our door when a voice called out to us over the general hubbub. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Hodgson.” Katherine Chidley strode across the street towards us. She had a sprig of sage pinned to her bodice. The crowd parted before her as if she were a troop of cavalry rather than a small woman. “After we left each other, I realized that I’d not formally welcomed you to the Cheap,” she said.

  “You did, in a fashion,” I replied. “And a strange welcome it was.”

  Katherine laughed. “Aye. It’s all the neighbors will talk about, of course. If a gossip brings up any other news, she is quickly pushed aside.” Katherine paused, and her smile faded. “It was a terrible night. But the heart of man is a wicked thing, and we should not be surprised.”

  I knew from this that Katherine counted herself among the Puritans, and I felt my heart beat faster. While most of the godly meant well, I’d met too many from that faction—both men and women—whose holy words hid horrid deeds. I pushed that thought aside, for she’d done nothing untoward.

  “Now, tell me how it is that you have come to the Cheap,” Katherine said. “You are not from London, are you?”

  I told her the story that Mr. Marlowe and Colonel Reynolds had concocted on my behalf, describing my life in Halifax, the death of my husband, and my decision to move to London. “I heard that a midwife in London could earn more in a week than her country cousins could in a month, so I climbed in a cart and traveled south,” I said. “It was that or turn to my neighbors’ charity.”

  “You’re from Halifax?” Katherine knit her brow in confusion. “You sound like you’re from the west, not the north.” Her question was neither suspicious nor accusatory, but it was clear that my lie had caught her attention. My heart beat loudly in my chest as I sought a way to explain this contradiction, and I cursed Mr. Marlowe for laying this accidental trap. As was so often the case, Martha’s quick mind saved me.

  “Her father was a minister,” Martha replied.

  “Aye,” I said. I could see in a moment that it was an excellent lie. “We lived in Hereford for many years, but he found a position in Bradford when I was a youth and we settled there. I moved to Halifax when I married.”

  “And how long have you been a midwife?”

  “My husband’s mother taught me the art,” I replied. The pace of my heart slowed now that we’d moved on to safer ground. “Ten or more years ago—could it have been so long?”

  “Time does pass.” Katherine nodded. “Have you got a license from the bishop, then?”

  “I do,” I said. “I didn’t see the need, but our vicar, Mr. Green, insisted. He was a great one for uniformity and order. If the bishop said midwives should have licenses, Mr. Green demanded it.”

  “And how long have you been a midwife?” Martha asked. “Some years, I imagine.”

  “Aye,” Katherine said. “In His goodness, the Lord has given me near twenty years of service in that work.”

  “And you took a license?” I asked. Thanks to Mr. Marlowe I knew the answer, of course. Katherine would quit midwifing before she bent her knee to a bishop. But I could not give away how much I already knew about her.

  “The day a bishop gives birth is the day I’ll seek his permission to practice my craft.” Katherine spat the words.

  Ten years before, such words would have horrified me. I loved the Church and respected her bishops, counting them as godly men. But in the years since the wars began, I had come to see that the powerful and the corrupt were often one in the same, and that if I wanted justice to be done, I would have to do it. Thus, while I had no quarrel with the bishops, I found myself liking Katherine’s spirit more and more.

  “I hope you do not think the worse of me for craving their approval,” I said.

  “Of course not. Things are not so free in the countryside as they are here in London.”

  “Yes, I gathered that,” I remarked, and we laughed together.

  “How long have you been Mrs. Hodgson’s deputy?” Katherine asked Martha.

  “Nearly five years.” Martha paused for a moment. “I suppose I shall be a midwife in my own right before too long.” She glanced in my direction. The prospect of her independence surprised us both, I think.

  “The two of you are what’s right with England,” Katherine said. “Too many of our sex would have been unwilling or afraid to move so far as you have. Too many would have been content to fall onto charity. England would be a far stronger nation if its women were not such sheep. That is why I love London so. The women here are made of different stuff; we will not simply do as we are told, whether it is kings, bishops, or husbands doing the telling.”

  I saw the surprise on Martha’s face and imagined that it mirrored my own. I knew that the Levellers fought to overthrow the King, but I had not imagined they would seek to bring down husbands as well.

  “What of silly wives who require a firm hand?” I asked. “I’ve met many a woman who would be utterly lost without a husband to guide her.” As much as I lamented her choice of husbands, I knew that Esther Cooper—now Wallington—could not have survived by herself.

  “What of silly husbands?” Blood rose in Katherine’s cheeks as she spoke. “And what of cruel or malicious ones? Surely you’ve met more than a few of them over the years. If a woman relies on her husband, if she takes only what liberty he is willing to grant her, she can expect no better than she gets. And God have mercy on her for that.”

  My mind snapped to Phineas, my own late husband for whom the word silly might have been coined. And then I thought of the women whose husbands beat them without mercy. Such violence turned them—as Katherine put it—into mere sheep. Not all men were so bad, of course. My first husband had been a kind soul, and for all his faults Phineas never hurt me. But I had known too many violent men to consider them rare beasts.

  “Aye,” I said at last. “I have seen such men. The silly ones and the cruel ones.”

  “Then you see what I am saying.” Katherine opened her mouth, ready to press her argument, but stopped herself. “I should apologize. We are new gossips, and I have said too much too soon.”

  I laughed. “It is your willingness to speak your mind and insistence on being heard that makes you a good midwife. I would be disappointed if you changed your ways once you left the birthing chamber.”

  “Thank you, Bridget,” she said. “Now tell me: Have you any children?”

  I knew she was trying to turn the conversation to more lightsome subjects, but in this she failed.

  “I had two,” I replied. “A son who died soon after his birth, and a daughter who lived until she was eight. My husband died before we had any others.”

  “Ah, no,” Katherine sighed. “I am sorry for that.”

  “And you?”

  “I have one boy, our firstborn,” she said. “He is grown now. But over the years I’ve lost seven others.”

  “I am sorry,” I said. I wondered for a moment which stroke cut deeper: losing two children and having none to comfort you in your old age, or burying seven but keeping one. The Lord’s whip had many tails.

  “The Lord tests us all.” Katherine seemed to have heard my thoughts. “He tested me and Daniel just as he tested you. Sometimes, after one of our children died, I would ask the Lord for my own death, to bring an end to my trials, but He denied me. By His grace Daniel and I remained steadfast in our faith, and over the years He has lightened our burdens.”

 
I glanced at Martha, wondering what she would make of Katherine’s words. Martha had lost her faith even before we met, and she had nothing but scorn for the godly. To my surprise, rather than rejecting Katherine’s premise, Martha nodded in sympathy.

  “Tell me, Mrs. Chidley,” Martha said. “What is the sage you have pinned to your dress? I have seen others wearing it, but I do not know the reason. Is it to ward off the stench of the city?”

  I silently thanked Martha for so skillfully bringing the conversation to the Levellers. The sooner we discovered if there was a plot, the sooner we could satisfy Mr. Marlowe and return to our previous lives.

  “It is a sign by which we know who among us opposes tyranny,” Katherine said. “Sea green is the color of the Leveller party.”

  “But the King is already brought down,” I said. “What tyranny is there?”

  “England does not need a prince to have a tyrant,” she replied, sounding more like a minister in the pulpit than a housewife on the street. “Parliament has opposed freedom with the same vigor that the King did. If you speak ill of Cromwell, he’ll see you clapped in irons before the words are out of your mouth. How is that any different from when Charles ruled over us?”

  “And the Levellers will stop this?” I asked. I did not imagine she would spontaneously admit to plotting against Parliament, but her ideas were so strange I wondered where they had led her.

  “The Levellers want nothing more than to restore our rights as freeborn Englishmen,” she proclaimed. “We have learned that true liberty is no different from the grapes that grow in the vineyards of the Lord. If we do not attend to the vines, they shall wither and die.”

  “The harvest has been a meager one so far,” I said. “Your leaders spend more time in prison than out.”

  “It is not easy work,” Katherine acknowledged with a wry smile. “But the Lord and the common law of England both are with us, so victory must be ours.” She paused for a moment. “If these ideas do not disturb you, I can tell you more. Come to the Nag’s Head. It is north of Cheapside, not far from Blackwell Hall.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “We might.” I knew that we would—it was why we’d come to London, after all—but I did not want to seem overeager.

  Katherine bid us farewell and went into her husband’s shop. As I watched her go, I noticed that she, too, had chosen a cradle for the sign above her door.

  That night as Martha and I lay in bed, we heard a man and woman next door shouting at each other. I said a prayer that the husband would not resort to violence, but the sound of blows and a woman’s cries told me that the Lord had not heard me.

  Anger rose in my breast, and I began to pull on my clothes.

  “What are you going to do?” Martha asked.

  “Put a stop to this,” I replied. “I cannot let any man abuse his wife in such a fashion.”

  “And who are you?”

  The question brought me to a halt. In York, I was Lady Hodgson, and with a sharp word I could stay the hand of all but the most violent of husbands. And if a man persisted in his violence, I could invite a magistrate to supper, and ask him to bring the matter to the courts. But in London I was merely Widow Hodgson, a woman of little consequence and less power. I realized then that when I’d shed my silk gown, I’d lost more than a fine set of clothes.

  “If you go marching in there, he’ll beat you worse than his wife,” Martha said. “And then he’ll beat her some more.”

  I sat on the bed and stared at the wall. As much as I hated it, Martha was right. As I listened to the woman weep, Katherine’s words about malicious husbands rang in my ears. Perhaps the woman had acted in an untoward fashion; perhaps she had been one of the silly wives I’d mentioned. But did she deserve to be beaten? For the first time I wondered what I would have done if Phineas had been as violent as the man next door. Would I have fought back? Not at that tender age. Would I have fled York for my parents’ house hundreds of miles away? Such a thing would never have occurred to me. No, if Phineas had been a brute, I would have been the wife weeping through the walls.

  I tried to push such melancholy thoughts from my head, but instead my mind ran to my daughter, Elizabeth. In a few short years men would come a-courting. While I would try to find a better husband for her than Phineas had been to me, there were no sure wagers. What if I chose poorly? What would I have her do if her husband were inclined to violence? Meekly suffer whatever outrages her husband chose to visit upon her? Or demand to be treated with the loving kindness that a husband owed his wife? I knew my answer to that question, but I also knew that if I voiced such thoughts, if I said on the street, Women should not be made to suffer at their husbands’ hands, people would call me a troublesome and tumultuous woman just as they called Katherine one. And perhaps they would be right.

  Chapter 8

  The following Sunday, Martha and I returned from the afternoon service at St. Mary-le-Bow to find two letters newly arrived from Pontrilas, one each from Elizabeth and Hannah. I opened Elizabeth’s first, hoping that her anger at being left behind had faded. It had not. The fury of her words—abandoned, forsaken, discarded—mixed with the tears still visible on the paper to rend my heart in two. I cursed Marlowe for drawing me away from my daughter and renewed my vow to finish his business as quickly as I could. Hannah’s letter confirmed what I’d read in Elizabeth’s; she was by turns furious and morose, and spent every minute she could out of the house, riding to the eastern edge of my estates and gazing toward London.

  I wrote a brief note to Hannah, thanking her for her patience, and a longer letter to Elizabeth. I told her of my love, and lamented the pain that my departure had caused her. I promise that I will return the moment that my work here is done. You must be patient. But I could not, of course, know when that would be. I summoned one of Mrs. Evelyn’s boys, and sent him to the Horned Bull with the letters.

  He’d not been gone for long when Katherine Chidley knocked on our door. “Thank the Lord, you are both here.”

  “What is it?” Martha asked.

  “Not now,” Katherine replied. “The walls are thin. Besides, I need a pot of ale.”

  When Katherine led Martha and me north on Bread Street, then onto Milk Street, I knew that we must be going to the Nag’s Head. Women and men in the neighborhood nodded when they saw Katherine coming, clearing a path so we could pass without any trouble. Katherine was even more powerful than I’d imagined: for while I had received such courtesy in York, that was by dint of my birth; she had earned this respect entirely by her deeds. We arrived at the tavern and Katherine called for three pots of ale.

  “Word has come from Newgate that Grace Ramsden will be tried for infanticide,” she said. “They say that she stole the child from his mother, killed him, and then smuggled him into her delivery room.”

  “My God,” Martha breathed. “They found the mother?”

  “No,” Katherine said. “Nor has she confessed.”

  Martha and I stared at her in confusion. “If there is no accuser and no confession, why will she be tried?” I asked at last.

  I’d thought about Grace Ramsden many times over the previous week, and I simply could not believe that she had deliberately murdered a child in order to keep her clients. No midwife would do such a thing.

  “They have nothing but the sheriff’s suspicions,” Katherine said. “But that was enough to convince a magistrate to order a trial. And what she did was so horrible, I fear the deed will be enough to see her hanged, whether she murdered the child or not.”

  “She hasn’t told them where she found the child?” I asked.

  “She’s not spoken a word since they took her to Newgate,” Katherine said.

  “When will she be tried?” Martha asked.

  “All too soon,” Katherine said. “The Assizes start this week.”

  In my youth, I would have trusted the law to mete out justice, and simply allowed the trial to run its course. But my final years in York had showed me that the law concerned itself
with power above all else. If it also offered justice, that was only by happy accident. I also knew that Katherine was of a similar mind, and I could guess why she’d sought out Martha and me.

  “If we do nothing, she will hang,” Martha said, speaking for both of us. “We cannot allow that, not on such thin evidence. We have to find out what happened.”

  “I hoped you would say that,” Katherine said. “If she did not kill the boy herself, she must have found a stillborn child. But where?”

  We considered the question while we drank our ale. “The mother must be a single woman, perhaps a widow, perhaps a maiden,” I said. “And a poor one at that. No respectable wife would give over her child so easily, even if he were stillborn. She would demand a proper burial.”

  “Mrs. Ramsden might have delivered the child dead-born, and told the mother she would take it to be buried,” Martha said. “If the mother had no husband to oversee the funeral, she would never know the truth, and wouldn’t complain to the Justices.”

  Katherine considered the idea for a moment before shaking her head. “That relies too much on chance to be the whole story,” she said. “Mrs. Ramsden announced her pregnancy last spring. She could not have known that she would deliver a singlewoman of a stillborn child just in time for her own travail. She planned her scheme more carefully than that.”

  “What if the mother’s a whore?” Martha asked. “If so, the child would have no father to claim him, and the mother would be happy to avoid a whipping for bearing a bastard.”

  “And if Mrs. Ramsden got to know the city’s doxies,” I said, “they could help her find a stillborn child when she needed one.”

  Katherine nodded in grim satisfaction. “Grace simply waited until she reached her supposed time, and then found a willing mother. Once she had the stillborn child, she feigned her own travail.” She turned to me. “Hold tight to your deputy, Mrs. Hodgson, else I might take her for my own.”

  “What do we do now?” Martha asked.