by Sam Thomas
“If he was born without hair and nails, it means he was born well before his time,” she said. “And if he was born so early, he likely was born dead.” The jurymen nodded, and for the first time I thought we might have a chance of convincing them.
Finally, it was Isabella’s turn to appear. She was obviously frightened as she made her way to the front of the court, and I could not fault her for that. What girl would feel differently if she found herself in such a situation? Since Mrs. Ramsden had no advocate and Katherine had already spoken as a witness, the judge allowed me to put the questions to Isabella. I avoided any mention of her work as a doxy, and in the maidservant’s dress Katherine had provided, there was no reason anyone on the jury would guess.
Isabella told the jury about meeting Mrs. Ramsden when she was with child, and about Mrs. Ramsden’s strange and unsettling request.
“She told you she wanted a stillborn child?” I asked, feigning confusion.
“Aye, she told me that she would learn from his body. She said that if she could learn how my son died, she might help other children to live. I thought that giving her my son would help. She meant no harm.”
Some of the jurymen nodded and looked more closely at Grace Ramsden. At least now their faces showed puzzlement rather than cold fury. I knew that justice still could miscarry, but it seemed likely that thanks to Isabella’s testimony, Katherine and I had just saved Grace Ramsden from hanging.
An hour later, my hope was borne out when the jury found Mrs. Ramsden not guilty of infanticide. The judge and jury were horrified by her actions, of course, and the judge lectured her on the evil that she had done, but since there was no crime, he had no choice but to set her free.
When the judge announced his decision, Katherine, Martha, and I embraced, and immediately began to search the crowd for Mrs. Ramsden. By the time we reached the front of the room, she was gone.
“Taken to have her irons knocked off,” a guard explained.
“Where will we find her?” Katherine asked.
“She’ll come back here if she wants.” The guard shrugged. “If she doesn’t there are other doors she can use.”
Katherine, Martha, and I waited in the courtroom for nearly a half an hour, but Grace Ramsden never appeared. With nothing else to do, we returned to the Cheap, our victory hollowed out by Mrs. Ramsden’s disappearance. That night Mr. and Mrs. Ramsden emptied out their tenement and left the Cheap, never to be seen again.
* * *
With that, Katherine, Martha, and I became famous throughout the Cheap, now known as the midwives who had saved Grace Ramsden from hanging. What other midwives had done that for a mother? In a happy coincidence, the following day a boy delivered the sign Martha had ordered for us to hang above our door. Within days, Martha and I had mothers from throughout the Cheap—including many of Mrs. Ramsden’s former clients—calling us to their bedsides.
With the mothers came money, of course, as parents and friends rewarded us handsomely for our work, and we were able to purchase a few of the goods that I missed most from my life as a gentlewoman. We could not buy anything too grand, of course—I continued to dress in wool—but we purchased new linens for the bed, furniture that was less likely to collapse, and even a feather mattress. (Martha agreed that feathers were far superior to straw, and vowed never to go back.) I continued to exchange letters with Elizabeth—hers still bitter, mine as loving as I could make them. Each night I prayed that the Lord would both soften her heart and see our little family reunited.
Our friendship with Katherine Chidley grew along with our purses, but so too did my unease at the lies we told her, due to our obligations to Mr. Marlowe. I felt a sense of kinship with Katherine that even her strange ideas could not shake. While she never hid her godly enthusiasm or her curious political opinions, neither did she insist that I join in her thinking. She lived her gospel rather than merely preaching it. I had no desire to betray her, certainly not to such an ill-natured man as Marlowe. During supper one night I said as much to Martha, hoping that she could find a way out of the maze into which we had been cast.
“I like it no more than you,” she said. “But if we betray Marlowe for Katherine’s sake, you will feel his wrath. You risk losing all you have.”
We sat in silence for a time. Martha was right, but it still did not sit well with me. In the end, I resolved to tell Marlowe about any plots I discovered, but at the same time to do my best to protect Katherine. If he would ruin me for such loyalty, so be it.
I could only see it as divine providence that the day after I came to this conclusion, Mr. Marlowe sent a letter renewing his demand that Martha and I discover what the Levellers had planned, and what role the Chidleys might play in their schemes. So Martha and I began to frequent the Nag’s Head, the tavern known as a haven for the Levellers. There, we found ourselves drawn into the strangest discussions, as members of that group called for new government and new laws; one man even wished to make divorce legal. It seemed as if gossip about friends and neighbors had become a thing of the past, as all anyone wished to discuss were matters of state. I could not see the sense in some of the wilder ideas, but found myself enjoying the speeches and conversations. I wrote to Mr. Marlowe telling him what we heard, omitting any mention of Katherine, and he seemed satisfied. And as long as he was happy, we were safe.
One evening a man I’d never seen before came to the Nag’s Head. Though he was a stranger to me, and none spoke his name, everyone seemed to know who he was. He stood on one of the benches and began to inveigh against the tyranny of the law. He looked at me when he spoke, and he must have seen something in my face, for he turned his attention entirely in my direction.
“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” he cried out. “The law, which ought to be an instrument of justice, has become a cudgel with which the rich and the powerful bludgeon the poor and the meek.” Katherine—tonight accompanied by her husband, Daniel—shouted her support of the stranger’s words, and others joined in.
“What fate awaits a poor man who steals bread to feed his children?” He spoke with the power and authority of the finest preacher in England, and none in the room dared look away from his face. “Time in the stocks and a whipping if he is fortunate. But what fate awaits the great man who uses the law to drive his tenants from their land? More wealth and more power are his reward. Where is the justice in that?”
The crowd cried up its approval, and Daniel Chidley climbed atop another bench to add his words to the speaker’s. “John is right, of course. The law must be reformed to the benefit of all the people, not just those who can read Latin. In truth all men must be equal before the law. They must be free from arrest without cause, and if they are accused of a crime they must be judged by common men, not by gentlemen who know nothing of a poor man’s life.”
“Ah, but it is not merely the law that must be transformed,” John replied, as if the two were players, and the rest of us their audience. “We must change the very form of government under which we live and labor. No man should live under a government unless he gives his consent to it—all else is tyranny. No man in England, not even the poorest, is bound to a government if he cannot vote. And every Englishman has the right—nay, the sacred duty—to protest the tyrannical rule of this Parliament.” At this the crowd broke out in such tumult that I feared a revolt might begin before my eyes. In the end, however, the speeches finished without a call to arms, and all the patrons went on their way.
That night I lay awake long after Martha had drifted to sleep, thinking of what John had said about the law and justice. I thought not of farmers driven from their land under the cover of law, but of maidservants whipped for bastardy after being raped by their masters. I thought of Esther Wallington, convicted of murder because it would please the Lord Mayor of York. And I thought of my own fate as I was driven out of York because I was too zealous in the pursuit of justice. This was not the first time I had entertained such ideas, of course, but that night in the Nag’s Head
I realized how many others had similar doubts. Was it possible for the law and justice to be reconciled? And if it were possible, could it be done without a rising of the common folk and utter anarchy?
* * *
The next morning Martha and I awoke to find that a letter from Will had been slipped under our door. The paper had been hastily torn from a larger sheet, and he’d not taken the time to sign it.
Aunt Bridget—Colonel Reynolds will summon you today. You must tell him the truth. He knows more than you realize.
A sense of unease rose within me. What could Will mean by this? What did Colonel Reynolds know?
Will’s words proved prophetic as at that instant Mrs. Evelyn appeared at our door. She brought a note from Colonel Reynolds, summoning Martha and me to a meeting at the east end of St. Paul’s Churchyard.
“And who is Tom Reynolds?” Mrs. Evelyn asked. If she felt any shame at reading my letter, she hid it well.
“He is my cousin,” I replied. “He has come to London to repay the last of the debts owed to my husband; when you are a widow, no penny can go to waste.”
“And it is his first time in the city?” Mrs. Evelyn asked.
“Aye. We thought he’d have an easier time finding St. Paul’s than Watling Street.” Before Martha had come into my service, I might have stammered out a lie that not even a child would believe. But even as I taught her the art of midwifery, she taught me the art of deception—and while she was a quicker study, I was not without my successes. I glimpsed a smile on Martha’s face and felt a measure of pride rising within me. What a strange friendship we had.
“What can such a summons mean?” Martha asked as we walked west on Cheapside toward the cathedral. “They’ve been content with our newsless notes until now.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But we should be careful. Clearly something has happened.”
As we entered the churchyard—and utterly without warning—Colonel Reynolds fell in beside me and took my arm. I admit my heart leaped at his touch, though I cannot say whether it was from surprise or the nearness of his presence. It had been some years since any man had been so forward with me. I was equally surprised when Will swooped down to Martha’s side, took her arm, and led her away from me. Colonel Reynolds and I were alone.
“Tell me what happened at the Nag’s Head last night,” he said.
“And good morning to you, too, Colonel,” I replied.
“Quite right.” Colonel Reynolds laughed. “That was rude of me. Good morning, Mrs. Hodgson. At meetings such as these, please call me Tom. The fewer people who know who I am, the better.”
“Very well. Tom, then.”
“So, Mrs. Hodgson, tell me how you have been these past weeks.”
“I imagine Will told you about our adventures at the Assizes,” I said.
“Aye. I will say that while Mr. Marlowe admires your tenacity, he had hoped you would make less of a spectacle of yourself. But if your adventure bound you to Katherine Chidley, it is for the best. After all, your job is to spy on her and her husband. You remember that, don’t you?”
I stopped walking for a moment, startled by his directness and made uneasy by this bald and bloodless reminder that I had agreed to betray the woman who had become my gossip. The doubts and hesitations that had been nipping at my heels began to howl around me.
“She is a good woman and a fine midwife,” I said. “You need not fear her.”
Colonel Reynolds—Tom, I reminded myself—turned to face me. I saw a measure of sympathy in his eyes, and I was grateful for it.
“I know you have become her friend,” Tom said softly. “But you cannot let your loyalty to Mrs. Chidley lead you to betray Mr. Marlowe. He would call it treason, and he might not be entirely wrong.”
I stood in silence, hating Mr. Marlowe for putting me in such a position.
“If she is as innocent as you say, you do not need to fear for her,” Tom said.
“Why not?” I asked. “Because Mr. Marlowe would not harm an innocent woman?” The anger in my voice took me by surprise.
“No,” Tom admitted. “If he thought it necessary, he would hang the Virgin Mary. But if you insist on her innocence, I will do my best to protect her. I have no desire to see the innocent suffer.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And tell me: Why is Mr. Marlowe so afraid of a single old woman?”
Tom laughed. “If it were just a single old woman, he would not be worried. Indeed, if it were just the crowd at the Nag’s Head, he would not worry. They are good talkers, but most will do little more than that.”
“Then what is he afraid of?”
“Soldiers in the New Model Army have raised up the Leveller standard.”
I could not help laughing at this. “Cromwell has become afraid of his own army? He is afraid that the army that brought down the King now will bring him down as well? That is marvelous!”
Tom abruptly steered us out of the churchyard and toward a cook shop that lay nearby. “Are you hungry?” he asked. “I’m famished.”
Without awaiting my response, he led me into the shop and to a table at the back of the room. He sat with his back to the wall and stared intently at the door through which we’d come. When nobody followed us in, he said to me in a hushed voice, “Now we can talk in earnest.”
Chapter 10
“You are afraid of being spied upon?” I asked.
“I am wary of being spied upon,” Tom Reynolds replied with a wan smile. “But no more than a cavalryman is wary of being thrown from his mount. It is not something I dwell upon, but something I must consider.”
“That is a fair distinction,” I said. “Is it true that Mr. Marlowe and Cromwell are afraid of the very army that brought Cromwell to power?”
“It is Mr. Marlowe’s job to be afraid. He is afraid of the army. He is afraid of the King, and he is afraid of the King’s friends. He is even afraid of Cromwell’s friends if he thinks they might negotiate with the King. His fear is why he has succeeded for so long.”
“Regardless of Mr. Marlowe’s fears, I do not like informing on my friends,” I said.
“And I did not like the war,” Tom said. “I did not like firing cannons into ranks of brave Englishmen as they trudged up some sodden hill. But the world is a harsh place—far harsher than Mr. Marlowe. It cares not for any man’s wants and wishes.” He paused for a moment, and I was taken aback by the vehemence in his voice.
At that moment the cook came to our table. “We’ve got chicken and carrots. And ale.” He spoke with strange belligerence, as if daring us to challenge his words.
“That’s fine,” Tom replied.
The cook grumbled as he departed, as if Tom’s agreeable nature had only infuriated him all the more.
“A charming man,” I noted.
Tom laughed, and I caught my breath. In that moment there was something about him that reminded me of my first husband, Luke. I could not say what it was—perhaps the tenor of his laugh, or the way his eyes crinkled at the corners—but for what seemed like ages I could not hope to speak. Luke had died just a few months after we married, and I still counted his loss as one of God’s most brutal blows. But when Tom laughed, it was as if Luke were there before me. This was exceedingly strange, for in most ways Tom and Luke could not have been more different: Where Luke was slight, Tom was broad and strong, and while Luke let his fair curls fall to his collar, Tom kept his cut close to the scalp. Despite these differences, there was something in Tom that made me feel the way I had decades earlier.
To my relief, Tom did not notice my condition. “I am sorry for my hard words. I know what you are doing is not easy. But we are nearing a decisive moment, and we cannot know whether the cards will fall with us or against us.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. This was why he’d wanted to find a quiet corner in which to talk.
“It is the King,” he replied.
I caught my breath. I knew the King lived as a prisoner on the Isle of Wight, and the great questio
n facing the nation—indeed, the only question facing the nation—was what Parliament would do with him.
“A decision is near, then?” I asked.
Tom shrugged. “There are too many decision makers for me to say, but at the end of the day the problem is simple: We can defeat the King a thousand times, yet he will still be the King. But if he defeats us once, we all shall hang. If that is the case, what can we do with him?”
“Exile?” I asked.
“So we can await his return at the head of an Irish army on French ships? I cannot see Cromwell choosing such a course.”
“What then?” I asked. “If he is dangerous in England and no less dangerous abroad, what can Cromwell do?”
“First things first,” Tom replied. “Tell me about last night at the Nag’s Head.”
I sighed in resignation. “A stranger was there,” I said. “He spoke of the injustice of the law, and said the people should demand a change.”
“What else?”
“He said no man is bound to a government without his consent. He is for nothing but anarchy.” I did not know if I believed this last, but I thought Mr. Marlowe would appreciate it.
“Did anyone else speak?”
I laughed. “Everyone spoke. It was a house of bibble-babble.”
“Did anyone else stand and speak?”
I paused for a moment. Daniel Chidley had risen, of course, but I was reluctant to say anything that might hurt Katherine. Then I remembered Will’s note. You must tell him the truth. He knows more than you realize.
“Daniel Chidley did,” I said. “He mined the same vein as the other one, proclaiming the injustice of the law.”
Tom nodded. “That first man was John Lilburne. Freeborn John, they call him.”
“It was?” My mouth hung open in astonishment. I had heard his name, of course. If a group so fractious as the Levellers could be said to have a leader, it was Lilburne. I marveled that I had been in the same room with such a famous—not to say tumultuous—man. And then I realized something. “How do you know?” I asked.