The Popish Midwife

by Annelisa Christensen

  ‘Is he an honest man? ‘

  ‘I believe so, Your Ladyship.’ That seemed to satisfy her. She nodded.

  ‘Then I will read it.’ Lady Powys took the letter to her desk by the window and sat at the seat with her back to me.

  I looked around the reception room. It was far bigger than my own, and the trimmings were more luxurious, many more gilded threads in the tapestry cushions and curtains, and gold leaf highlighting the plasterwork relief. The chandeliers were clean with no spider webs of dust, and the knick-knacks on the mantle shone with care. That she had many servants was obvious. No single person could keep the place in such good care. Our own four servants, whilst considered a respectable number by most, presented as paltry in comparison to that of the Powys household.

  From her seat, having finished reading, she asked, ‘Can I trust you?’

  ‘If I were to declare myself honourable,’ I replied, ‘you will be none the wiser, ma’am.’

  She looked surprised by my intelligent answer.

  ‘You are right. It was a nonsense question. She looked out the window while saying this, her eyes distant but, on finishing, turned back to me. Her eyes searched my very soul for the answer to her question. She seemed to like what they saw and smiled.

  ‘You will do. You say you are a midwife. Will you take a reply? ‘

  I ignored the first question – it seemed it was rhetorical – and answered the second. ‘If you wish me to.’

  ‘This must go to the man, Thomas Willoughby, and none other, you understand?’

  By that, I knew she meant ‘not the keepers’ and understood why a short while later, when she added a few coins to her note and sealed it. She added, ‘Since Willoughby trusts you, then I find no reason not to. A man’s trust, these days, is hard to earn, so you must have given him reason. Take this to him. Keep it under your skirt.’

  Her meaning was clear, both physically and metaphorically.

  ‘Yes, Your Ladyship.’

  ‘And here’s something for your trouble.’ She put a coin in my hand with the letter, but I refused it.

  ‘I have money enough, Your Ladyship. I have no need of yours.’

  ‘Well, then, give it to some deserving soul in the prison. It is my understanding charges are dear in there, for even removing irons for the relief of the ankles and wrists?’

  ‘Even for putting the irons on, My Lady.’

  ‘How preposterous! Why would a person pay to have irons put on?’

  ‘It is a simple choice – pay a fee to wear the irons offered, or wear some that are so great they weigh down the feet until a man cannot walk. The keepers can charge all they wish for doing as they want, whether it is to the prisoner’s advantage or against it. They take money for victuals and drink, and for a pot to sit on, and for emptying it. If a man has no coin for a bed they will take it away. You can get the driest, warmest cell if you have coins enough. The rich may pay to bend treatment in their favour but, for that, their veins of inheritances are bled dry. The poor are simply punished for having no means to line the pocket of the gaoler.’

  Once in the flow of this, I could not stop myself from expounding on the appalling conditions in the prison, and how prisoners were charged for every smallest right a person should have naturally, and how that rubbed biting salt into their wound of unfair imprisonment without any healing.

  Lady Powys walked back to the seat by the desk at the window and sat stiff and upright, staring sightlessly at the spring downpour. If she had a conscience, she would take a moment to digest this information, for we all liked to believe such things remained in lands far away and had long been eliminated from our own country. Most of the gentle classes had no reason to visit the prison, and if they did, they were shown nice cells, where their well-to-do kith or kin could afford to be. Rarely did they see where the most of the condemned were holed. They would not bear it for the overwhelming stench. And, smelling that stench, they would likely think some animal is kept there, as I did before I went inside.

  The first time I had entered the prison, I was called to attend a woman, Mrs Whitley, who, with the insistent hunger of carrying a child, had been caught stealing a single apple from a cart loaded with ripe fruit. And for that, she was thrown in a cell until a judge would see her, but not knowing his whereabouts, the infant did not wait until he might present himself in more appropriate surroundings.

  I heard Mrs Whitley’s labour cries long before I reached her, but they were combined with groans and moans and yells and sobbing from other cells along the way. The stink affected me greatly – I retched though I covered my nose and mouth with a hand-kerchief – but the noise of neglect was loud and turned my stomach. A dirty, ill-fed man supporting himself by the iron bars, held out his hand for money, or for food. When I went for my purse the guard ushered me on past him with the warning, ‘Do not, Madam. You will not reach your target’.

  I was conscious of my good clothes, and expected such niceties to rile the prisoners, because I had what they did not, but their needs were so great they only wanted food and basic care and had no care for me. Many lay down in their own filth on the floor, no longer having the instinct to move out of it. That was likely the cause of death of more men and women in there than from starvation.

  As we walked, I asked the keeper why these men were in such conditions.

  ‘They have no money,’ he said.

  ‘Surely bread and water are a right?’ I asked. ‘They cannot get these for themselves.’

  ‘If they cannot pay, we ain’t got bread to feed ‘em. They ‘ave to pay for stuff ‘emselves. We ain’t a charity, m’lady. They did sommat wrong, that is why they’re ‘ere. They shounta done nuffin’ wrong if they cannot pay!’

  In fact, their greatest malefaction was their birth into poverty. No matter what their crime, the affliction of these poor men affected me so greatly that I was compelled to return the following day with loaves and money. As I entered the gate, the keeper checked my basket for weapons or notes and, finding none, waved me through with indifference.

  If he was surprised by my visit, he did not show it. He truly did not care if they did not eat, neither did he care if they did. He simply did not care about their well being at all, his only task to keep them there. Any other satisfaction he had was to torment them and see them suffer.

  That first time, I broke pieces from the loaves and fed them to as many as I could. They were so grateful, I nearly cried when they scrabbled for the crumbs like animals. I had too little for all of them, so I returned later with more. The ones who ate before begged off me as earnestly as those who had none, so it was difficult to tell which ones to give to.

  There were some that had given up hope of victuals and lay on the floor waiting to die, who did not try to take any bread from me. I could not reach them for the bars, so I found a gaoler seated in the sunshine on an upturned ale keg, and asked him if I might be let inside the cells. I could not persuade him to take leave of the sunshine and enter the dingy den of the inmates with words and pleas.

  ‘For tuppence I’ll let you look. For a groat I’ll let y’in,’ he said. This was a common scheme, I fast found, for turnkeys to make more than the king paid them. I gave him silver enough to enter the cells and he tested it with his teeth, jangled the keys importantly and then let me enter. That was the last time I paid for entry. After that time I obtained official papers to give relief to the prisoners whensoever I desired it.

  The prisoners on the floor would not take victuals at first, not because they refused, but they appeared to have forgotten how. Once I put a small pea-sized piece of bread in their mouths, the reflex to chew slowly returned. I had also bought with me a flagon of water and spooned some over their tongues to wash it down.

  There was one that was beyond help that did not chew, even with a morsel of bread placed in his mouth. He did not swallow water either. Though he had no
illness that other prisoners could catch, they stayed at the far side of the cell away from him.

  To them he was death; he was what they would become if they did not eat and drink. He was as a ghost in their eyes, if they looked at him at all. His presence was a painful reminder that they had nothing to feed themselves, and that they could not afford this fellow inmate pity nor kindness. Whether he had family, and what he was in the life outside, nobody knew or cared. He was simply a dead man.

  After that day, I returned regularly to Newgate, bringing food, water and, occasionally, money to buy a better outlook for a person. The dead man, the ghost, I paid to be moved to a better cell with a bed and then visited him daily. It was so little, but if he must die in that hole, he should die with some respect, not as an animal.

  My money was little used; it was but a short time before his body was carried away on a cart to God only knew where they took him, I did not ask; and I never knew his name though I did ask. That man’s soul now belonged to God, or the other one, depending on what the man had done. It was better that I did something for the living.

  The prisoners and the keeper became used to my visits, and soon I was greeted by name.

  ‘Good morning, Mother Cellier. Sun’s been shinin’ hard today. We will let them in the Yard later, let them have some air,’ said the turnkey, already fumbling the hook of keys from his belt and finding the one to let me in.

  It was joy to me he should say so, so I commented as I walked through to the dark, damp air inside, ‘That would be a fine thing to do, Mr Harris.’ I was not in the habit of talking to the man that I now knew went by the name of Harris, he was thoughtless and uncharitable when I first visited, and I believed he was still, so I pondered on this as I walked along the passage to the cells. But perhaps I had influence over this coarse man as well as the prisoners.

  ‘Mrs Cellier, I beg your assistance. Johnny has passed out. Have you some water?’ This from a man who had been more concerned for his own health than any other when I first came by here, confirming the idea my visits had swayed hearts as well as bellies. The thought that I had brought a little humanity to the prison, where I had previously seen none, pleased me. I had found a use for myself. My charity might not change the way of it all, but it might alter the lives of some few men and women in my life, and that must satisfy me.

  Lady Powys had not seen what I had seen. I did not know if I should say more but, contrary to my usual demeanour, I decided against it. I took the woman’s silence to hitch up my skirt once more, and hid the fairly heavy note in the specially made pocket in my knickers. It should be safe there. Few would disturb the modesty of a gentle woman. The lady stood and went over to an ornately carved, wooden box on the mantel. From it, she took several silver coins, and laid them in my palm. ‘Give these to some people who need it.’ I looked in my hand and saw two half crowns and and three sixpence pieces, and thought of the bread that might give the good persons inside. It was an unexpected kindness.

  ‘Thank you, Your Ladyship, I will do it in your name.’

  With that, I was shown to the door.

  ‘Will you come back and tell me what difference it makes?’ she asked suddenly.

  I nodded and smiled. I had not expected the goodness of this woman. ‘Yes, I will do that.’

  As I walked down the road, with a mission in my knickers, I pulled up the hood of my cloak to keep the cloudburst of rainfall from my head. This was an interesting day. Apart from the intrigue of carrying notes between the prison and this Lady, I had the feeling that this woman and I might become known to each other, and that could not but be a happy circumstance.

  8

  13th day of April 1679

  I contrived to see Willoughby the very next day.

  It was not Harris at the gate on arrival. It was a young man barely out of schoolroom breeches, though I had doubts he ever had any schooling. He had the hard-eyed, soulless face that took most many more years to ripen…and a nose that was so bulbous it brought to mind an onion. He was a sassy brat, not much older than my middle children, but he was the brat holding the key to the lives of all the men and women inside.

  ‘You leave that bread ‘ere, Missus, and I’ll be sure they geddit later, if yer know what I mean.’

  ‘Pray, do tell your meaning,’ I said conversationally, sure his intention was to have the bread and pass on some divers joy as the irons, a drubbing or other torment.

  The boy had the ‘beat ‘em or be beaten’ appearance of the poor, whose family had so little that the parents would often be without so that their children might have some supper; and then brother might fight brother over that mouthful and the strongest or cleverest would grow stronger. Mostly, those pickings were made into broth to feed both parents and children, but the nourishment was thinned so much it made little difference to the ache in the bellies of any. The boy was a survivor. He had come this far by beating the fight out of his siblings and winning that last piece of bread or cabbage stalk, or whatever was brought home that day.

  ‘What I mean is what I say. I’ll take that basket o’ bread to the pris’ners. You go on ‘ome, and I’ll make sure they geddit.’

  ‘In the year I have come here I have met most keepers. You are new here, boy. I am sure you are keen to keep your job? Just you let me pass without any lip and I will tell Richardson your service to me was favourable. Don’t and, well, just you see what he will do if you do not!’

  There was not one man in that infested place that did not fear the ire of Newgate’s keeper, a giant, sadistic man, more likely to break bread with the Devil than with men. It was not only the prisoners that feared him, but the guards as well. Whispers of his dark deeds were not hard to hear. They filled every corner of the place. Most prisoners would tattle for a morsel; fresh water would have the whole story. Every man knew him for a cut-throat scoundrel that ran a bed of thieves. Not one that I ever spoke to had seen him smile, not even with satisfaction.

  ‘Have t’see your papers.’

  I showed them.

  His puny body told me it was rather his head than his muscle that aided his survival, so he was as fast as I suspected he would be to realise the sheriff held the purse to his job and he quickly moved to open the door with the familiar jangle of keys. I also completely expected his face-saving words as I passed through the door.

  ‘Ain’t ya got a piece of meat fer me, Missus?’

  ‘You know, boy,’ I said, looking skywards while I remembered, ‘I do believe I remember birthing you. You are one of the Bowden boys from Cheapside, are you not?’

  I knew I had found my mark when his eyes widened with surprise. He had the distinctive Bowden nose and big ears, both on a scrawny little face. He stared at me open-mouthed, as if I had used super-natural powers and, with that satisfaction, I continued walking. There was nothing like a little ‘midwife magic’ to smooth the passage to many a place most ordinary folk could not venture.

  ‘Do carry my kind regards to your good mother,’ I said, without looking back. I would be sure to keep a small bite of bread for the lad for on the way out. If I gave it going in, he would think it payment and ask it every time. This way, it would be a gift I could choose to give, or not, depending on how much benefit he was to me.

  I once walked through the corridors with a handkerchief soaked in lavender oil over my nose, else the contents of my stomach would have been expelled. I soon found this distinguished me as an outsider more so than my clean clothes, and compelled myself to breathe the air unfettered. The stink of gangrene of unhealed limbs was dire, and sometimes bodies of the executed were kept in a cell, then left there so long the stench of them rotting was more than a prisoner living there could bear.

  I remembered how, when I first went to that place, one man had to share a cell with a quartered body writhing in maggots and so putrid he held a latrine bowl to his nose as relief from the smell.

  I had
a lot to say to Richardson about that! He did not listen at first but, when I did not stop, he found it more comfortable to his ears to move the carcass. They moved the body parts to the yard near the strong room and have kept all bodies there since. It disgusted me to see lives of the poor finish on such a heap, yet it was better that they no longer kept company with the inmates.

  But it was hunger that was of continual importance. I could never provide enough for the prisoners; they were always starving, no matter how much I brought with me. Even with all the coins I could spare, it was never enough. I did what I could, finding other good souls to help me, but still it was not enough. So many mouths made quick work of as many baskets of bread we could bring in a day.

  I distributed loaves to prisoners, giving each a larger chunk than normal. With the money from Lady Powys burning a hole in my pocket, I intended buying more that very afternoon. It was but a meagre portion, but two scraps of bread in a single day was a feast to these folk, a kindness that should have been theirs by right.

  I gave them nearly everything I had, allowing, as was my wont, enough for the poor families of those who dwelled here that were not provided for. The prisoners had themselves asked me to do this. Not long after my first visit, prisoners started begging me to look after their wives, husbands and children as well, many of whom were only better off for not being locked behind bars, their hunger nearly as great as for those in the cells. Their numbers were so many, too many, I could do but little. I did what I could.

  Perhaps Lord Castlemaine might give me more alms for them. He was a generous man and had given often. Or perhaps I could find other persons with money enough to spare for these unfortunates. Lady Powys had given willingly when she had heard of their plight. I would ask her. I would ask her tomorrow.